Pips&daubs

It’s my birthday so you are morally obliged to like this post

Fluffy lake, 9.pm

A grey heron floats past in the twilight light a ghost. I go to the lake a lot at dusk this time of year, as the light changes quickly and I like to monitor what time the bats come out. The week before last, the pipistrelles came out at 9.13, but this week the day shift isn’t even over by then, The lake is full of babies: geese (Canadian and Egyptian) coots and mallards, but the swan is still sitting. It’s full of babies and fluff. Willow fluff and seeds, that hang on the surface of the water in great drifts.

I hear the first whispering of bats at 9.33, but it’s several minutes until I see one, and the party doesnt really get started until 10 minutes after that, when the daubentons get up. If you sit still, the warmth of your head will attract insects, and the bats will swoop down and catch them. You mustn’t be afraid, but enjoy the sound of their wings. They will not get caught in your hair, that’s a lie my mother told me. They can catch a tiny midge from the surface of the water, and your head is massive compared to a midge. Why would they tangle themselves in  your hair? They wouldn’t like it. They’ve got better things to do.

The daubs also feed above me; I think all the surface fluff is stopping them fishing. Later I will watch them in the corner of the lake that is free from fluff,  skipping over the surface of the water like a stone that defies gravity. I will be over powered by love for them, for all of this. Life is a maelstrom, the news, the emotions, always churning, unsettled, but here in the centre of this maelstrom of bats, I feel at peace.

You can see (sort of. Vaguely) the bats and hear the echolocation calls on the heterodyne detector in the video. It’s not the flapping of wings but their ultrasound calls, are in synch with the wings, so it seems that way.

Workings

I’d like to point out that this post will be short this week because it’s my birthday today, and because it is my birthday, it is morally grey for you to stop reading, even though this whole post is really very subpar, particularly the last section. It would be particularly bad to unsubscribe, especially as I have good reason to believe in my next post I will have something worth talking about. For now, I am keeping it under wraps.

My new Windsor and Newton gouache arrived this week; it’s a set of primary colours so I can have fun practicing my colour mixing. I celebrate by making my least bad outdoor sketch for a while

I’ve also bee fairly busy in the studio. I printed these little poppies in red and I think they look quite snazzy.

I made  little lino cut to celebrate my new found obsession with oak apples. I’m sorry I get obsessed with things (bats. Oak apples. Some Sheldrakes)  and go on and am boring but I have no control over that. I’m just boring I guess. You can’t buy it, it was just for my own amusement

Book club

Lying in bed I watch a large fly bumbling round precipitously close to a large blob of spiderweb that has evaded last week’s half arsed cleaning attempt. I know all about flies because thats the chapter in Taking Flight by

Lev Parikian

I’ve got up to (not very far into the book, but it’s been raining, so that’s greatly reduced my hammock time). And when I say I know all about flies, I mean I’ve forgotten a lot of intresting facts about flies, but can still see them in a new more impressed way. The walking on the ceiling thing is quite impressive alone, if you think about it hard enough.

My husband makes a gasp; the spider trembles in anticipation. We jointly  make a groan like sport fans when a goal is missed -oof - the fly is too weighty. It makes its escape and sits by the window.  Perhaps I have flies on the mind because I’ve been listening to too much Cosmo Sheldrake again. The Fly is on the ‘Pelicans, We’ EP. I knew one of the songs (solar) was William Blake, and then I suddenly realised The Fly was a William Blake poem too, and it caused a small existential crisis because … is the song about Pelicans also Blake? I had to look it up. It’s Edward Lear, which makes a lot more sense given the lyrics. My husband contended Blake wouldn’t know what a pelican was, but I’m not so sure. There a small over lap between the life of Blake and the life of Edward Lear, after all.

Yet again google has failed me. It never has answers to the important questions. What are the lapwings up to? Do moles migrate? Why do cormorants like that dead tree, but only on foggy winter days? Did William Blake’s know what a pelican was? Google has the answer to NONE of these questions.

Turns out that Solar isn’t even on Pelicans We, the fourth song is actually the tardigrade song. I am confident William Blake didn’t know what a tardigrade is, and thats pretty much all I’m sure of. Anyway, Happy birthday to me. Next week is half term so I will not be posting.