The piper at the gates of dawn
Midsummer, Birds and Bruegel
Birds
The kestrel is sitting on the plum tree, ripping at a small rodent he’s snatched from within the grass. Last month the electrician had asked me about the kestrel, which he sees often around here. ‘Been here from years, hasn’t he?
‘Oh no’, I say, ‘one year. Before that, different kestrel. Different…personality’
I meant behaviour. This kestrel, the new one, acted like a young bird.
When you walk and you see a kestrel, that’s just a nice thing to see. If you walk the same routes over and over you might get to know a few places you’re likely to see a kestrel and it seems that kestrel is always the same one. The golf course kestrel. When you have one in your back garden, and you pay attention, you know it’s not true. Kestrels can live a long time, but not forever.
Things change even when they don’t seem to. I watch him eat his dinner with great interest.
There were no lapwings in the field when I walked there. For months, lapwings, loudly, reliably, and then nothing. Two days ago, lapwings, today, nothing. I wonder if something terrible has happened. I am certain the tractors have not been round. The crops are high enough to hide the birds, but the fields are silent, bereft of the peewit calls I love so much.
It takes me the rest of the walk to figure it out, watching the newly fledged house martins flock and swarm. I’d been worried about them too, because they have not nested in their usual spot. Those nests are empty and silent, but the birds seem to be doing well on a different part of the building. The swallows have fledged too, sitting on the telephone wires bickering. In fact, the garden is full of fledglings, the long tailed tits making a welcome return from distant hedgerows, the trees echoing with the calls of skinny young green woodpeckers. All the teenage birds are very noisy.
The lapwings do not live in the fields for ever. At some point, the lapwings have done their business, and move on. Midsummer, the solstice. The lapwings are fine, but they are not here any more. The summer has become fully fledged, that’s all.
Ebbs and flows of birds. Sometimes, they return to nesting spots, year after year. Sometimes, for only one glorious summer, you are immersed in their world. The feeling of constancy I impose on the world is an illusion. It’s in a constant state of flux really.
Bats
That night I went to the lake early. I hadn’t heard a noctule all summer. Noctules are large bats, and fly high up, and can move long distances in one night. The best way I had to reliably find them was to catch them coming out of their roost before twilight, earlier than the other bats, so I got there early in case I’d been missing them. It was a sad, noctuleless wait till the other bats got up. The problem with animals, I decided, is they never leave a forwarding address. Are they ok? You just don’t know. Last year, they did so well and this year- Nothing.
At quarter to eleven I mooch along the path homewards and then stop. There’s no reason but I turn on my heel, return to the lakeside, and tune the bat detector to 21Hz and- instantly, the funky beats my heart desires. Finally, I see him about the lake. Not roosting there this year, but still ok. I thank him politely for the update. He doesn’t leave a forwarding address.
Workings
I tweaked the colours slightly on the raven print before printing the edition. I think the green is more harmonious, because I mixed all the colours from the same base grey of the background. I think the muted colours give it a more subdued twilight feel that seems fitting for an exploration of the nature of myth, itself a liminal thing. I’m certainly ready to move on, though I might take some time out to do a bit of sewing before starting the next ordeal. It hasn’t been listed yet, I’ll do that when the ink has dried.
N.B, I’ve seen people do these videos wearing what seems to be evening dress, very definitely clothes you do not want near large amounts of permanent inks. I’ve balanced this out by not brushing my hair or looking in the mirror for several days.
Findings.
This week I popped into see the exhibition at the Ashmolean, Bruegel to Rubens, Great Flemish drawings, which I’d been meaning to see for a couple of months (I really must stop going to see things in the busy last week).
I always enjoy looking at artists sketchbooks, the draftsmanship, pondering the technicalities of sketching before the existence of pencils and when paper was scarce. The mastery impresses me, but also, sketches are sketches and not finished works and some sketches are very sketchy and it’s reassuring that’s true of the masters too, especially in an internet age where everyone on instagram seems to pretend their sketchbook is endless pages of perfect drawings.
It was Bruegel’s The Temptation of St. Antony which I particularly came to see- it is interesting to see both the print and the drawing displayed side by side. You can really see how crisp the etching still is compared to the pencil drawing.
In it you see St Anthony praying and totally ignoring a real blinder of a trip going on behind him. It’s supposed to be demons and what not, but I know people that would pay good money for that sort of ride. Not old Anthony, though, because he’s really holy. I took a picture for you because culture.
It reminded me the printmaker-artist is doing the work of two people. Bruegel was not a printmaker, and the engraver was a very skilled craftsman to etch a sharting arse so intricately. Also, why are friendship albums not a thing anymore? Why are my friends not painstakingly creating pages as a celebration of our relationship? I think we should bring them back.
Very excellent funky beats