I consider myself to be well-travelled in the UK, but have never spent time in the Shropshire Hills, so a week of nature-writing with Patrick Barkham and Miriam Darlington at the Arvon Foundation’s The Hurst should prove to be exciting. Patrick and Miriam are two of my favourite authors writing about British nature: Patrick’s The Butterfly Isles and Miriam’s Owl Sense make them butterfly and owl whisperers, in my opinion. I’d better get on with some hare whispering… they have been very absent in my life since this last move.
The week is indeed exciting. We do that classic nature writing thing I enjoy so much: going out in the field, then coming back to write about it. The grounds of the The Hurst (once the home of the playwright John Osborne) are over 26 acres, and much of it is scarcely managed woodland, so lots of rampant bramble and ferns and overgrown rhododendron ‘dens’.
Still plenty of native trees though and it’s a joy to hear so many birds, to find fox scat, and to see dozens of wild raspberry bushes, full of tiny fruits. I eat several. I love this way to be ‘wild’ myself, nibbling berries and leaves as I go along… but I’m reminded of the possible dangers later on in our walk.
Miriam’s owl whisperings clearly work: both tawny and barn are frequently seen, and heard. Barn owls are breeding in the Hurst’s 19th century dovecote and in one of their pellets I find a perfect tiny skull. Patrick’s whispering is less successful - butterflies are scarce - but it’s not his fault: because of the cold wet spring, and other factors, numbers are down everywhere in the UK this year.
Beyond the spring-fed sawmill pond, we visit a circle of Coast Redwoods:
related to the Giant Sequoia, not native here but introduced to Britain in the mid 19th century and now common in some large private estates and formal gardens. Because of how the climate crisis is affecting California’s native Sequoias, those planted here are doing better. Someone in our group remembers as a child calling them ‘punch trees’. She thinks this is because their bark is so thick and soft, you can punch them with impunity. A little light googling reveals this to be the case, though one Reddit contributor suggests that instead of punching the tree, you ask it “why am I such an arsehole?”. Fair enough.
In the beautiful alder tree surrounded pond, there are roots, newts and coots, all moving in their own mysterious ways. Whirligig beetles too who definitely win the coolest mover competition. But my most delicious discovery (NOT!) is the hemlock water dropwort plant. When someone asks me what it is, I cheerily dismiss it as hogweed, or, on closer look, perhaps water celery (there’s plenty of watercress, and water mint in the pond) and am about to nibble a leaf to try. Fortunately imminent death is avoided by a group member who is a professional gardener, and who identifies it correctly. It’s one of the UK’s most deadly plants growing in ponds and streams, and other damp places. I can’t believe it didn’t enter my head. Thankfully, it didn’t enter my mouth either.
