Grantchester and Trumpington Meadows: Beauty Yet To Find?

 photo Jo Sinclair

Has this heron I photographed on the Cam at Byron's Pool a couple of years ago taken flight, or been submerged by recent high waters? Perhaps it's waiting to stand guard over a new generation as occupants of the newly developed Trumpington Meadows find their way into their local landscape. The heron stencil motif has its own fan page on Facebook: look for Heron Heron.

I'm reading Common Ground by Rob Cowen (published by  Random House). It is non-fiction in form: a memoir that segues into novelistic imagination - the kind of writing often labelled psychogeography. The writer uses his extensive nature notebooks as a starting point from which to tell his story about animals and place. By watching and tracking a fox he is able to 'become' it, virtually inhabiting its body and its habitat. Common Ground is Cowen's forensic and emotional focus on his local patch. The liminal space where city and country merge is, in his own words 'true common ground - reclaimed, re-purposed, nourishing, loved again... margins should be part of people's daily experience...the wild collision and coexistence of human and nature, the complex interlocking of infrastructure and land, the bizarre and beguiling interchange of the layers of history and modern life...'.

The author's first child is in utero as he writes the book; he is all too aware of the need for new housing. 'I'm bringing new life into this overcrowded world. Where can I reasonably expect our children and our children's children to live?' he asks. He comes to accept that landscapes are in a constant state of metamorophosis.

I have watched hares at Trumpington Meadows. They are, to use a birdwatchers' word, unusually confiding. Accustomed to the steady trickle of visitors to neighbouring Bryon's Pool LNR and beauty spot, the hares lope around their territory as the new houses creep closer and cast their shadows. In 1912 the Romantic poet Rupert Brooke, pining for home, wrote 'The Old Vicarage, Grantchester':

...Do hares come out about the corn?

Oh, is the water sweet and cool,

Gentle and brown, above the pool?

And laughs the immortal river still

Under the mill, under the mill?

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?

And Certainty? and Quiet kind?

Deep meadows yet, for to forget...

And he questions whether 'the elm-clumps greatly stand / Still guardians of that holy land. I don't think so, no - we lost the magnificent, mature trees to Dutch Elm Disease. But there are younger elms reaching for the skies in the wooded belt of Byron's Pool, said to host a rare butterfly.

I wonder if the new generation of children born in the new houses on the meadows will carry memories of landscape with them throughout their lives? Will they put down their digital devices and explore the legendary landscape on their doorstep? I wonder if they'll make bike tracks down to the river, put ropes in the trees Brooke writes about ('a tunnel of green gloom') and swim where Brooke and Byron once did? I hope they might. In 1912, while Brooke was penning his famous poem, the Plant Breeding Institute was formed in Cambridge. It was relocated to what is now Trumpington Meadows in the 1950s, soon after the prisoner of war camp closed. The metamorphosis of this place has been influenced by human occupation and intervention, from Iron Age and Roman settlements and Anglo Saxon burial site to coprolite excavation for fertiliser and, of course, arable land. It will continue to change, though we have a tendency to be reassured by continuity. What I'll be looking for as I cycle that way is the flock of golden plover that stop by at this spot every winter: hundreds of them that may be glimpsed from the M11, cycle path or Park & Ride.

Golden plover and lapwing by Ferran Pestana (Flickr) - check Cambridgeshire Bird Club for reports

Hobson's Choice? Town Planning & Biodiversity

One rainy winter I was living in a Somerset village just outside Bristol, without car or cycle. My preferred route to the shops was straight across the fields, slipping through cowpats and hoof-prints full of water. I climbed through a barbed wire fence, dropped down into a stream and scaled the bank. Emerging into woodland, the rustic territory gave way to signs of habitation; an enticing boardwalk led the way from here. Accompanied by brave ripples of robin song and artist's palette of fungi and fallen leaves, I returned the same way laden with shopping but lighter of mood (and carbon footprint to boot).

Desire lines map the places where town planning and free spirits meet. They are the paths made by man or beast that developers didn't foresee. Shortcuts across grass or municipal flowerbeds are sometimes eventually paved, but planners are perhaps getting better at imagining the routes humans - and hedgehogs - might want to tread. Conservation charity the RSPB is working in partnership with Barratt Developments to give nature a home at new building sites by implementing ideas such as hedgehog highways (access built into housing plans such as holes in fences, and hedgerow corridors). The charity has a Head of Sustainable Development responsible for Urban Recovery (looking at urban bird species of concern), and will soon recruit a Swift Ambassador.

RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) offers a Designing For Biodiversity guide. When I visited Phase 1 of local premium development Ninewells Cambridge, a quick sketch of bat and swift boxes had only recently been added (admittedly a bit of an afterthought). Their luxury literature states: 'Ninewells is as much about the natural world as it is about the connection with the city... did you know that Ninewells takes its name from a local nature reserve? Nine Wells, a historically important source of the Hobson Conduit, once provided Cambridge with its drinking water'.

The human inhabitants of Ninewells are lucky. Paths and cycleways will lead to Addenbrooke's hospital and bus station and open countryside via 'green fingers' landscaped with flowerbeds, trees, hedgerows and allotments. Quite utopian really. The idea of the cul-de-sac is old hat, and thank goodness for that. There's one near me that swallows people up and never lets them out. The far perimeter of their housing estate was planted with trees to disguise the point at which the development met the greenbelt. A high fence still reaches all the way round. Desire lines to the public footpath across the fields next door never had a chance.

Greenbelt, Sawston, Cambridgeshire. Photo Jo Sinclair

The Cambridge Greenbelt, Bitterns & Hippos

'Little egret, green sandpiper, coot, house martin... hippo.' Wondering if any passage ospreys had been spotted, I was checking out the birdwatchers' list in a bird hide. The joke contribution from what I imagined was a bored kid reminded me of the time I climbed a ladder to a hide in Newnham, Cambridge and facetiously pencilled 'bittern'. This was in the days when such a claim was almost as outlandish as hippopotamus. Decades later, thanks to conservation efforts nationwide it's perfectly feasible.

Right Move describes Newham as urban and rural living side by side. Nature is employed as the USP for a £2.5 million new-build for sale near Bolton's Lake:
Just a stone's throw from Cambridge City centre. Newnham is unique in Cambridge in the way that the urban and the rural sit side by side. Interesting local shops are just one street away from meadows, wildlife and woods. Newnham was named Overall Winner in the Sunday Time's Best Places to Live in Britain 2015.
The purchaser can apply to become a member of the Bolton's Pit Company Ltd. This gives rights to the owners to use the lake for boating, swimming and fishing.

The 'meadows, wildlife and woods' are described by a local conservationist in an Ecological Survey. I signed the petition to Save The West Fields. I hesitated, as I live in a home that was built on arable land in 1972, and it seems a little hypocritical to campaign against new housing when I know how desperate the need is for new social housing. But Cambridge is a hotspot for investors who will never live in the houses they buy (in 2015 30% of new-builds are reported to be owned by buyers from overseas), and many are standing empty.

Cambridge University's wealth has provided a greenbelt so rich that green is turning to gold - but the gold may soon be concreted over. The Save The West Fields campaign aims to preserve the network of gardens, playing fields, footpaths, hedgerows, lakes, ponds, ditches and woods. As a child playing with friends and family in those places I navigated the green spaces, secretly trespassing and exploring swimming pools, lakes and nature reserves, much of it owned by the University. As an adult I believe it is essential that green corridors (or blood-red arteries) are retained for wildlife biodiversity and to connect urban residents to green networks. Kingfishers, water voles, even bitterns know every niche that connects Cambridge city centre to the edge of the greenbelt and beyond.

Flight Behaviour: RSPB Fowlmere Nature Reserve

News headlines on my Twitter timeline shout hysterical warnings of rain, as if to douse Sunday's air disaster fireball. It's not something we get much of round here so I keep going into the porch to admire it. Mmm, proper rain, I say to myself every time we have a heavy shower.

Alarmist updates say the death-plane pilot is local and flies in the region regularly. The very same aircraft was due to display at two upcoming air shows in Cambridgeshire. I live beneath the flight path of the Imperial War Museum Duxford's air shows, one of the most popular attractions in the UK. I admit I've always been fairly thrilled as the Red Arrows buzz the roads and rooftops, soar and draw red, white and blue hearts in the sky. But the shows are noisy and filthy, and you have to give the traffic jams a wide berth. I prefer to watch birds.

'Beware the Spanish plume' we were warned: heatwave, tornado, thunderstorms. On the evening of Saturday, which was luridly hot, I cycled to my nearest RSPB nature reserve. I wanted to cherish the dwindling summer and stay out watching wildlife in a quiet place until dark.

Entering Fowlmere nature reserve always seems to have a Narnia effect; another world instantly opens up. Still on my bike wearing hi-vis gear, I spot a muntjac deer on the wooded track along the eastern edge. I freeze. These are common animals we're quite used to seeing, but I'm in reverential mode. The muntjac freezes too. It peers, stretching its nostrils closer in my direction, a little to the left, a little to the right. I shift a fraction; it twitches. It dips and cocks its head, nodding its indecision to step forward. Then braves a 1-step 2-step 'What's the time Mr Wolf'' approach. Still not quite deciding what it sees, the animal barks five times, plaintively, as if calling its mum. Now it relaxes, turning its burnished brown bottom on me to graze awhile, then shows its white scut like an insult and plunges out of sight.

Kingfisher Hide: Two women. I sigh. I want to be alone. 'There's a kingfisher over there if you're interested' says one of them generously, before leaving me to it. Soon it flies straight towards me as if to land right in front of me on a strategically placed perch before choosing an awkward angle in a hawthorn bush.

Photo by Jo Sinclair

After ten minutes of trying to photograph an orange and electric-blue blur swaying gently in the breeze, a family of four from Royston arrives. The boys are excited. They've been before. Their mum says she visits about four times a week. She tells me someone saw otters here at about 8 one evening. 'Go to the Reedbed Hide' she suggests. 'The marsh harriers will be getting ready for bed - in the tree on the right. You can see the sun catch their plumage at this time of night.'

At the hide the marsh harriers are flying above the mere. The water is crowded with forty nervous ducks and a hundred geese. They're moulting, 'in eclipse'. The mere has a circular scum of down. Two harriers screech and squabble; one is holding something - maybe prey - in its feet. Co-joined briefly in an eight foot wingspan of raptor they twist, flap, plummet and roll. A man laughs in astonishment and admiration. 'Couldn't ask for a better view!'.

Even when there's not all this action a bird hide is a rewarding place to be. You can simply sit and stare and breathe deeply, happy as a fisherman to be whiling away the time listening to the wind in the reeds.

One of the harriers goes down. For a drink? To roost? I can't see, but the waterfowl seem unperturbed. Three turtle doves fly in. Thirsty birds after such a hot day. They're so nervy one tries to take a sip mid-air. I can see a snipe, cautious at the edge of the reeds, and a lapwing announces its arrival with its kazoo peewit call.

A turtle dove is purring when I leave. The barn owl box looks empty. Flocks of crows rise, flap and settle in dead trees. I go through the woods, along the clean chalky trout stream. I divert into a meadow where I see fallow deer. They step out of the trees and their hides seem to describe the crepuscular light: there's a white hart, spotted does, two chocolate brown forms, several fawns.

There are rabbits, a hare and two muntjac on the stubble field when I leave the reserve. I see a bat by the light of my bicycle lamps. I hope it might follow the insects I disturb. I pass a combine harvester working a field in a blaze of lights bright as a factory. Into the dark again and I hear a large animal double back from the road. Further on I detect a black, vague shape ahead and luckily brake in time. A fallow deer, about a day dead, lies on the path. Its leg is right-angled and its staring head rests upon a dark stain. I reach a pub at last orders and dine beneath a floodlit ash tree, and note that there are surprisingly few moths.

The Blob, The 6th Mass Extinction and Smiley Bees

What's that in the woods? Sawdust, foam or dog sick? Ah, I've seen this before. It's the prosaically named dog's vomit fungus, a slime mould recorded quite brilliantly in the American blog Margaret's Garden. I remember watching the B Movie she's talking about. The monster in The Blob, the writer tells us, 'was based on the plasmodium phase of a slime mould'. I love what an internet search can throw up.

There's a lot of friendly noise in the ether comparing notes on natural history ID, sharing unusual finds and celebrating every-day occurrences such as bees and butterflies. With people posting every sighting of a moth, froglet or hedgehog, my Twitter timeline seems more Garden of Eden than Noah's Ark. Online noticeboard Streetlife is starting to shout about it too. Among appeals for decorators, lost dogs and long threads of discriminatory 'comments' aimed at Travellers pitched for a few days on a local verge, there's a buzz about buzzards and ecstasy about the red kites that are fast swooping into the collective conscience. But the very fact that common bees and butterflies are noteworthy is pitiful. I don't mean I think it's pathetic. I mean it's cause for concern.

Common blue butterfly (photo Jo Sinclair)

The charity Butterfly Conservation supplied goddamn beautiful pictures of butterflies non-stop during the Big Butterfly Count (see previous post). Then they put out news of a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change warning of butterfly extinctions. I peered at my single nasturtium pot today. It looks like the Raft of the Medusa by Gericault (pitching around somewhere near Kos?) 'Cabbage white' caterpillars have shredded nearly every leaf. They gorged, grew fast as broiler chickens and are now hanging off the edge or dying. I feel a bit guilty that they appear to be marooned. Large whites and small whites are on that extinction list.

Nature has been a 'trend' for many years now. In 2008 Honda used an animation of butterflies, birds, bees and blooms to promote diesel engines (the Hate Something Change Something campaign). Childish illustrations of nature curled pretty tendrils around the mainstream. I later enjoyed an ad with a boy in scuba gear dunking his head below the surface of a pond and coming up reeling with the fabulousness of a world teeming with tadpoles, though I seem to recall the product was utterly unrelated. Then there were hard-to-swallow campaigns for the world's best-known burger corp depicting real farmyards with kids welly-deep in muck and straw. 

Katie Humble's pig at Humble By Nature, Wales. Photo Jo Sinclair

The 'isn't nature brilliant' meme continues. The infantilisation of nature spotting (Look what I found! Clever me) rubs it in horribly how we are all to used to the idea that a sighting of a bee (groggy with Neonicotinoid  and infested with varroa mites) is cause for thanks and celebration. But we should carry on sharing the passion. 

Natural England reports that visits to parks and countryside have reached an all time high. Today's exchange of flora and fauna snapshots reminds me of kids comparing marbles. Privet hawk moth: what a beauty, what a whopper! And no, I can't resist posting a photo of some happy honey bees on the last of my passion flowers.

Jo Sinclair