Another Sentinel-Tree checking visit and lo! and behold, the carcass of a pheasant. Now, I know that there are always dead things around, but there seem so many and then there's the circling of the kites above me and the frequent discussions on death. I sat with the Minerva Oak who demonstrated how she is, more of a Medea than a Minerva in this, shading out three little oak saplings. They've flourish if I died, she said. For now, though, I flourish and they die. Right. Let me

They have not brought all their children yet. But maybe I should not encourage them. I would find it very hard not to feed the birds. Even now, I am sitting in the cold garden and I feel dreadfully guilty that the dear pied wagtail won't land for his mealworms. He hovers, goes back to the fence, hovers, back to the fence, to the roof of the conservatory, where he watches me sadly, and then away in disappointment. I moved the food to the roof of the conservatory, but then he j

The invertebrate creature on the front page was in one of the water dishes. I helped it out and watched while it dried itself off. Nice insect. Then I realised that I had an unexpected visitor. The magpies came in after the crow had gone.

...and the Morrigan theme continues... This is the neck and head of a corvid, but I am not sure which one. The tree's reminder is that death and life are enfolded within each other, like the yin and yang symbol. Inextricably linked. The other side of each other. And the tree also said, see how alive dying is when you let go of the fear of death! Or, perhaps, see how dying informs and en-forms life. And the tree said, this is why you love to sit up here - on an edge between pr

I had only been, I think, to Wytham in autumn and winter. It is wonderful in late spring. The bluebells, though past their best, were glorious hazes of skies in between the trees. On the other hand, the ashes all seem to be dying. Great tracts of dead and dying trees. I sat by a lightning-struck oak and asked about the Morrigan, about aging, about moving toward death. And the tree expressed, as I sensed at Epping, the way in which age sees us hollow out, let go of the centre

I had to repeat this image... dandelion clocks are so fabulous! A galaxy unto themselves. So, the Morrigan. In Foster's The Edges of the World book, he talked of self-hypnosis... going to a safe place (a mental one - mine is a room that is inside a huge hollow oak, with bookshelves and an armchair); leaving via a door to a garden (a grove in a wood, a dark wood that Dante would like... or not...); looking into a pool to see yourself. In the pool, I saw the Morrigan. She said

A visit to Kairos and on the way down the track, this. They are "managing deer" now, which means, of course, shooting them. I am very ambivalent. I appreciate that the area is struggling to regenerate due to the pressure of muntjac density. The financial and logistical limitations mean that deer-fencing the whole place is not going to happen. And if they did that, they'd still need to shoot the deer trapped in by the fences. But a mother and baby had been nearby on the last t

I had forgotten about these pictures, which I like a lot! I think this is Tane. Mr and Mrs B are very eager for mealworms. Is that Mohican Blue or just a popular hairdo?

...there is something very "female anatomy" about these... Maybe it's all in my head. Or maybe it's influenced by reading Hexes of the Deadwood Forest. I bought this (in Utrecht) because it's about trees. But it's more about sex. Far too much sex and in far too many ways. The style has the gusto of Chaucer's dirty stories... a style I recall finding hard to like in a novel calle Aberystwyth, Mon Amour, which I bought for the title. Also Lauren Goff's Fates and Furies. I just

The day started with the jay eyeing up the peanuts! I had missed the jays so I was really happy to see this one. He or she was less delighted to se me! But then I went out later because the crows were shouting at the end of the tattoo parlour's garden. I went out the front to see if I could get into the tattoo parlour or the house next door (where Chilli dog lives), but no joy. So I climbed over my fence to see if a baby bird had fallen out of a nest. I couldn't get far enoug

...in which I feature much of what I failed to photograph last time. So, that's the lilac lilac.... And the lovely scented lilies-of-the-valley... The droopy little oak... ...the lower leaves are starting to become strong. It's like how butterflies' wings develop! The poplar with little leaves... ...well, some of the leaves are little!

As it happens, I have no pictures of the lilac lilac (as it were) because all the other plants get in the way. As soon as I started typing, though, I had to write that because I thought of "The Crimson Petal and the White", a book I very much liked, though it was often painful to read. The white lilac is truly gorgeous and in the evening the scent of that and the lilies-of-the-valley is intoxicating. The little trees are all looking good. It is interesting that the oak takes

Another attempt to see the kingfisher––I sort of did as he flashed past twice. Then I caught some movement in my peripheral vision... I felt honoured that the parents led their charges past quite close to me. As I was sitting there, I heard a spine-chilling sound in the woods––as though an animal were being mauled by a tiger! I turned and suddenly a muntjac burst through the scrub, saw me, and plunged into and across the water, lightning fast. A second stopped in the scrub, s

It's movie time! Again.

As I was walking to Kairos I was thinking about Marion Zimmer Bradley's books which I have been listening to for the second time. Thinking about that it came to me that the old rites understood blood and sacrifice, danger and death. I went past the Goddess Oak and she said, “You need to go down.” When I got to Kairos that was effectively what I did. I lay down with my legs up the tree's trunk. My arms were spread out and my fingers, I released my hair so that that spread ou

Well... not that wild. I went to see if I could spot the kingfisher. I heard him, but did not see him. I saw a heron about four times - scaring him off his prime fishing locations on three occasions. The great egrets were fishing too. I flushed out one who flew off with what looked like a frog in his beak. Mostly, I saw a goose.

A lovely picture of (probably) Falco in the cherry tree. But I wanted to feature this bee - the one who was chasing away the ruderal bee. In addition, the following day, I spotted two other bees, different ones, but only managed to get a decent shot of one of them. The garden has been interesting as I find myself completely confused about what is going on. Who is Falco chasing? How many robins are there? Where are all these robins nesting? I wonder where the birds sleep at ni

And a fox....

This not entirely stunning plant is selfheal. A lovely name - it's also sometimes called "heal-all", which has the same confidently soothing tone. Robin Harford offers a primer . I plucked the top off one plant and ate it. Bitter. Fresh. Not unpleasant. I thought that dried it would make a tea as good as dandelion. And there was so much of it that I thought the forager's code would allow me to harvest enough for a tea caddy's worth. I used to put it in mead. And I recall some