Week 20 woooooooooooooooop!!!! A whole 140 days of wildness already!!!
That’s all I can congratulate myself on this week. Without sounding too sorry for myself, I made a bit of a silly mistake that has tested me. After walking for miles and miles during weeks 18 and 19, I found myself restricted to the house for most of the week, unable to get my usual steps in (to read the whole story, skip to Tuesday!)
Despite some mobility issues, I’m pleased to say I still tried to cram in as much wildlife as I could into the week. There might not be any grand, long walks in this post, but I’ve learnt a lot since the first lockdown and I feel I now really know how to ‘stay local’…!
Some of my top highlights include:
🌿 Enjoying the garden and all its colours
🎵 Learning a new bird song
🎨 Looking through some amazing wildlife art
🐦 Painting a beautiful lapwing
Enjoy! Oh, and, remember – you could do your own wildlife challenge in June if you want to. You can sign up for ’30 Days Wild’ here. It isn’t too late!
Monday 24th May 2021
We spent this morning travelling back from our jollies. It’s always a sad moment when a holiday comes to an end and I tend to get a little bit anxious about what we’re going to come home to – will we have forgotten to take something out of the fridge that will stink the house out, for example. Funnily enough, I don’t think these fears have ever come true. Yet.
When we got home, despite the doom and gloom of work on the horizon, there was a little silver lining. When I looked out onto the garden, everything was so green. The plants had suddenly sprung into action and our acer tree and creeper are now completely covered in leaves. When we left the house only 10 days ago, there was barely a bud!
Tuesday 25th May 2021
My act of wildness today was a Lucy Lapwing bird song lesson, but, before I delve into that, I think it’s worth stopping for a funny (and then not-so-funny) side-story.
You see, this morning I decided to sit on my left foot on the sofa. I do this regularly and often this foot falls asleep. It isn’t an advisable way to sit but my posture is also shocking so it’s fair to say I never learn. While sitting there, I realised that it had just gone 9 o’clock and I still wasn’t at my work desk. Not advisable on the first day back after a holiday either.
You must understand, I didn’t realise my left foot had gone to sleep. If I had, I wouldn’t have bolted up and fast-walked across the sitting room to go to my desk. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I sadly only realised my foot was numb when I fell over on my ankle, straight onto the floor. There was a moment of panic, followed by a moment of calm, followed by a ‘what-the-f-do-I-do’, followed by relief when I realised I could still stand on it.
Nevertheless, it swelled, it bruised, and I’ve been advised not to walk on it until the swelling has gone down. I’ve also been told it’ll take at least 6 weeks for me to get back to the kinds of walking I was used to doing. Not ideal but I was lucky overall.
Oh, and one final thing, the reason why I was running late and wasn’t yet sat at my desk was that I was finishing off my last blog post about the Yorkshire Dales – that’s meta 😂
Anyway, back to Lucy Lapwing. Her most recent bird song lesson is the blue tit. I see blue tits everywhere when I go for walks but I always find it hard to identify their songs. I think this one will need some more practice, but I’m hoping, once I can get back out and about again, that I’ll be able to pick it up quickly.
Wednesday 26th May 2021
One of the plants that stood out to me when we got home on Monday was what looked like a cluster of dandelions on top of an absolutely enormous green stem. I do not remember seeing this plant at all before I went on holiday and I had absolutely no idea what it was. I had another look at it today and used a lil identifier app; apparently it’s a common sow thistle. As with most flowers in my garden, it’s usually considered to be a weed. All I can say is that I saw a bee on one of the yellow flowers so that’s good enough for me!
Thursday 27th May 2021
So, let’s just say I’ve been forced to say local since Tuesday (i.e. confined to my house, mainly the sofa) and my friend, though he didn’t realise it at the time, kindly donated an ‘act of wildness’ for the day. He sent me this tweet about inosculation. I’d never heard of this before and the picture says it all really – mind blowing.
Then I read an article called ‘The Social Life of Forests’ that was posted underneath the tweet. This was about mycorrhizas – the underground partnerships between trees and fungi. If you have 20 mins or so, I’d really encourage you to have a read. The article highlights that, when you walk through a wood or a forest, you only really scratch the surface. Underground, there’s all sorts of information, nutrients and resources passing from plant to plant via symbiotic fungi and I had absolutely no idea!
Friday 28th May 2021
As someone who likes to draw and paint wildlife, I thought it would be rude not to have a look through the David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year winners this afternoon.
The winning pieces are just outstanding. I’m truly in awe of the artists featured in the article. I always like to take my time when I look at art – I’m just desperate to understand how professional artists achieve what they do. But I honestly don’t know how some of the artists managed to create these!
The overall winning piece is undoubtedly breathtaking. I just can’t fathom how acrylic paints could create that. My personal favourites, however, are:
🐳 When the Whale Sang (Human Impact Category winner)
🐢 Trapped (Elizabeth Hosking Prize For Watercolour winner)
🦈 Whale Sharks in the Mauritius Oil Spill (highly commended)
🐠 Plastic Taste (highly commended)
Saturday 29th May 2021
My partner’s mum kindly brought over some beautiful pot plants which are now on full display in the kitchen. It’s so lovely to add some more colour into the house, especially when I’m still on strict orders to minimise walking. She bought us a geranium along with the two flowers above – the lilac one is an African daisy (osteospermum) and the yellow flower is possibly a Singapore daisy.
Sunday 30th May 2021
I managed to get out for a short walk around the block today and sat in the garden for a while to enjoy the sunshine and watch the house martins whizzing around. A blue tit also made an appearance on the clematis at the back of the garden.
To get a bit more of a wildlife hit, I whacked out the watercolours this afternoon too. I saw a lapwing up close while we were on holiday in Yorkshire and I knew, as soon as I saw its magnificent summer plumage, it needed to be painted. So that’s what I did – I just loved painting the colours!
*For anyone new to my blog, let me explain a bit more about what these posts are about. Every week I share a summary of my daily ‘acts of wildness’. This wildlife challenge was inspired by ’30 Days Wild’ and ’12 Days Wild’ from The Wildlife Trusts. The ‘356’ isn’t a typo – typically, I only thought about doing this after 2021 had already started so I won’t be able to do a full year this time. Next year will be different though! Thank you and I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 