Three green woodpeckers feeding on the ground by the woodland near the station. On a wet morning or at twilight this is a ghostly enough place as it is. For a moment one of the little paths of opportunity that crisscross the common will seem to lengthen out in front of you into deep heath & distances not at all possible. This morning the woodpeckers were at the gate of one of these distances, part of a frame which implied I could now run forever into a “landscape” which would both recede infinitely & offer me infinite accommodation. Which would be in essence penetrable yet unchanged by penetration. In the endless scratchy observations which went together to make up Climbers, The Course of the Heart & Signs of Life, I often noted this: in the bad art of 1980s seaside cafes or pubs in deep Lancashire, Victorian & sub-Victorian twilights recess endlessly plane by feathery plane wrenched by failed technique into something more. As if failed technique could demonstrate some proposition otherwise undemonstrable. Now I destroy this perspective as I did then, by moving smartly on into it, & I wonder: why a group of three ? Is one of them a fledgling ?
Also I think: I’m hungry again. I haven’t been so hungry all the time since I was last young.
Off camping again tomorrow. The Peak District. It’s due to rain, but it would rain in the Peak District even if it wasn’t, if you see what I mean. I’m going to climb, & who knows maybe write that down. I’ve noticed that I get bad feedback from climbers if I actually try to describe my experience of climbing; but I’m ok with them if I just use the cliches. So what I mean is, I’m going to try & tick a few low grade trad solos, guys. Does that allow you to dismiss my efforts–simultaneously pensionable & puerile–with a smile instead of the usual frown ?
4 Comments
July 8, 2009 at 11:37 am
Mike: in a letter from short story writer David Rose last week – ‘Yesterday I came across three green woodpeckers together, over the common. Only ever seen them singly before. I had a very strange dream months ago, in which a huge flock of them suddenly took off from a field of grass.’ This reminded me of this cover. /Users/nicholasroyle/Desktop/IMG_0353.jpg
Not sure if that will work. I’ve never seen a green woodpecker, and you and David have seen three each in the last few days. What’s going on? David lives in Ashford, Middlesex, so not all that far from you, relatively speaking. Maybe that’s where the green woodpeckers hang out. I also love those inexpert soft-focus illustrations of birds in old Ladybird books and similar publications. It’s not the birds as much as the little bits of detail they provide in terms of natural setting. They’re inexpert, ‘failed’ perhaps, but incredibly beautiful. Awash with nostalgia.
July 8, 2009 at 11:46 am
Hi Nick. It’s not uncommon behaviour. They feed on the ground because they really like ants. & they have a wide range, from gardens to open heathy spaces; not just woods. What’s amazing–& very Nick Royle! –is the eery similarity between my report & David Rose’s. I’d bet that the third bird in each case is a fledgling being shown the feeding grounds–anyone out there know ?
July 8, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Yes, it’s very common for family groups of green woodpeckers to stick together for a short while after the juveniles have left the nest. Which would explain the coincidence of your obsevation and David Rose’s (but not the coincidence of both reports intersecting at Nick).
Barnes a wainscot of Old England islanded in the Great Smoke.
July 8, 2009 at 2:16 pm
You see ? Ask & ye shall be answered. Fucking hell, Paul, neat, sweet & what we needed to know: thanks.
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