Nature Notes

 Village Nature Notes

On my afternoon walk the other day, in the last week of March, I passed an old rabbit warren. The path is easy to follow at this season, for there are no nettles yet, and the numerous rabbit holes on either side of the path are clearly visible. As I approached one hole, with the sun over my shoulder I could see right into the hole, and there, barely a foot from the opening, was a half-grown baby rabbit, enjoying the sun. He would be safe enough from the many dogs that will pass that way. And ferrets are rare.

Seeing several brimstone butterflies and (today) a small tortoiseshell, reminded me that I had not seen 'Barry' for 6 months. For ten years, I used to see him regularly getting on or off the bus from town. His ashen pallor, his dejected carriage and expressionless face always giving me the impression of a person more dead than alive. Poor Barry. He believed he was doomed to die from a chronic disease of the lungs; yet he got about, and never seemed short of breath. He was agreeably slim and carried his weight easily. In fact, apart from his pallor and fatigue, he looked quite fit; until you saw his eyes, and felt the full impact of his apparent despair. 

For five years Barry never noticed me, never wasted a glance in my direction. Nor did I ever see him speak a word to anyone else. Then, one day, on the bus coming out of town, I saw Barry in animated conversation with a couple I did not recognise. I felt rebuked. It was clear that he could talk to people he knew, or people who interested him. I managed to catch his eye when we both got off the bus. Within a week we were on speaking terms, and soon after that we exchanged christian names. He told me that the small tortoiseshell butterfly was this year very rare in our corner of Northamptonshire. I mentioned that I had seen several brimstones. He told me the names of all the butterflies he had seen already that year; and he had seen a lot. He was fond of Bruckner, a composer I admitted I had not been drawn to, and there I let Barry down. But he told me the lengths and opus numbers of all his favourite Bruckner symphonies. 

With that wonderful memory for detail, I wondered what his job had been, eager to 'place' him relative to my own limited world; for he was not quite an academic, nor was he a professional. It turned out, and I would never have guessed, that he had made his living by buying and selling British porcelain. Again I was quickly out of my depth; I only knew two facts about early British porcelain, gleaned from living for five years among the china-clay pits of central Cornwall, so my part in the conversation was soon exhausted. But Barry was able to name, date, and place all the famous eighteenth century makers of British porcelain from Cookworthy to Spode, from Chelsea to Bristol to Worcester to Staffordshire. He could probably have told me every piece he had ever bought, or sold. We met frequently on the bus, would sit together and list butterflies to each other, or discuss the dates of the romantic composers; topics on which we were more evenly matched.  I went abroad at the end of September six months ago, and though I returned at Christmas I have not seen Barry since. 

I was standing in my dining room, recently, looking out over my small garden, enjoying the consciousness of having nothing pressing to do. I love my resident song birds; the blackbird that sings at dusk, the robin that sings whenever I go out into the garden. And I would include the wren and the dunnock who flit about in the ivy. Then a flash of speckled brown wings. A large  bird swooped over the hedge at its lowest point, crossed the lawn and disappeared. A glimpse, lasting less than a second. Too brief to identify a sparrow hawk, but I fear that is what it was, and that he might have snatched one of my cherished residents.

My voice, manner or dress has a curious effect on some people. Yesterday, shortly after five pm, waiting at the retail park for the bus to town, a cheerful and chatty man came towards me across the road towing a wheelie shopper crammed full of polythene bags. Were those purchases, I wondered, or his worldly possessions?

"You have been shopping!" I offered. 

"Oh, that is our laundry," he replied. "Our washing machine is giving trouble". He grinned, revealing a complete absence of upper incisors. I could not think how he came to be with that in the retail park for there was no laundromat there.  His wife was shopping. 

He told me that he was a gardener – a conversational jump which I think he must have introduced for I usually stick to topic when conversing. Once we were onto gardening we stuck to it and chatted for half an hour. Was I a gardener? 

"Keen," I said, "but not gifted, for weeds and pests overwhelm my efforts. "

"Dandelions" he said. 

"Taraxacum officinale" I responded. 

"Thats right" he agreed, delightedly. "So you know the Latin!"

He lived at Byfield. Had been head-gardener at Wardington Manor for 15 years. Lovely garden. I felt I knew Lord Wardington then corrected myself. One evening,  standing in the middle of the road, I had chatted awhile with farmer Brakespear about Lord and Lady Wardington,. 

"Oh, I knew John Breakspear very well, lived in upper Wardington, opposite The Plough." 

And so we rattled on. The late bus arrived though his wife did not. "There is another bus in half an hour."  So we both got on, and continued our reminiscences. The bus dawdled down Middleton road in heavy traffic, till I had to jump off, desperate for a pee. A good conversationalist, John Gardner. (He may have told me his name, and where he trained, but I have forgotten, so I have called him John, provisionally.)