This is an extract from one of my many photo stories: stand-alone images, loosely held together by a journey from one place to another or a theme; added to from time to time.
The Sun in Winter Lays Low
Land and sea-scapes in the Otter Valley, East Devon.
The sun in winter lays low, making it all the more delightful when it does appear. Combining that with snow, in a place rarely hit and at Christmas, can create magical scenes. However, underlying that beauty is hardship: wildlife truly suffers.
An extract from the poem, ‘Winter’ describes December 2010.
Life had prospered in our valley, until the ground froze and the air petrified.
That made the buzzard hunt starlings, astonishing for such a lazy bird.
But still we were a haven, the place of last resort.
Until the blizzard.
I am hoping for deliverance. Cold is stalking me.
In came the lapwings, under a stomach aching sky:
from the North, the East and the West,
desperately heading South before the storm.
Snowflakes teased their wings,
turning feather-weight moisture heavy,
in air made solid by ice.
I must endure. Cold chills my blood.
The Otter Valley is normally a place of last resort for hungry flocks of birds retreating from elsewhere in the frozen South West of England. Here it had always been possible to scavenge something to eat, or at least drink from running water, until December 2010. Over the run-up to Christmas, this custom changed. The land became locked in ice, until a thaw on Boxing Day. A prolonged period of heavy rain and flooding followed.
And so it has gone on, ever since: blocks of often extreme weather, symptomatic of Climate Change. Stultifying periods of storm, heat or cold. The new ‘normal’. Even unspoilt, timeless Budleigh Salterton has had to suffer the consequences. Any doubts about Climate Change that I may have fostered before 2010 are long gone.
Please note that the poetry extract is from ‘Winter’ in the ‘Four Seasons Quartet’, featured in the Poetry Section of this web-site.
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