The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

After an enjoyable private course on Friday – we finished standing in a field looking at Orion, the Plough, Cassiopeia and, of course, Polaris – it was time for a family outing to West Wittering beach early on Saturday.

I adore the Witterings in winter, the barbecue and beach towels may have to stay at home but it is invigorating to get blown along on miles of abandoned sand. In between games of hide and seek amongst the beach huts, games of football on the sticky sand and races to pieces of seaweed, I noticed some interesting patterns in the sand.

This photo shows how there tend to be broad ripples parallel to the coastline itself, but closer inspection reveals more subtle patterns and these can be used to decipher the action of the water and therefore yield more clues to direction. The ripples of sand fan out over the small hills that…

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I went for a walk in the South Downs yesterday afternoon. The air was cold, there were still chunks of ice lining the north-facing side of chalk ruts in the path. The sun was up for the first part of the walk and made direction-finding easy. When it fell below the hills to my southwest it gave different opportunities. One of my favourite dusk techniques is to use the light reflections of cloud edges to gauge where the sun must be behind higher ground. This photograph from 4.30pm yesterday shows this effect quite clearly. The sun is reaching the far ground, trees and clouds, but it does not light the clouds equally. The bright edges act almost as a parabola, pointing the way back to a now invisible sun.

The picture was taken looking northeast. The very perceptive will have noticed that there are molehills in the foreground and that they…

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My book is on the printing presses – this is very exciting and an excuse for a quick plug in my blog!

In the book I emphasise the importance of using our senses in natural navigation. I cover examples from the sound of birdsong to the smell of trampled fruit in London.

I stumbled across a kindred spirit on the Internet this morning in Sachin Somanna, the author of this article about Gayathri Tiffin Room. It certainly smells from here like one of the joys of the Indian city of Mysore:

“We do not need any directions to reach Gayathri Tiffin Room (or GTR as it is popularly known) because once we close in on Chamundipuram circle, the irresistible aroma of a Mysore Masala Dosa works like a natural navigator to this vegetarian restaurant that is located just a few meters from the circle.  Although the restaurant looks rather plain on the outside, the packed…

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For much of the UK, tonight promises to be a good night for some stargazing. With a bit of luck the only clouds for many will be from our breath. The moon, which is four days off full, will outshine many of the stars but should not spoil the party.

If the sky is clear we will get a very good view of Mars in the east in the early evening. Sitting between the constellations of Leo (easy to find) and Cancer (hard to find), it will be rising about thirty degrees north of east at dusk and pass through due east at 8.30pm. By then Orion, below the high moon, will have moved to occupy a large part of the southern sky. If you follow Orion’s belt down to nearer the horizon then low in the southeast you will see the brightest star of them all, Sirius.

If you do happen to…

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There is a good photo of the Great Lettuce, Lactuca Virosa, with its leaves aligned north-south on the Adur Wild Flower website. If you do use this to find your way then make sure you don’t eat too much of it as it is reputed to have psychotropic qualities. You are likely to head off in the right direction, walk in a circle and then find yourself back in the same spot, shouting something like, ‘Great Lettuce, Batman!’ I digress.

Just back from a little research in the New Forest. While I gather my thoughts about all the natural clues to wayfinding that the Forest revealed I just thought I’d let you know about a great website from a different part of our island. Stonesofwonder.com is a very informative guide to the prehistoric sites of stone monuments of Scotland, all arranged with celestial observation or inspiration in mind. There is information about the location of sites like  Ardachearanbeg, Clochkell, Cultoon, Finlaggan, Drumtroddan, Clava, Callanish and Stillaig, to name a few, and details about their relationship with moments like the equinoxes, solstices and lunar standstills. The website is well worth a visit, and much more accesible than the real things at this time of year.

The snow is melting away, but not at the same speed everywhere. The warmer wind which is blowing from the southeast today is leaving green swathes wherever it reaches. In this photo, which is taken looking east, the snow in the top right corner is being sheltered by woodland, but the snow to the left is also being left relatively untouched by the same wind because it is partly in the lee of the hill, but also because the woodland to the left of the picture is forcing the airflow up over it. In aviation terms the wind appears to be performing a ‘touch-and-go‘, coming into land before taking off again straight away.

Another enjoyable Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation course at the RGS yesterday. In attendance: a patent attorney, paraglider pilot, academic, film maker, doctor, retiree, vet, town planner and optical assistant to name a few.

Among the off-piste topics that we discussed there was talk of whether we sleep better aligned North-South than we do East-West and also the idea that the expression, ‘follow your nose’ may have some science behind it: humans have iron oxide in their sinuses which may account for some experiments that have shown a magnetic sense of direction in humans.

Lest I forget, I will be giving a series of talks to launch my book in March. The date and venue for my talk at the Oxford Literary Festival has been confirmed:

Wednesday 24/3 12:00, further details and tickets available here.

Hope to see you there!

…with a little help from the sun.

An interesting article on the BBC website today about the seasonal habits of Puffins.

The most interesting thing other than learning more about the puffins’ whereabouts was the method they used for understanding where the birds were at any one time. Using ‘geolocator tags’ that logged the time of sunrise, sunset the research team were able to deduce their location.

‘The loggers work by measuring light levels, recording when dawn and dusk occurs each day.

With this data, researchers can calculate day length, when midday occurs, and the daily longitudinal and latitudinal co-ordinates for the individual bird.’

The tags also detected when the birds’ feet were wet, the hope being that this would give information about when the birds were airborne, but the puffins foxed the researchers here: they like to tuck their feet up into their plumage when asleep. Their feet were dry even as they bobbed on…

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For better or worse I seem to have a sixth sense for when conditions are great very early in the morning. I woke at 5.30am and was instantly drawn out into the neighbouring field to take in the scene and to take a picture. The snow was being lit up from the south by the waning crescent moon, the stars were out in force and Mars was peering down in red confidence from high in the west.

I stepped over the style into the field, camera in one hand, tripod in another and then it all went wrong. To avoid waking anyone I had not stumbled around for my clothes in the dark, but opted for the worryingly standard kit for this time of day: pyjamas, thick coat and wellies. My left foot slipped a bit on the style’s ice and a successful bid to save my skin and camera led…

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