Entries tagged "nature"
2013-01-16
Today marks the start of the writing of a new book. And what better way to celebrate it, than by procrastinating!
As writers go, I try hard to keep myself towards the more disciplined end of the scale. I lock myself in my shepherd's hut with a hot drink and then emerge, blinking and mole-like about two hours later for another brew before the cycle repeats itself.
The problem is that I write about the outdoors and nature and there is a window in the shepherd's hut. What peculiar conspiracy is it that…
2013-01-07
Here is the perfect plant for to set the new year up with, Mimosa Pudica.
The leaves recoil visibly from the touch, earning the plant various nicknames along the lines of 'shy', 'sensitive' etc.
I was lucky enough to stumble across a healthy colony of these plants in rural Thailand recently.
The first photo shows the plant before being touched.
The second shows it after being touched:
An intriguing plant for all nature-lovers, but for obvious reasons, this is probably a plant of more…
2012-02-22
Although microchips have a childlike tendency to steal our attention away from almost anything else, I am not against technology itself. Once we have steeled ourselves to the risks of using any device, it is possible to have the best of all worlds: convenience, information, safety and awareness.
If I was forced to choose my favourite piece of navigation technology, I would find it hard. The GPS, for all its many known vices, really is an extraordinary piece of kit. But it will never be my favourite, because... of all its many known vices. Also, because I'm very…
2011-08-30
The research that I have been doing for the book I am currently writing led me to an interesting study. Academics have found that there is an inverse relationship between wealth and awareness of nature. This trend appears to be true in places as different as Indonesia and the UK.
The number of local plant species that people can identify tends to be inversely proportional to their income. The study did not reveal whether this was a cultural phenomenon or purely economic one, ie. do people know solely because they need to or also because they want to?…
2011-01-27
Full marks to Radio 4's Today programme for allowing even a few minutes' discussion of the role of technology in our appreciation and understanding of nature.
Mike Saunders, Kew Garden's Digital head, and I exchanged ideas and perspectives yesterday in a glancing and enjoyable way. 'Today' is prime radio real estate and they could not have been expected to indulge us for much longer.
Of course there were many points that I would have like to have made, but could not, the effect being a rather truncated view, which appears to many to be fairly blunt.…
2010-08-09
On a Country Navigator course on Saturday, I was asked a question that I get asked quite regularly:"What sort of people come on your courses?"It is both an easy and difficult question to answer. The difficult part is that the backgrounds of those who have an interest in natural navigation is extremely diverse. It is tempting to say that it could not be more diverse, but that is not true; by the time someone finds themselves on one of my courses they have selected themselves as someone who can reach the UK (typically) and also someone who either is willing…
2010-02-16
'Courting bustards' is not an excellent new profanity, something that would sound good with rasping voice and sent in the general direction of a parking warden putting a ticket on your car, it is actually a reference to the romantic habits of the male great bustard bird.Researchers from the IE University School of Biology in Santa Cruz, Spain, have found that the male bustards align themselves with the sun when trying to attract a female. Their white feathers, the bustard's equivalent of an Armani suit/Ferrari/pair of Reeboks - delete as applicable, show up better when aligned to catch the sun's…
2009-07-24
I have just received an email telling me that I have been 'specially recommended in Rough Guides’ new book – Clean Breaks: 500 New Ways to See the World - published in August 2009.' It goes on,'In writing this book, the authors have highlighted 500 fantastic places across the globe which will inspire people to see the world in a new light, selecting unusual holidays and alternative ways to travel which make a real difference to the lives of local people and the planet.Only a few companies qualify for a special recommendation of this…
2009-07-22
I got back late last night after a very full day in the Yorkshire Dales. I was doing a shoot with the Escape to the Country team which finished at 6 o' clock and then it was a six hour drive, Diet Coke and dark chocolate all the way, to get back home in time to get the first draft of my book to Virgin Books for the deadline.Had a great, albeit quite short, time in the Dales. The production team and house-hunting couple were really fun to work with and it is hard not to enjoy a day in…
2009-05-27
The Gooleys were camping on the Isle of Wight over the weekend. It was great weather, the few hours of rain that are necessary to make it feel like proper British camping kept themselves to late at night and early in the morning, which was considerate. A few observations will creep into the blog in due course, but to save me a bit of time as I work to catch up on some emails, below is one that artfully saved me the need to blog properly. Thank you, Rob.Tristan,I hope you are well.Emily and I attended your course at West…
2009-05-03
This morning was filled with a breezy walk up to Halnaker Windmill. The sun was out for most of the way up the hill, but the sky also had a generous share of cumulus clouds.Natural navigation is a mixture of art and science and this can be felt very strongly when the sun disappears behind the clouds. Science allows us to understand the direction that the sun will be and there is an art to reading the cloud edges to reveal the direction of the sun, even when we cannot see it.The low trees on the exposed hilltop had been…
2009-04-27
The rape flowers are coming into bloom over the South Downs, but they don't all bloom at the same time.The crop tends to be on a field that will get a good amount of sunlight anyway, often south-facing, but even within the fields there are subtle shade differences. The flowers tend to appear first in the south-facing dips in the land. This is probably because they are getting plenty of sun, but being sheltered from the cooling winds. As a general rule, nature moves faster the warmer things are.
2009-04-21
This isn't about the Force, although I did read recently that a lot of Scottish policemen have put 'Jedi' down as their religion on their work forms.More days than not I spot an example of the sun influencing nature in a way that is new to me in some way. In general terms it is fairly old news that a place that receives no direct sunlight will appear different in some way. It is in the detail that the novelty is to be found. The more obvious signs might be that it has different plants growing and an abundance of…
2009-04-17
My research into this subject constantly leads me, very willingly, back to the thin line that runs, curving between philosophy, religion, science and nature. If such a line exists - discuss!I would go so far as to say my work would be very awkward if my personal jury had come in unanimously in favour of any hard views in any of those areas. Sometimes there is a deep longing to know more about things that I know I likely never will. It is hard to articulate this sensation perfectly, but it would perhaps be summed up well by saying that…
2009-04-04
There is a fly buzzing around me at the moment that is seriously dopey, it seems to me that its best days might be behind it. It keeps landing on my hand or face and lingering for a dangerously long time, like its will to live has evaporated.This reminded me of my trip to the Sahara last month. All signs of life in a desert are interesting at some level, usually including some navigation clues. Flies were no exception. They were not a big problem, and we could go for several hours without noticing them, but then they would appear…
2009-03-28
Something that I must have been aware of at some level for years, but that only arranged itself in my mind as an idea yesterday was the difference between the observations of characters in travel stories. There is a marked difference between what a character notices depending on the viewpoint that the author has chosen. First person travel characters seem to notice more natural detail. It must be easier to convince a reader that the subtle way a tree branch bends is relevant if the character is portrayed in the first person. Something that I had not previously given much…
2009-02-12
I ran a small private course yesterday and enjoyed a wonderfully ironic moment. It was almost embarrassing.The first half of the day was spent indoors studying the theory, looking at photographs and playing with celestial models. One of the points I am always keen to make is about the relationship between the uses of our senses and wayfinding. Sight is so often under-rated because its use is so immediately obvious, but we rarely acknowledge how much detail is allowed to escape. For example, we have evolved to identify things by shape much more readily than by colour or…
2009-02-03
Time for a bit of ramble.At the heart of natural navigation there is potential for conflict.If the sun did not behave with rational, dependable predictability then reading its effects might be a forlorn cause. We can say with great confidence where it will be in the sky at almost any moment in the future. And yet, nearly everything that follows the sun closely, from plants and animals to the weather itself, does not seem to have much fondness for rigid patterns or predictability.This photo is an example. I could have worked out…
2008-10-15
Regular readers may recall how my chilli plants demonstrated an aversion to wind and cold. Yesterday I spent a full and enjoyable day with some of the team fromSire Technology, who were braving the Pathfinder course.
The day consists of an intense morning of indoor training followed by a good leg stretch in the South Downs. Part of the morning is spent going through a few exercises aimed at awakening the senses and raising awareness. I was delighted therefore when, during the afternoon's practical exercise, Barry from Sire pointed out something that I had…
2008-10-13
My wife and I spent nearly all the weekend on the water, which will be a rare treat until our boys are a bit older. There was lots of sun, plenty of mist and fog and not very much wind. It would have been nice to have done more sailing and less motoring, but we were ecstatic just to be out there.
In my last entry I talked about dawn and dusk colours, these two dawn pictures show the shift in colour quite nicely. There was…
2008-08-30
I regularly find myself balancing the scientific explanations for something, natural observations of the same thing, historical accounts and even folklore. It can be a rich mix. This morning I came across a fun site that gives a good flavour of how diverse this subject can be in its page about the winter solstice.
2008-08-26
Time and navigation have a cosy relationship, as John Harrison, inventor of the chronometer that cracked the longitude problem in the 18th Century would attest. The sun, earth, moon and planets and stars have at times been seen as cogs in a huge clock.
So many natural phenomena take their orders from these bodies and tide is one of the best known of these. I took this photo of the tide running past a cardinal off Jersey this weekend. The cardinal is an easterly one, signalling that the safer water lay to the east of…
2008-08-07
Having spent the morning organising images for upcoming courses, I was reminded of a regular problem with learning anything practical from nature. There is a real tendency to bias. By which I mean when we are learning something new there is a great temptation to either make our observations fit our predictions, or to overlook things until we find something that looks the way we want it to.
Moss on trees and buildings is a great example of this. The popular notion is that moss will grow on the north side. This is sometimes true, but often not…
