online: 2 may 2011 modified: 24, 25, 26 april, 2 may 2011 24 april 2011 sunday evening
seven ponds
...chance directed me this evening to the Heath Extension... and curiosity led me to the seven ponds... to walk through an extended bower more than half-enclosed by newly-growing leaves and branches... alongside water surfaces that shimmer rapidly where there are water insects... otherwise the surfaces are like mirrors on which are thousands of fallen fragments of tree flowers or catkins... (the ponds being now almost wholly visible after the devastation by forest gardeners... by whom reeds and other tall plants are perhaps seen as weeds)...
...but now the images of trees and sky reflected from the water surface before me are fluctuating in slight but slower ripples which indicate a water bird somewhere on the pond but hidden from this spot... i hear the quack of a duck but cannot see it...
... now all is still again... and silent... but for a pigeon cooing and a sudden laugh or shout a long way off.. and now a jet plane taking off over the city in this easterly wind of slight velocity... (the runways being east-west and situated to the west of the city)...
...after more than half-an-hour here at this seat the light begins to fade and birds begin to speak more frequently... as if to say good night... (though that human-centered supposition only reveals how biased is our view of other creatures)...
...at which a woodpecker or other tree-drilling bird begins to r-r-r-r somewhere in the trees to the south of this spot... the sound is not really like a rotating drill... it's more like a pneumatic hammer... and now it's stopped... to be followed by the gentle whistling of a smaller slighter bird that i do not recognise...
...as things begin to get less visible i look around and walk away... a little sad that this moment ends as i go somewhere else... but i take with me these fragmentary notes through which something of these large or small events can exist for a long time... or even for ever?...
...at which there is a loud chortling cry from a bird in a nearby bush...
...i see that the battery charge is down to 35% so i close the handheld...
...but i paused on the way back to look at the first 'dandelion clock'... a sphere of seeds ready to be parachuted in the next strong wind... when i was a child we used to 'tell the time' by seeing how many puffs it took to blow all the seeds away...
...after i noted that, a young man from Madeira caught up with me and actually spoke (in a way that is rare in London... though not at all rare in warmer countries, i guess)...
...he was interested to know of this writing and wrote down the website address on a handheld... we walked together for about a kilometre before going in our different directions... and now he has subscribed to daffodil and suggests ways to make the website more accessible!
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