Soundscapes and House Martins
One of the things I really love about where I live is the nests under the eaves of my house.
We live in a large village in the Norfolk fens, a few miles from King’s Lynn. It’s quite rural but we’re not completely out in the country. Having said that, I don’t have to go very far to be out in open fields.
We’ve lived here for a long time now, over twenty years, and the village has changed quite a lot. One of the big changes is that every little patch of what looked like waste ground, and even bits of fields where crops were grown have had houses built on them. So in some ways, the village feels more like a small town than a village, although it doesn’t have the kind of town centre that even tiny towns have.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the house martin nests under the eaves of my house.
There are two nests there, and over the summer, there were birds in both of them.
Every year since we moved here, there have been house martins in the summer. They usually arrive towards the end of April. I don’t notice exactly when. Usually I’ll spot them swooping about, or I’ll hear them in the nest. It’s like summer announces itself when these little birds arrive. They have decided that winter is definitely over and it’s warm enough to come back England.
One year they didn’t arrive until June and I was worried. Sub Saharan Africa is a long way away. I don’t know what happened, whether they set off late, or got lost, although those sound more like the kind of things I would do! But eventually they arrived, and spent the rest of the summer under the eaves of my house.
When the light starts to change, and it’s cooler in the mornings, the nights are drawing in and the fields of wheat have become fields of stubble, I know that it will soon be time for the house martins to leave. One day I’ll be in my front room and I’ll realise that I can’t hear them chattering, or see them joyfully swooping about. I won’t notice them leaving, but I will notice when they are no longer here.
But nature operates in cycles, not in a straight line. Those little birds have the map to their nests, their little homes on my home, indelibly printed on their tiny bird brains, and, if all goes to plan, they’ll be back next year. It’s a reminder that so many things are like this. We tend to think that everything is a straight line, but even in our own lives, there are seasons and cycles. Things come around again, still recognisable and familiar even if they are not the same.
Thinking about the house martins and the changing of the seasons made my hands itch to make something! The theme of August’s Wild Blossom Companion is soundscapes, and the house martins chattering is part of the soundtrack of my summer. So as a way of marking the end of summer, I’ve made a little stitched thing inspired by the house martins.
It’s not especially complicated, just lots of little Vs stitched in black thread. I didn’t use any kind of pattern or template either, and it’s not finished. It might turn out to be one of those things that I come back back to for several years, when that particular season comes round again.
I want to pay attention to the changing of the seasons, because otherwise life can feel as though it’s rushing past without me really noticing. So I make a point of stopping for a moment, noticing, and sometimes doing something creative. I created the Wild Blossom Companion as a way to help do that. You can find out more about it here. I also have a free version that follows the same format if you’d like to try it out first, and you can find out about that here.
