Following on from July’s rather optimistic fungi walk, I popped back to the same area of ancient Wealden woodland to see if the rain had brought any mushrooms. Indeed, it had!
Also, I refer to a species here as shaggy scalycap, but it appears to be something scarce – flaming scalycap.
The episode is about 20 minutes long. I hope you enjoy the sounds of the woodland, which include the wings of a woodpigeon nearly taking my head off and, er, the sound of heather.
Earlier this week I went for a short walk around part of the Sussex Weald to see if any mushrooms had popped up. We’ve experienced one of the driest springs on record and the warmest June for England, as well as three heatwaves already! Me and mushrooms don’t need three heatwaves, thanks.
Mushrooms need rain, warmth and moisture to thrive, and after a downpour earlier in the day I thought it might be worth having a look. Here’s what happened:
At the beginning you can hear my water bottle in my bag and a great spotted woodpecker ‘kicking’
I began in the presence of Bambi, or a fallow deer
I’ve started recording episodes again for my podcast Unlocking Landscapes. The latest episode is one about ivy and trees, a subject I find very interesting – I know a lot of people do.
You can listen here on YouTube or just search on any podcast-streaming platform:
The episode is only ten minutes and covers the following:
What ivy looks like
The ecology of ivy
Managing ivy on trees
Myths and misinformation about ivy
When people commit crimes against ivy(!)
Wildlife supported by ivy
My aim is to post once a quarter, recordings to take place outdoors, be quite focused and to be around 10 minutes long.
In September 2022 I had the privilege of walking through the woods of Enniscoe House in Co. Mayo, Ireland, to the shore of Lough Conn with Seán Lysaght. Seán is a poet and author who has taught me a great deal (through his books and poems) about the nature, landscape and heritage of County Mayo.
We cover a lot of ground and experience all the weathers, with Seán reading one of his poems at the close of the episode. It ends in dramatic fashion, with the rain sweeping in off Lough Conn and making further recording impossible.
This is fundamentally a conversation about woods and trees. We encounter a lot of different species which spur conversations about all kinds of things. We also discuss invasive species, bogs, Irish attitudes to nature conservation, and fit in a bit of wildflower identification on the shores of Lough Conn.
It’s January 2023 and my podcast, Unlocking Landscapes, is 2 years old! Thanks to everyone who has contributed and supported so far.
I do this podcast at my own cost so if you want to support it (it costs a basic £100 annually to host my Podbean account) you can ‘buy me a coffee/camomile’ here: https://ko-fi.com/djgwild
I haven’t posted for a while, mainly for professional and technical reasons. The biggest issue is that I needed to upgrade my ailing desktop PC, which I have now done. It’s in much better shape now, so no more IT excuses but hopefully more podcasts.
You can listen via YouTube here:
Or via the Podbean stream here:
In September I spent a week in Mayo in Ireland and recorded two podcasts. One is an early evening walk in the Ox Mountains, encountering rickety gates and performing ravens. The second one (still to come) is a walk with Seán Lysaght, which I can’t wait to share with you. I’ve been a big fan of Seán’s writing for over a decade, so it was a massive honour to spend an afternoon walking with him. More on that one soon!
In the Ox Mountains I go for a walk, describing the surrounding landscape, capturing two ravens (acoustically) as they fly close by from where the breed in the hills. I also talk a bit about issues with cottages which aren’t connected to mains water, amongst many other things.
Unlocking Landscapes is back! In May 2022 I met with author Zoe Gilbert in Ham Street Woods National Nature Reserve on the Kent/Sussex border. Zoe is an award winning writer and she sounds very much at home in the woods. It was a real pleasure to spend the day with her and I’m very grateful for her time.
Listen here:
In March 2022 Zoe published her latest book, Mischief Acts (you can buy it here). The book is inspired by an historic wooded landscape in south London known as the Great North Wood. It’s been covered in a couple of other podcasts for Unlocking Landscape so please see the links below. I love the book and as a consumer of books and someone who knows parts of the landscape she has focused on, I can say for sure that I think she has nailed it!
In this episode we cover a lot of ground:
What inspires Zoe to visit woods and write fiction
Public access to woodlands in the pandemic
The complications around public perceptions of woodlands
Mischief in the woods and National Parks
‘Pics or it didn’t happen’: The importance not being observed all the time (social media)
Contiguousness of woodland
Bison being reintroduced to English woods
The future of woodlands
Prioritising the conservation of woodlands in a time of extremes
Hi everyone! After a bit of a break from podcasting, it’s great to release a new episode of Unlocking Landscapes. This has taken a while to edit but it’s a really relaxing one I think. So much so that I actually fell asleep when listening to one of the drafts a few months ago.
In May 2021 I walked 8 miles into the Sussex Weald to see if I could hear a cuckoo. The weather was fine and there were loads of birds out, many of them in full song. This is an episode best listened to through headphones so you can hear the birdsong, the wind through the trees and the buzzing of bees in the woodland landscape of the High Weald. It’s an immersive episode with a guided walk feel, focusing on listening to the surrounding landscape.
I thought it would be worth sharing an update on where things are with this blog. Last year was a hugely productive one for my blog due to spending so much time at home because of Covid-19 restrictions. At times I was posting three times a week with stuff I would see as good quality.
Now that things have changed I’ve lost that writing time. Things have gone back to where they were probably in 2019. That said, my blog has continued to grow in reach in 2021, especially it seems when people are interested in fungi in the autumn months. October’s views on here have been possibly the busiest month ever for visitors.
In January of this year I began recordings for my Unlocking Landscapes podcast. It was very easy to do because people had time to spend on Zoom due to the stay-at-home orders. Now that there is less of that, I don’t have the time to do them monthly, which has proven a big challenge. That said, I do have two more episodes to publish, hopefully this year, and some episodes agreed with some really cool people, including an author, shepherdess, eco-therapist and a nature writer.
I do hope to add more quality episodes over the years and it may just end up being seasonal, with the episodes maybe a bit longer. I don’t get any income for the podcast and the people appearing on it are doing so out of generosity and a desire to share ideas. Thank you to everyone who has been involved, I’ve loved it so far. The upcoming episodes are part two of the Hungary-Romania trip with Eddie Chapman, and a spring birdsong walk in the Sussex Weald that I recorded in May.
In book news, I have been providing content for other people’s books! Chris Schuler’s The Wood That Built London has just been published with some of my photos in the glossy inner-pages (see image above). It’s an absolute joy to be tied to this incredible book, which has levels of detail about south London’s ancient woodlands which have never before been amalgamated and shared. You can see more here. I’ve also (probably) had some photos published in Tiffany Francis-Baker’s book about Dark Night Skies.
In spring London Wildlife Trust will be publishing a book about nature in London which includes a chapter I wrote about woodlands, with more photographs included. This is another big personal thing for me and I am so honoured to have been asked to support the project. I will post more about it when the book arrives.
In my own personal self-publishing world I have plans to release a third poetry booklet in early 2022 called Fool’s Wood. I have also been trying to write a book for the past 10 years about my experiences of volunteering and what I learned about nature and our relationships to it. That is proving very difficult to get anywhere with, but I hope to make some progress over the winter months. I am not producing any of these with an aim of being published in the mainstream, more for my personal sanity, and as ebooks. If anyone has advice about producing and publishing ebooks, please help me!
The Town Clerk’s Office, Midhurst(c1500s)
As photography projects go I’ve been gathering images of timber-framed cottages and other buildings for an Instagram account @SussexTimbers. I’m still looking for the best format to share these images and to talk about their historical significance, which Instagram is not quite. I will probably build a section on this website next year to showcase them. Might even make some postcards!
What I’ve been reading: this year has been dominated by Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad and Life and Fate. I have studied Russian cinema and am something of a Russophile, but there is only so much you can take of 20th century Russian history. Tread carefully. I’ve recently finished Wanderland by Jini Reddy, I Belong Here by Anita Sethi, some of the novels by Sarah Moss (Ghost Wall and Cold Earth), and at the moment I’m enjoying Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. Reddy and Sethi’s books are a must read for people who are advocates (or not) of countryside access. Especially those who adamantly and aggressively announce that ‘the countryside is for everyone’ as a reposte to the lived-experience of Black people and people of colour. It’s not, and racism prohibits people from feeling welcome in certain places. Finding the Mother Tree is essential reading for those who want to understand more about how trees are interconnected and the role fungi play in healthy, happy woodlands. I still haven’t read the Merlin Sheldrake book.
What I’m listening to: the new album by The War on Drugs is one I have been waiting a long time for. Change is my favourite song so far (that piano…):
I want to give a shout out to my dad who regularly reads this blog and has, alongside my mum, been a massive support to me for many years (obviously). Dad has been under the weather recently and unable to get out as much as he would like to, so hopefully dad what you can continue to see here is a bit of a sense of the outdoors. We’ll get you back out there again soon.
Thanks to everyone who reads this blog, sending in comments on here as well as on Twitter. I love to receive your comments, which are almost 100% positive, though I don’t block criticism (as long as it’s not inappropriate).
Wishing you a pleasant winter ahead with friends, family, wildlife and pets.
In this episode I’m joined by my good friend Eddie Chapman as we recount a visit to the Great Hungarian Plain.
Eddie is a devoted rambler and part-time rapper who lives in Glasgow, Scotland. He grew up in the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield and developed a love for the landscape through hiking in the nearby Peak District. Eddie now spends his walking time bagging munros in the Scottish Highlands.
Listen to the audio file here:
Watch the audio slideshow on YouTube here:
This is part one of two episodes covering a trip Eddie and I undertook across Hungary and Romania in 2015. In part one we recount our travels through the Great Hungarian Plain, en route to the Romanian Carpathians.
It’s a light-hearted episode with recollections of unusual experiences, including owl-headed body-builders, fire water and rural sports bars.
We saw some incredible wildlife in one of Europe’s most important landscapes – the Great Hungarian Plain – and would definitely recommend it if you’re into birds. But do listen to what we did wrong if you’re planning a visit!
Julian has published two books of non-fiction with a strong focus on landscapes, wildlife and heritage. In 2012 Julian’s debut book The Small Heart of Things was published, and in 2019 it was followed by Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places.
We pick up right where we left off in episode one, with a question to Julian about his experiences of getting to know local people and telling their stories through his writing.
Swanscombe Marshes in Kent, a threatened ‘brownfield’ home to rare species
We get into some pretty deep topics in this episode including:
How the mathematics of life mean you can only connect with a handful of places in a meaningful way
The poverty of language around ‘brownfields’
Convincing politicians to pretend they’re jumping spiders!
Life-altering experiences in the North Kent Marshes
Oliver Rackham and the loss of meaning in the landscape
The importance of local green spaces in the pandemic and beyond
Massive thank you to Julian for his time and consideration in putting these two episodes together. Please support Julian by purchasing his book and following him on social media. Hope you enjoy!
Unlocking Landscapes 