The below are all short nature thumbnails (50 words or less), mostly produced in or following workshops led by Amanda Tuke and published online at Freelance Nature Writer
Identification
Boy barrels in, pulls me towards the window.
What’s up?
Beyond the glass, a muntjac chomps on bramble leaves.
Sshhh. Don’t frighten her.
Her. Clocking the horns, I silently draw my own conclusion.
Boy though points to its head, the plain brown muzzle.
Tufts, not horns, he says.
Aerodynamics
Not quite hermetic, still
sealed behind glass, we watch
the crows plough through blue
field skies, their blackness bolder
than a child’s paper cutting,
scything the void, plummeting,
gear noses down, leg struts
extended, hitting grass, adjusting
coifs, cawing to fallen comrades.
One tap, then rising back to air.
Pheasant
Not ice, just a crust of frost baked mud, rutted with the memory of rain. Warmth forgotten, beaten down by broken bracken, distant snap of dog frozen in the air.
Helmeted green, duck sleek and red eyed, hop-strutting towards us. Wise guy this one; canny enough not to fly.
Cock Pheasant visits
First, he shakes himself like a wet dog, then jerks his head. Ruffled feathers fall back to oily slickness as he struts across the lawn. White necklaced and helmeted in emerald, burnished copper breast plate shimmering, he rattles scarlet wattles, a suburban peacock cawing out the dawn
Untitled thumbnail
The view from my room: a crumbling wall. Until sun beams though brick shaped gaps, when I glimpse the world beyond; gardens wild with valerian and dogrose, mistle thrush and fox. Shade reveals closer mysteries; old cement tracks filled with velveteen moss, seed heads raised, like tiny triffids, seeking light.
Waking Up
They pierce the near-night silence, even before the Overground rumbles. Robin calls, sharp and insistent. Blackbird, shrill and strident, sends a warning volley.
Early sunlight strokes my sleep cold face. Wild garlic and crushed bluebells, the scent of memory, drift through an open window. Like this London morning, welcoming Spring.
Thumbnail published in the Frantic Clamour of Spring Anthology
They pierce the near-night silence, even before the Overground rumbles. Robin calls, sharp and insistent. Blackbird, shrill and strident, sends a warning volley.
Early sunlight strokes my sleep cold face. Wild garlic and crushed bluebells, the scent of memory, drift through an open window. Like this London morning, welcoming Spring.
Strictly Come Mallard
Just some brown dots in Far Field, like a troop of debutantes on a mirrored dancefloor—until the beat of corn nuts in the hopper calls. Now they’re coming! Cha-cha-cha, in a bill to tail conga, belly snaking through wavey grass. The ducks are on manoeuvres!
New Build
A pool of shiny anthracite, a tideline of cement bleeding into willowherb at the edges. Once meadow, now a fish rib of parking spaces. A coal tit appears, black capped and angry. Ter-chi, ter-chi, it’s me, it’s me, he calls, staking his claim to the outposts of hedgerow.
Bird Watching
A riptide of white tears across the sky, breaks up the monotony of oceanic blue. Common gulls, which circle wide then disappear. Still, I curse their tailwind for the frosted minutes lost. My buzzard dives unseen, its line a perfect plumb drop, easy as roadkill, frozen in memory.
Pigeon – published in Thumbnail Nature Journal, edited by Amanad Tuke, supported by London Wildlife Trust & the Arts Council
Mao Bird, Boy calls him because of the ubiquitous grey. Sheathed in a dull tin bodycom, he paces the driveway, scouting for scraps. A flying rat, Boy’s father says.
And then, a single wingbeat. Diving skyward, the sun ripples iridescent on his trout underbelly. Words disappear as he flies
