#686: Spell Songs - In Thin Air

A new offering connected with the work of Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane. Their latest book is 'The Book of Birds' and this is a musical companion piece.

Spell Songs’ third studio album: In Thin Air, forms a musical companion piece to Robert and Jackie’s book The Book of Birds - a book that is a love letter to the splendours and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the loss of birds from land, sea and sky.

The music was created within the contemplative green oak roundhouse of Ty Sanctaidd (Sacred House) in the grounds of Ty Trefacwn in South West Wales, and recorded at Castle Sound Studio in Pencaitland, East Lothian. As with our other albums In Thin Air has been recorded and produced by Andy Bell of Hudson Records.

Throughout The Book of Birds there runs a gentle mantra – “Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight, Migration — these are the Seven Wonders that together conjure the miracle of Bird”. 

Intrigued by this concept, the seven musicians have created an intricate new album that has an overarching narrative, capturing the remarkable world of birds from birth to flight.

In Thin Air was released into the wild on 4th September 2026 

#685: TES piece on the consultation on proposed subject content

This TES piece includes some elements of the responses to the  consultation on the proposed subject content of the new GCSE Natural History from the RGS and the GA.

These include concerns over the shortage of teachers who might teach the new specification, and the fieldwork elements of the course. The fieldwork may be difficult for some schools due to their location, but may also adversely affect the habitats that students are being asked to investigate.

#684: Westacre Estate

BBC's Countryfile yesterday came from the Westacre Estate. It sits in the Nar valley in West Norfolk, just a few miles from where I live. The River Nar is a chalk stream and flows within a few hundred metres of my house.

On iPlayer.

The estate manages 8500 acres in a large block, running up towards Gayton near King's Lynn. 

A walking map is also available.

The website provides details on their activity.

Henry Birkbeck - used the estate for shooting and with farming and agriculture over one hundred years ago. Alex Birkbeck showed the presenters around the estate. He is the estate Manager. He took over when he was about thirty.

The main house was sold off (to Anthony Gormley) in 2010.

Rewilding efforts are taking place in the wet woodland areas of the estate. The drought affected this activity. There are lots of ponds on the estate (over 250) which help with water management and the biodiversity of the estate, particularly invertrebrates and amphibians.

Plants are left to grow on the south side of the pond to create shade for the pond during the summer months.

The estate runs a permanent glamping and festival site within the woods near the village of West Acre.

I have visited that in the past for a birthday party and it's a great venue with fire pit, and space for food and also music.

The estate runs a pub in West Acre called The Stag.

Eggs are also produced on the estate - the wild eggs mentioned on the website. Poultry are kept, and free range turkeys and outdoor geese, along with some pigs. These are run by tenants, who hire the land off the estate. This is a good way of increasing activity without additional cost.

Straw is given free of charge to the tenants, which then comes back to the estate as manure and is put onto the arable fields. A bale of straw can cost £40-50. There are limits to how much chicken manure can be put on the fields to avoid eutrophification through high nitrogen levels in the manure. This is then used on fields where oil seed rape has been drilled for the following year. This saves on purchasing fertiliser, the price of which has gone up. There is also the rent from the tenants to add an income.

The Estate has a range of tenants who run a variety of businesses. They include bike hire, and some self catering accommodation.

There is also a brewery - Duration. This is one of my favourite breweries and they have a great range of beers, plus a tap room and sales counter. On a hot day, sitting outside the old barn with a cold beer is very pleasant.

Waste grain from the brewing process is collected and used to feed wagyu beef cattle and pigs at local farms.

The cows are subsequently turned into meat, some of which is then sold as an ingredient in the pies at the brewery's events. This helps to create a more 'circular' flow of resources.

Beer is sold to local pubs - about 60% stays in county, but I have found it in London and further afield in cans.

The brewery puts on events most weekends in the summer, with food trucks providing additional food without the brewery needing their own kitchen.

The owners try to position it as a destination brewery. It has to draw people to it as it is in a rural area.

Blueberries were described as the 'biggest gamble'. A field was planted six years ago. 

Only 8% of the blueberries eaten in the UK are grown here. The estate has invested in an autonomous, solar powered harvester. Properties were sold off to pay for this. The blueberries are put into a gin made locally too, by WhataHoot distillery.

The machine costs two years' worth of labour costs, but these are the biggest cost and will increase over time. It cost over £200 000.

They also grow chick peas.

The estate has two reservoirs... they are apparently down to 5% capacity. 

They also have polytunnels to rear trees from local seeds for rewilding.

"It decreases the carbon footprint, prevents non-native invasion, provides certified healthy trees and promotes the maintenance and restoration of native woodlands."

The ownership of the land on the estate has been explored on the Who owns Norfolk website. 

This also mentions Olly Birkbeck, who owns the 2,300 acre Little Massingham Estate, just a short 10 minute drive from West Acre. 

There is plenty more information on this part of Norfolk on the site.

To explore the estate why not walk the West Acre Way, developed for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

The GCSE Natural History will probably ask for a study of an area to look at rewilding and sustainability efforts, and there are some good elements of that in this area.

They also organise occasional walks and visits to the estate. Keep an eye out for those if you are in the local area.

#683: Hintze Hall's Hidden Art

One of the most likely places for teachers (particularly in London) to take students for the GCSE Natural History course will be the Natural History Museum. 

I've blogged about it before and will do again numerous times I imagine.

Google has an Arts and Culture section. It is well worth exploring.

The main room in the museum is the Hintze Hall. This was previously home to 'Dippy the dinosaur' between 1905 and 2017 (if you want to see him, he's currently - at the time of blogging - in Coventry).

It is currently home to Hope, the Blue Whale.

Beyond the whale though is the amazing ceiling. The site explains its depiction of natural history and there is a hugely detailed photo that can be explored.

The soaring vault is a golden cover for a spectacular natural treasure trove, adorned with 162 illustrated panels showing plants from across the world.
A gleaming canopy has been created with paintings set against wood, glass and metal, fashioning a roof that complements the splendour of the specimens below.

Each panel tells a story - of emerging and fallen empires, prosperity and slavery, and explorers pushing the boundaries of the known world.

Alfred Waterhouse, who designed the Museum, almost certainly dreamt up the ceiling's concept and probably sketched the original designs.

Scroll down to find out a lot more about the ceiling.

Here's a picture of mine from 2014.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.

#682: Robert MacFarlane giving this year's BBC Reith Lectures

Robert MacFarlane shared earlier today that he will be giving the BBC's Reith Lectures for this year. This BBC piece provides more details.

Each lecture will take one of the four classical elements as its focus:

• The first lecture, Earth: The Ladder and the Web, traces the rise and consolidation of the ‘human superiority complex’ –– the belief we are perched atop a ladder of life, rather than entangled in a web –– beginning with one of the earliest works of world literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh.
• The second lecture, Air: The Great Thinning, uses birds to examine some of the consequences of human exceptionalism, and shows how recent scientific breakthroughs are disclosing the superpowers of other life-forms, thereby challenging the paradigm of our uniqueness.
• The third lecture, Fire: Deep-Time Thinking, argues for ‘deep-time’ perspectives in both our politics and our story-telling, such that we can become better ancestors to future generations.
• The final lecture, Water: The Geography of Hope, takes rivers and water as its focus, exploring some of the extraordinary ways in which law and democratic structures are being radically re-imagined in order to give voices, votes and even rights to rivers, oceans, whales and mountains.

An archive of previous lectures can be seen here.

At a time of ecological crisis, extreme weather events and a rapidly heating climate, Robert Macfarlane’s Reith Lectures will examine what is in his view one of the most consequential stories humans tell themselves: that our species stands above and apart from the rest of nature.

Throughout the series, titled The Human Superiority Complex, Macfarlane will argue that this belief has become deeply rooted in Western thought, and has helped bring the planet to the brink of catastrophe.

Drawing on inspiring examples from around the world, the four lectures will also highlight the scientists, artists, activists, lawmakers and communities who are challenging this worldview and opening the possibility of different, more just futures for life on Earth.

One of our most influential writers on landscape, language and the living world, Macfarlane brings more than two decades of acclaimed work to the lectures. A bestselling author, his books have reached readers around the world, while his collaborations across art, film, music and performance connect ideas from literature, science, culture and public life.

The 2026 lectures will be recorded in front of live audiences in London, Bangor, Aberdeen and Amsterdam. They will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service later this year and will be available to listen to on BBC Sounds.

Audiences can apply for free tickets to the recordings from late September, via the BBC website. I’ll try and let you know when they become available.

#681: North Norfolk Landscape and Literature Festival

This has all the makings of a superb weekend. I'm going to attend a few of the events all being well. 

It's been running for a few years now.

The Festival features a whole range of events broadly on the theme of landscape, connected to North Norfolk. This includes art, literature, and field events.

They mostly take place in and around the Norfolk town of Wells next the Sea, including some boat trips on the marshes and a few events outside of the town.

Here's some of the events on Saturday 

There is an exhibition of paintings including some from one of my favourite contemporary artists: Fred Ingrams, who frequently paints in the Fens. I have the catalogue of one of his exhibitions of Fenland paintings which has a great introduction and description of the landscape from Jonathan Meades.

“There’s a real experience behind each of my paintings. They say I have stood in this landscape, been bitten alive by midges, drenched by massive storm clouds. You can’t fake it.”

Fred’s work connects him with the deep history of the landscapes he paints – the strange stories and myths of places that exist on the outside of a world beyond the horizon. 

Spending time in these fragile ecosystems he also sees how threatened they are – by natural processes or well-meant schemes, from crumbling coastlines to drainage to conifer plantations to massive wind farms encroaching into a pristine wilderness.

There are some excellent additional trips running:

• several boat trips through the marshes
• a tour of Holkham Estate including some of the management of the different landscapes that it has 
• exhibitions and poetry

#680: Young people's disconnection from nature

One via my Google Alert for 'GCSE Natural History'.

It's from the Falmouth Packet.

It quotes from a Lost Gardens of Heligan survey of 1000 children aged 11-14, which says that:

• More than half of them had never climbed a tree.
• 60% had never collected conkers
• 70% had never made a daisy chain.

The interesting bit is that 75% of young people want to take the proposed Natural History GCSE – and they want real, practical experience. They are calling for hands-on fieldwork, habitat restoration and practical tools to respond to climate change.

I hunted out the original survey.

Interestingly the Lost Gardens of Heligan has shared the response they made for the consultation, which is now closed.

Lost Gardens of Heligan have submitted a consultation response calling on the Department for Education to name the qualification GCSE Natural Futures, rather than Natural History.

The name matters. 'History' signals fossils and museums; 'Futures' reflects the living planet, environmental stewardship and the critical role this generation will play in protecting it.

The full response can be read here.

The research was conducted online by Walr on behalf of The Lost Gardens of Heligan among 1,004 matched parent-child pairs in England. All participating adults were parents or legal guardians of at least one child aged 11 to 14. Parents and children answered separate sections of the questionnaire, with some questions asked of both audiences to allow comparison.

The sample included respondents from every English region. Fieldwork was conducted in August 2026. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and may not total 100%. For multiple-choice questions, respondents could select more than one answer. The executive summary and underlying data tables are available on request.

#679: Tell us about your local FSC centre...

The nearest Field Studies Council Centre to me is Flatford Mill in Suffolk.

I've visited quite a few times over the years, and have also visited quite a few centres including Juniper Hall, Slapton Ley, Malham Tarn, Preston Montford (including for a job interview at the FSC many years back - I was unsuccessful) and the centre in East London ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

The area is linked with the famous painting 'The Haywain'.

Here's the area in 1935.

 

Here's a list of the Field Studies Council centres.

12 of them are residential centres.

And some videos of each one here.

Do you have a Natural History fieldwork recommendation?

Tell us about your local or favourite FSC centre?

If you were to be offering GCSE Natural History which ones would you expect to visit?

#678: RGS School Member Lecture

School Membership of the RGS is just £50 a year now... half price from where it was last year.

It provides a range of benefits for schools, including digital access to a new magazine called 'Geography Today'.

One of the benefits is free access to RGS School Member Lectures.

This one in November looks like being of particular value for those preparing for GCSE Natural History.

In this talk Professor Gemma Harvey will share insights from projects on rewilding, restoration and natural flood management to explore how working with natural processes can support nature recovery and the delivery of ecosystem services including the mitigation of floods and droughts. Such approaches are necessary to drive transformative change in societal responses to climate change and biodiversity loss.

Working with natural processes to reduce environmental harm and drive nature recovery are essential to responses to the interconnected emergencies of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

Biological energy influences Earth surface processes because many species are ‘ecosystem engineers’, capable of transforming habitats and modulating ecosystem resource flows. Such interactions between life and landscapes influence environmental restoration, resilience and hazards.

Research has demonstrated how trees and plants can assist the geomorphic and ecological recovery of degraded rivers and revealed that the contribution animals make to shaping the Earth’s surface is far more significant than historically recognised.


Gemma Harvey is Professor of Physical Geography at Queen Mary University of London. Her research explores feedbacks between plants and animals and Earth surface processes, and how these influence landscape restoration and management.