#585: Access to the stones

A cross posting with my World of Music blog.

There are a few locations where the labours of people from prehistory can still be seen.

The idea of following the story of human impact on natural history is part of the draft specification and one would assume it might follow through into the next iteration of the specification as one of the particular aspects of the new qualification.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is apparently considering charging to access some of the more well known locations they manage, including the stones of Callanish / Callanais on the Isle of Harris/Lewis. I visited many years ago.

One programme which is behind the increased interest in the area is a time-travel fantasy called 'Outlander'. This has proved very popular.

Cruise ships can arrive at some of these fragile locations in large numbers, which adds additional pressures onto fragile environments.

This album was recorded by the New Zealand musician Jon Mark in 1988 and is named after the ring at Callanish.

And here's a slightly different stone-circle related song...

#572: Natural History Playlist #5: Hedgerow

A lovely song by the progressive rock band: Big Big Train.

The closing track on their 2012 album 'English Electric Part One' which really grew their audience.

Tell me do you know the song of the hedgerow?

I love the repeated refrain at the end of the song, and the brass bands tone...

Song thrush, yellowhammer
Lacewings, ladybirds
Fox earths, rabbit warrens
Badger's sets, partridge nests

Rose hips, haw berries
Hedgerow, dry stone
Dog rose, honeysuckle
Blackbirds, red wing

#528: Spotify playlist - growing nicely

When I first started the blog I created a Spotify playlist of songs linked to nature, and have added to it as time has gone on. There are now over 3 hours worth of songs and pieces of music.

Check it out.

#403: Pond sounds

This album came out last year, and I've just got round to finishing the blog post I started back then, as we pass 400 posts on the blog.

A new album out today showcases the rhythms of pond life.

Musician Tom Fisher, aka Action Pyramid, has teamed up with ecologist Dr Jack Greenhalgh for Mardle, which will appeal to curious nature lovers and those who enjoy unwinding to soundscapes 🐸🎶➡️ https://t.co/NM5NPLN5FG pic.twitter.com/jZmXLtkWFC

— University of Bristol (@BristolUni) October 24, 2023

#399: Natural History Playlist #4: 'Red Tide'

In Samantha's Harvey's Booker Prize winning 'Orbital' in one of many descriptions of the Earth from space, told in the most wonderful descriptive language, she describes the astronauts seeing the impact of humans on the planet.

‘Every swirling neon or red algal bloom in the polluted, warming, overfished Atlantic is crafted in large part by the hand of politics and human choices.'

'Red Tide' is a track from Rush's album 'Presto'. This album came out in 1989, and I bought it on release day of course. The lyrics are fairly clear in their meaning...

I saw the tour for this album as well, complete with giant inflatable rabbits on stage.

Lyrics are by Neil Peart

Music by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee.

Urgent action is needed:

Too late for debate, too bad to ignore
Quiet rebellion leads to open war
Bring a sea-change to the factory floor
As the red tide covers the shore

Now is the time to turn the tide
Now is the time to fight
Let us not go gently
To the endless winter night

Now is the time to make the time
While hope is still in sight
Let us not go gently
To the endless winter night

#379: Rock Pools

Tidal pools on wave cut platforms are a wonderful location for young people to encounter a variety of wildlife which is waiting... waiting for the tide to return usually.

They are windows into a marine world, where creatures are surviving or thriving, feeding, hunting and occupying their niche.

Adam Nicolson's book 'The Sea is not made of water' describes the time when British people became fascinated with such places, during the Victorian period in the 1850s. Philip Henry Gosse, who helped raise public interest in such places described them as 'unruffled wells' and reflected earlier calmer times. We still go to the seaside for peace and reflection.

The intertidal zone is an area which will hopefully receive some attention in the specification when it finally emerges.

Tidal pools would also make an excellent location for fieldwork for those near the sea, and to also practise identification using an appropriate key, and to consider the impact of daily inundations at high tide on these little ecosystems.

There's also a Rush song which references these locations called 'Natural Science', which is of course nicely connected with the theme of Natural History.

Image: Robin Hood's Bay - shared by Alan Parkinson on Flickr under CC license

#344: Jonsi turns to nature...

It's almost exactly 14 years since I went to Latitude festival with the Mission:Explore team. This followed an earlier visit to Glastonbury in the same year.

We were working in the children's area running our missions, entertaining young people amongst the festival goers with our subversive take on the festival and its surroundings. Once we'd finished our shift, we were free to enjoy the music. On the 2nd evening, I headed over to the tent where Jonsi from Sigur Ros was going to be performing that evening. I caught a set from American band Yeasayer who were excellent. I then noticed someone wandering in a familiar tasselled jacket and realised it was Jonsi, and had a brief conversation with him. It was just after the launch of his 'Go' album, which remains one of my favourites.

Later that evening he gave the most amazing performance in this tent, and I was up front as the music unfolded. 

For a taster, catch the track on this film here...

Jonsi's new album was announced recently...

It features a lot of natural sounds such as birdsong...

“Writing this music at a time of manmade global turmoil and unrest for a video game. I imagined First Light as a momentary fantastical, over-the-top, utopian world where everyone and everything lives together in everlasting peace and harmony. Choosing beauty over disorder, hope over fear, our universal divine angel guardians watching over us and connecting us all as one through love, melody, and music.”

Here's one track from the album, which is out at the end of August, and which I'm very much looking forward to:

#338: Natural History Playlist #3: 'Duinne'

The song Duinne by Mari Boine is sung in Sami, the language spoken by the Sami people, the indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The lyrics are about the connection between the land and the people who live on it. It describes the deep connection that the singer has with the land, and how it has shaped her identity. 

She sings about the mountains, the rivers, and the sky, and how they have influenced her life in many ways.

The meaning is explained here.

#248: Skye and The Cuillins

The Isle of Skye is a place which has a special place in my heart after repeated trips there in my 20s and 30s to climb and explore the island with friends.

Simon Ingram's book explores the key mountain range in the south of the island: the Black Cuillin Hills. it is available as a chunky paperback which looks rather fine on a shelf. The majority of the book is more about the geology and sense of place of the hills and their exploration by early climbers.

Chapter 12 is entitled 'Treasure'.

This chapter considers the natural history of the mountain range. It is well worth a listen if you have a chance. 

There's a few cultural references too, which I would try to bring in, including the poetry of Sorley MacLean and the music of the much-missed Martyn Bennett.

#244: National History Playlist #2: Secret Keeper

This song featuring the Royal Northern Sinfonia, was commissioned by Newcastle Gateshead Initiative for the Great Exhibition of the North in 2018.

It was accompanied by some visuals when the song was first shown on TV, and some drones as well.

The song's lyrics refer to a beech tree, into which a couple carve their initials (this is not to be encouraged of course). It grows, as does their relationship... as decades pass and a new couple appears at the tree. The tree has borne witness to plenty of change in the landscape, including the closure of the mines.

I have seen the skyline shift as I've grown older
Let the future be a gift as it grows bolder
My roots grow deeper, secret keeper

#187: i/o

I had the great good fortune to see Peter Gabriel once again playing live this summer - I think for the 7th or 8th time that I've seen him over the years. 

His forthcoming album is called i/O and there is a track on the album with the same name.

Gabriel says in the lyrics to the song:

So we think we really live apart

Because we’ve got two legs, a brain, and a heart

We all belong to everything
To the octopus suckers and the buzzard’s wing
To the elephant’s trunk and buzzing bee’s sting

Another track on the same theme is called Olive Tree.

This includes the following lines:

I’ve got thе cool breeze right on my skin
Bringing every cеll to life
Making all connections live
From one point to another
And we’re all here, just the same
Tryna' make some sense of it

The album as a whole is about how we are all part of something bigger.

Check out the visuals as well...

Image: Alan Parkinson, and shared under CC license

#134: Village Green Preservation Society

A guide to finding village greens on MAGiC maps. I've blogged about MAGiC maps before.

Village Greens are one of the entries in Common Ground's 'England in Particular' as well. They are an important element of rural life for many, and also a habitat for wildlife.

Many village greens are protected, as they are part of the landscape character of the area.

The Open Spaces Society protects village greens and similar open spaces.

My own village has a small village green which the local pub has appropriated with tables during good weather. There is a notice board and a few wooden posts to put vehicles off driving onto it. Other local villages have more substantial spaces.

Kate Rusby's version of the song was also the theme music for a comedy series called 'Jam and Jerusalem'.

 

I have a green in my village which is quite small, but is a nice protected space, with seats and a village notice board.

A local green might make an easy destination for a visit and bio-blitz... or to put up a sign inviting local wildlife experts to contact the school if they want to help the students identify their particular area of interest.

#89: GCSE Natural History Spotify playlist

One of the key aspects of the new specification is the promise of links to other types of cultural artefact: paintings, literature, poetry etc.

Many pieces of music are also connected with Natural History.

I have created a Spotify playlist of songs relating to nature, the landscape, the Earth and its systems, and our relationship with the environment. 

I will be adding to this as time goes on, and perhaps even producing additional sub-playlists depending on the final nature of the specification and the key themes that emerge.

If you have a Spotify account you can make your own version of a playlist for your own interest.

Also feel free to comment below by suggesting a song that you think could be added to the Spotify playlist.

#15: Natural History Playlist #1: The Cottager's Reply

This is a rather fine piece of music - one of many performed by the folk musician Chris Wood. The song was originally written as a poem by Frank Mansell.

It describes a farmer in the Cotswolds, who has a visitor from London who wants to buy his house, perhaps as a second home. Chris Wood updated the cost of the house from the original of course, which was written by Frank Mansell.

The lyrics are spot on for exploring the deep connections that people develop with a place when their family spends time there over the generations, but even then they are perhaps only temporary visitors when looking at the different temporal scales of geology, soil formation and conservation, changing animal species or the slow changes that take place as a result of geomorphological processes. 

It's also a reminder of how farmers have shaped the landscape of the country over generations of changes - whether it is by clearing stones and then using them to construct walls, or through their decisions on what to plant in particular fields, where to drain marshy areas, plant woodlands, rear game or remove species they fear may spread disease.

In one section, the lyrics describe the links with the local wildlife, which is in some ways independent of the work of humans, but very much influenced by these decisions when they impact on habitat and food and water supply.

And at dusk the badger travels still

Ancestral highways on the hill.

I am as Cotswold bred as these

And I still need these field and trees,

And I need the soil that bore my race

And holds their bones beneath this place.

Cynefin is a related term here.

It is something which I have written about and used with my own students, and which is also part of the work of the GA's Welsh Special Interest Group.

It is also potentially being lost according to this research paper.

I have also made a Spotify playlist for GCSE Natural History, to which I will add other related songs as the blog grows and relevant music reveals itself, or I am reminded of it. There are a few songs already. The Chris Wood version of the Cottager's reply is not available, but there is a version on there by Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith instead.

Visit the Spotify playlist here.

If you have a suggestion for a song that could be added to the list, please feel free to let me know - it's not currently opened for others to add songs, but will be once the specification is out and preparations are a bit further down the line.