Cliff Top Therapy
At the time of writing this first draft (before the editing, re-writing and inevitable procrastination), it is 21:35 on Friday 10th of July, and I am sat listening to the foxes yapping outside. The weather is balmy, and I woke up this morning to booming thunder and lighting shocking the day into action. As the lockdown stretches into its fourth month and is beginning to falter, I am bored.
The trivia of having enforced free time is beginning to wear off and my mental health has taken a knock. However, as always, the best remedy is to look to nature as a source of calmness. Being out in nature simultaneously allows me to escape everyday life, whilst also grounding me in it. I go walking and my mind is nowhere but rooted in the smells, sounds and sights of the natural world, and when I return home, my thoughts are slow and soothed enough to focus on everyday tasks. The best morning routine for me? Interact with the natural world first, and the human world second.
Today was no exception in demonstrating the soothing power of nature. I woke up feeling quite depressed, low in energy and motivation. I slept in this morning and I didn't been on my morning walk. I am an early bird and a creature of habit, so if my day hasn't started fresh and productive it effects me significantly. I hadn’t achieved much at all by 4:45pm and I was still feeling low, so I decided to go to the beach and walk along the bottom of the cliffs.
I am fortunate enough to live in a beautiful area on the south-east coast, where the White Cliffs of Dover stretch along the coastline. I've have been coming to this particular beach, Kingsdown, since I was a baby. I have fond memories of standing on the sea wall being sprayed by the crashing waves during storms, and hunting for cinnabar moths and six-spot burnets on summer evenings after school. From a conservation point of view, Kingsdown is home to many SSSIs and over the last 20 years I have seen how abundant this area is for nature.
Fledging Kestrels, Fulmars and Magical Moments
As I joined the cliff-bottom path this evening, I heard a loud screeching from above me, a kind of frantic alarm call. I looked up and saw a young kestrel perched on a small handle of chalk, making a somewhat pained sound. Then the bird was joined by another, perched 10 metres to its left. Although it sounded nothing short of terrible, it was actually an incredibly beautiful moment as kestrels have returned to the same crevice in the cliff face to nest for the past 5 years. These young kestrels had evidently just fledged, and I laughed as I imagined their cries could translate to "Oh no, this is too high! Mum come get me down! I don't like it, I'm serious, get me down!". More realistically, they were probably begging for a reward for their efforts. I looked up at the nesting hole, and caught it just in time to see the third chick take the plunge and land a short stretch from the nest on the rock face. It was truly magical and I felt so proud, strangely. The parent birds weren't far away and soon came in to deliver a rodent-shaped snack to the fledglings.
We have a strong population of fulmars here and it is always a treat to watch them fly out to sea in the evenings. The cacophony of fulmars, herring and black-headed gulls takes me back to beach days as a child. Living in Reading for uni makes it easy to forget the simple joy of the seaside, but the sound of gulls evokes so many joyful childhood summer memories as soon as I return home.
Diffused among the gulls and fulmars flew a flock of house martins, diving and swooping through the air. At the end of this path lies an ex-military area, with corroded concrete structures and pits of sand, in which I'd hunt for green, tarnished bullet casings when I was little. The house martins would stop temporarily on the sand to pick out insects, presumably, but would spend most of the time dashing about the air. I stood on the sea wall and became eye level with the birds as they cascaded past me to skim along the sea water. I find that sometimes when I'm surrounded by nature, I have moments when time slows down and everything feels a bit magical. As I stood on the wall I had solid ground below me on one side, and rocks and waves behind me on the other. I was stood isolated above and between land and sea, with my head in a flock of birds. I dizzied myself trying to focus on each bird, they were like little fairies or sprites as they moved sporadically past my head, chirruping. The house martins nest in small crannies along the cliffs, and I would have never noticed the tiny cradles built inside if I didn't watch the adult birds fly in periodically.
The cliffs also house a population of rock pipits. These tiny birds can be found sat on the walls or in the shrubs, and I am aware that we are quite lucky to have them here on the south-east coast. The rock pipits have a curious outline when they're sat on the wall with the sun behind them: stocky and with a noticeably more elongated bill than other pipits, which they use to feed on small invertebrates on the rocks. I didn't see many today, but it is worth noting that that they're here as they are a lovely little bird to see.
When I drove home I felt refreshed and completely grounded. Whatever circumstances got me in a bad mood were forgotten. How could I focus on that when I had just watched kestrels fledge, house martins dancing, gulls and fulmars swarming and the flowers bursting with insects? I know what makes me happy and I know that it puts everything else, every other human stress, out of my mind temporarily. Nature is my solace and it is the therapist I go to out-of-hours. As someone who has struggled with their mental health for years, I truly believe that taking yourself out to intentionally spend time observing the nature is the best piece of self-help and self-care possible.