Catch A Falling Star: A Field In England

I did it. I didn't just teeter on the edge, then chicken out.

Sleepless, I looked to the night sky to find that the clouds had parted so I stood in my garden, head tilted back. December's Geminid meteor shower pitched a couple of shooting stars my way so I decided to pull on some thermals and drive to a suitable spot. 

I climbed a gate into a meadow I love, old pasture surrounded by hedges and oak tree sentinels that I'm drawn to in silhouette, at sunrise and sunset, in mist and fog and at night, blue and black and strong. The dark wrapped around me like a blanket. A few headlamps swept by, even at two thirty in the morning. 

Have you ever done this? Waited patiently for a meteor shower spectacular? The Geminids (4 - 17 December) are said to be particularly impressive, with traces of metals in asteroid debris producing white, yellow, green, red and blue showers. In the right conditions there's a chance of seeing over a hundred meteors an hour.

Um. Reader, from a corner of a field in England I saw one.

We need clearer skies, cold and sparkling. Try again with the Ursids, mid December to Christmas?

As we approach Winter solstice I crave light in any form. I find myself drawn to the Christmas lights down the road - despite being a nature girl and not really giving a fig for Christmas. Yesterday I came across a photo on Twitter that cheered me up. I have a negative niggle, worrying that the big festive illuminations laid on at places like Kew are bad for wildlife. From invertebrates to birds and bats surely wrapping trees in light can't be good? I don't know. But these  pied wagtails seem happy enough.

Photo by Jo Sinclair

Owl photo by Fabian Betto on Unsplash