Wondrous confusion

I’ve just returned from a further spell of 12 days at Dungeness in Kent, making use of the facilities offered by Dungeness Bird Observatory (DBO). Once again this magical shingle kingdom bestowed upon me a trip that was full of highlights - further posts will cover the birds, invertebrates and detail one very long walk that was undertaken in the heat - but this post will concentrate on the emotions that were stirred during this late-May period, owing to a mixture of feeling the spirit of the Ness, interacting with the people who populated it and the sheer wonder of being able to walk across the shingle - at different times of day - and feel blessed to be part of something so huge that could inexplicably and suddenly collapse into something so small and personal. I cannot put my finger on it, and in some respects am glad that I can’t, but there are special forces - benign powers - that govern this corner of Kent.

The overriding theme of this stay was of heat. Rarely have I felt so hot in my 50 years of visiting Dungeness. The lack of a cooling breeze goes some way to explain the temperature’s potency, the heat reflecting off of the shingle another. 28C in the shade is very unusual on the beach, a figure that happened to be glanced at on a thermometer one afternoon that was probably not the highest temperature reached in the period. It was enough to quieten down the butterflies into inactivity, to see a multitude of white legs on show with the donning of shorts and to slap on the ‘factor 30’. The vegetation, already suffering from a dry and cold spring, was crisped with flowering at a premium. Underfoot the desicated Cladonia lichen became a crunching and powdered carpet (pictured below).

Dungeness is at its most beautiful and spiritual at dawn and dusk. The start of the day is pregnant with hope and its end one of reflection (also sprinkled with some expectation for the following day). A sunrise, or sunset, will colour the sky with unbelievable strokes of golds, reds, purples and greens. The background blue is intensified with indigo and violet. Quite often you are alone at these extremities of the daylight and are made to feel as if this light and colour show is for you and you alone. Cloud formations are outlined, piled up or gently spread across the firmament. The waking of the day, or dying of it, is palpable. You want to bottle it and keep it - but to do so would lessen its effect - so when it comes it does so unbidden, it cannot be ordered and each and every time it is witnessed it is utterly unique. Embrace it when it comes along and take it all in.

I will seek out those paths less travelled, the far reaches of the beach that see little footfall. It is here that it is easy to commune with Mother Dungeness. The flat ground allows miles of uninterrupted view, the unhindered sky vast and heavy above you, pushing down and yet lifting you up at the same time. Such wondrous confusion. Hollows can be heavily grassed or home to a lichen assemblage. Prostrate Broom and Blackthorn. Stands of Gorse fragrance the air with coconut. The highly localised Nottingham Catchfly in nodding drifts. Stand and stare. Sit and contemplate. Do not hurry!

Apart from the cast of warmly welcoming residents there was an eclectic mix of fellow DBO guests. A tarot-reading gardener who has fallen head-over-heels in love with Dungeness; an enthusiastic RSPB employee on sabbatical who embraces all and everything with an innocent wonder, acting as a Mother hen to us gathered chaps (even though two of us are old enough to be her father); a camper van adventurer who always finds his way back to DBO - a travelling homing pigeon; an ecological PHD student who, willingly, gave up his time to show me the mysteries and skills behind studying lichen. We have our own relationships with this place, from first-time visitors to those who have been coming back for years. But we almost invariably do come back. Is it something in the air? In the stones? Or the organisms that populate and visit it? My guess is that it is all three.