Hirundine Dell

Sometimes there is a place which we pass by frequently and take little notice, we see it so often that it just becomes, quite literally, part of the scenery and we walk right by and notice nothing except maybe the changing of the seasons, the golden tone of the Oak, the splash of purple Honesty flowers beside the gate. Perhaps sometimes it would be good to stop a while and look and maybe wonder what things have happened here before. There is such a place on one of our regular walks and we have often done just that, beside an old pit, now forming a little overgrown dell, we pause and linger a while as the low evening sun touches a patch of rust through the nettles, listen to the Chiffchaff who unfailingly calls from the willow each March, watch the Honesty pennies dance in the breeze and wonder what tales the old Oak could tell. With the coming of the railways and the need for bricks to build bridges and tunnels along the Downs towards the sea, small local brick works appeared along the route, digging out shallow pits to obtain the useful sand that lay at the foot of the chalk hills. This little dell where we pause was one such pit, close to the old Dairy, just across the yard from where once two farm ponds were, long since overgrown and dry. It has become the corner which every farm seems to have, the 'retirement home' for old tyres, broken mangers and troughs and pieces of out-of-date machinery. A sad place you might think, as you pass on by, but not so, with its dappled shade and un-managed environment it has become a haven for all the cheeky 'weeds' expelled from the neat fields, proud purple Honesty, Forget-me-nots, Parsley and wild Daffs, a place where Wrens play hide-n-seek and Robins build their nests, where a passing Fox lays secluded but ever watchful during daylight hours and maybe a family of Weasels make an assault course amongst the tyres. A peaceful, quiet place watched over by the yellow eyes of the Little Owl in the lone pine tree.

As April slips in and May hovers in the wings with the promise of white bows of Hawthorn blossom above wayside campions and parsley our eyes, on sunny days, search the blue sky, waiting for the first sight of returning Hirundine – those far travelled silhouettes of Swallows, House and Sand Martins, and the last to arrive, the sky scything Swifts. It was on one such day, as we strolled the farm path admiring the fast-appearing trackside flowers, the climbing Purple Vetch clutching at the hedgerow for support, the golden Buttercups and shaggy lions heads that we came across our farming neighbour Peter. Leaning against a farm a field gate, winter tweeds abandoned for rolled up shirt sleeves, he stood accessing the state of the grazing and turned to nod a good morning, and we stopped to chat. Had we heard the Cuckoo yet he enquired; he had heard it earlier that morning. As we chatted our attention was drawn to a small flock of birds that came to rest on the overhead wire above us. A mixed bunch of returning Swallows and Martins that raised a smile on all our faces, but looking amongst the we spied a couple of brown Sand Martins. Peter was surprised and told us of childhood memories, back when he was a boy and how when the now mixed stock farm had been a working dairy, a time before the ponds had grown over and dried, when the little ‘dell’ opposite was still an open area with a high sand bank where the Victorian brickmakers had formed a dug out. Peter could remember how each spring the Sand Martins would return to nest in their dug-out tunnels in the hard bank and swoop across the farm ponds catching the insects to feed their young.

Recently, as we passed by this quiet corner, our attention was caught by, passing overhead, a group of Hirundine, Sand Martins, who paused upon the wire to rest, on their journey to some watery dell to nest beside a sand bank. We wonder if they, like us, had stopped to think of ancestors who raised their young here in times gone by? We passed by this place again today, now we always slow our step and looked, the air was filled with bird song, this happy place of dappled shade with its secret memories of which only the trees could tell and only those who stop to look might see the shadowy flock and hear the whisper of brown and white wings of the Hirundine.

Words and pictures by Artist and Druid © 2023 unless otherwise indicated.