From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….Sound In Taversoe Tuick…….From ‘Wild Justice’….
by Bernie Bell - 09:10 on 31 January 2024
From ‘Emergence’ Magazine…
by Henry Davis
“A distinct and ephemeral culture started to spontaneously emerge … one that dissolved almost as quickly as it had materialized, and that could only be captured by becoming a part of it.”
“Purple martins, iridescent members of the swallow family, make an annual five-thousand-mile journey from southern Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina to their breeding grounds in the northeastern United States and back. They gather in enormous roosts along the way, flying in astonishing swooping and swirling patterns, in groups so large and dense they appear on weather radar.
Stumbling across thousands of purple martins circling above a strip mall parking lot in his neighborhood in Austin, Texas, filmmaker Henry Davis was struck by the apparent incongruence of the birds’ intricate patterning with the shopping center’s monuments to modernity, commerce, and excess. Henry returned with his camera over the following week, joining the patchworked community—shoppers, employees, passersby, and avid birdwatchers alike—who gathered to bear witness to the birds’ spellbinding presence. The resulting film, premiering online this week, is a mosaic of funny, sorrowful, and contemplative moments: a fleeting convergence that reveals the deeper entwinement of everyday human life with the creatures who inhabit the Earth alongside us.
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Sound in Taversoe Tuick….
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/taversoe-tuick-bronze-age-reuse/
My previous musings on Taversoe Tuick - including the ’enigmatic third chamber’…..
“Taversoe Tuick is a strange, unique, intriguing little place. The cairn itself is a little gem. Getting to it was very difficult. The land around it was totally ‘poached’ - presumably by cattle. It was a matter of leaping from tussock-to-tussock. This was OK for Mike and I, as we were relatively young and reasonably fit-ish! For anyone less agile it would have been impossible. Ben-The-Dog just saw it as some kind of obstacle course, climbing up and down among the pot-holes and tussocks, and no doubt wishing he had longer legs!
Back to the cairn. It’s built on two ‘stories’, which is un-usual. It also has an off-shoot – an extra little chamber, lying just outside the main cairn. This is an intriguing little ‘cell’. I wondered was it for some kind of rite-of-passage, or initiation? - place someone in there, for maybe a few days, and they’d come out crazy, clear-headed, or both! Other cultures, even very modern societies today, have isolation tanks. The idea, as far as I can gather, is to cut off all external stimuli so that the person……goes inside them-self, to their inner world, to ……………….meet them-self. Maybe a similar idea, here? Initiation, through isolation.
We recently attended a seminar at Orkney College, where Julie Gibson ( County Archaeologist) mentioned that there is a small ‘channel’ linking this side-cell to the main cairn. If noises (!) are made in the side-cell they can be heard in the main cairn. Is this part of the function of the side-cell? Changing states of consciousness? It’s a small cell, so you’d have to be a small person to fit in it, or a young person – a teenager?
All very interesting.”
Sigurd mentions Aaron Watson’s observations on the use of sound in Taversoe Tuick.
Not Taversoe Tuick - the Grey Cairns of Camster – but similar ideas....
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/03/31/something-about-sound/
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From ‘Wild Justice’….
Including a surprising amount about football!.....
“Thank you!: we have heard from Birdwatch magazine that Wild Justice was voted its conservation hero of 2023 with over half of the votes cast.
And well done to the other winners and short-listed individuals and organisations. A big shout-out to Hannah Bourne-Taylor who won the Campaign of the Year award.
We think it was right that the UK government won the 'Guano Award for Environmental Harm' for a year packed with environmental failure and broken promises which got them 73% of the votes. We doubt that Rishi Sunak or Steve Barclay (Defra) is a reader of Birdwatch magazine but maybe you could tell your MP, anywhere in the UK, that our government has 'won' this award of shame.
Talking of writing to your MP...: it never does any harm to write to your MP although we can hear many of you saying that it doesn't do much good either. Well, we think that it does do some good, and particularly in an election year. The trouble is not enough people do it. If every reader of this newsletter wrote to their MP (and representatives in national parliaments) then each MP would get around 50 messages. That would certainly make an impact as every MP asked for a briefing so that they could respond (you don't think MPs know the answers to all the letters they are sent do you?). Why not give it a go? Here is how to find your MP's email address - click here - and here is a recent letter that Mark Avery wrote to his MP - click here - but you can probably do much better.
Our legal challenge of licensing gamebird releases: we can't say much about this but things are moving and we are very glad that we started this challenge of the lawfulness of Defra's licensing. When we can tell you more, then we will.
Helping others - calling all Arsenal fans!: Well, not just Arsenal fans because we know a lot of Spurs fans are concerned about the plans of their football club and Enfield Council to allow the development of a large area of public greenspace with wildlife value.
We know what it's like to take on big interest groups and we admire the growing number of individuals and small groups who are taking this route to challenge decisions of public bodies. Sean Wilkinson has already leapt over the first hurdle - that of getting permission to go to court. We've sometimes fallen at this hurdle (and felt bruised when we did) but there is a long way to go, and lots of work after this stage.
We note that the judge allowing the case to proceed said "The Claimant has raised arguable grounds which merit consideration at a full hearing." which shows that this challenge is a winnable one.
We were surprised to see that Enfield Council and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club are challenging the decision of the judge to allow capping of the costs that could be awarded against the claimant if his challenge is unsuccessful. The Aarhus Convention (it's a place in Denmark, and nothing to do with the EU by the way) suggests that such cost-capping is appropriate for environmental challenges because the claimant is acting for the public good and not for personal gain, so we are a bit surprised to see such a challenge.
Yesterday, Wild Justice topped up the crowdfunder on CrowdJustice by over £1000 to bring the total to over £20,000. Maybe you feel that you'd like to chip in too, whether you support a north London football club or really don't give a fig about football - click here. Thank you.
Helping others - calling all owl fans!: no, this isn't related to Sheffield Wednesday, the owls who need your help are Short-eared Owls. Our friends in Raptor Aid are raising money for satellite tagging Short-eared Owls by some other friends of ours, the Northern England Raptor Forum. Short-eared Owls often nest on grouse moors where they are too often persecuted, illegally, because they eat a few grouse chicks and may disturb nesting Red Grouse.
The plan is to fit satellite tags to some birds and learn more about their needs and movements. Similar work has shown that Shorties move over very long distances, crossing continents, but there is much more to be discovered about how they live and what dangers they face. Wild Justice has contributed £1000 to this crowdfunder - click here - and maybe you will feel motivated to chip in too. Thank you.
An e-action in Scotland: several years ago, there was a proposal to destroy part of the wildlife-rich and protected sand dune area of Coul Links way up in northeast Scotland - north of Dornoch - for yet another golf course. But the developers are back again with another similar plan. They have the money and resources to keep applying and the trouble is that they only need to win once for the site, which holds rare plants and insects, to be lost for ever. This site has a species, Fonseca's Seed Fly, that is only found in this small area of Scotland.
In 2020 Scottish ministers, rightly we believe, turned down the application and we hope that they will do so again. But action is better than hope and so we are asking you to respond in great numbers to this e-action, especially if you have a Scottish address, but in any case - click here. Thank you!
Lead in game meat: we have led the way in testing lead levels in game meat on sale in supermarkets. We have collected a large number of samples this season and they have been sent off for analysis. We bought game meat from Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and some less well-known brands as well as control samples of pork and chicken. It will be some time until the results of analysis are available but we'll let you know the results soon after we get them.
That's it for now!
Thank you,
Wild Justice (Directors: Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay).
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