I’ve been going round and round as to whether I should post something like this on Stripy Tapir. I know for the most part this blog coasts along fairly independently of current events, but these are unprecedented times, and carrying on as if nothing as changed while the world has been turned upside down didn’t feel right, to say the least.
I’m writing this from our small garden-less flat in Norwich, one week into self-isolation. It’s been seven days of oscillating between wildly opposing feelings – gratitude, fear, frustration, hope. Guilt at knowing that whatever I’m experiencing at the minute is dwarfed by the worry and pain that others are going through. It feels like we’re standing on the edge of a cliff, but despite everything we do the push that will take us over the precipice is inevitably drawing closer.
After a week of continuously terror-scrolling, however, I’ve reached the point where I need to consciously limit the amount of news I read- staying informed, but not letting the live updates consume every waking moment. Blogging has always been something mindful for me, so I’m going to continue to post from the archives, but please know that this isn’t out of a sense of wanting to pretend that everything’s OK. Patience and calm make a good naturalist, and as much as possible I’m going to try to make these words to live by over the next few months. The places that I post about will wait for me, and what I want above all is to believe we can get back.
In that vein, the pictures on this post are from last summer’s seabird surveying in Orkney. The first one was entered into a competition last year, and next month’s picture on the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s calendar. It’s called This Year’s Hope.
