A full version of this article appears in the magazine.

 

Shit. Collared dove shit, to be precise. It sticks like glue. Last Friday evening I was on my hands and knees trying to remove the stuff from a slate area, underneath a pergola. On the day following, underneath this structure, a small chamber orchestra would be entertaining a select group of folk at the opening of a new peace garden at the Anglican Chaplaincy in Bangor. The aim was a clean slate, and no mishaps on the day.

 

The reason I bring the subject up is that I was trying to do this job in an eco-friendly manner. No horrible chemicals in this garden, thank you. Kneeling and scraping and scrubbing for a good hour, I was able to contemplate the nature of things, or more precisely the things of nature. For instance, why was it that, after twenty years in the business of managing nature, I was scraping shit off a slate? I looked up and saw the collared dove winking at me. How do you create a poo-free seating area under a tree that doesn’t involve either erecting corrugated plastic sheeting or shooting the offender? And how do you get rid of the amazingly sticky black residue in a responsible manner? Answers on a postcard, please.

 

Now back in the days when I had hair, I used to tear around the nature reserves of north Wales; hacking a willow on the reed beds and marshes, hurling herbicide at nasty invasive plants, shifting stone after stone to make footpaths in the mountains. Exhausting stuff. Aiming to make life easier and going back to my suburban roots, I now build gardens, but try to take the sense of the countryside to the ‘shelters between walls’, as R. S. Thomas put it in The Untamed. I don’t work such long hours these days either.

 

To be able to find those moments of awe and wonder at nature, whether in a garden or in the wilds, takes time. It is not always necessary to travel far, either. Sure, the sight of a sperm whale diving deep off the coast of New Zealand in February was pretty jaw-dropping. The arctic wastes of north Norway on skis were amazing too; but a recent walk along the Menai Strait was just as exciting, and I didn’t have to produce quite so much carbon dioxide to get there. I had decided, on that cold March day, to take the afternoon off to go mountain biking.

 

As bike time approached, a cloud of lethargy came over me and by early afternoon I was ambling along the shingle and sand on the shore of the Menai Strait with my mate Ollie – much less exhausting. We were turning over rocks and poking in the rock pools like a couple of kids. Butterfish and crabs turned up, the usual stuff, and we were careful to put the rocks back in place. Ollie was attempting to move a large boulder, but my skilled eye saw that he was fighting gravity, getting nowhere. We found the point of balance, and the boulder rolled away easily. What followed was one of those moments of awe and amazement. Like seeing a barn owl at dusk, or a golden eagle above a remote Scottish glen.

 

In the shallow pool of water we had exposed lay an octopus. I didn’t even realise there were such things in these waters. We were transfixed, just staring for a while. I guess the creature thought it was about to become someone’s dinner, and it raised itself on its tentacles, flaring its vents to scare us off. At this point it fell on its back, showing off a creamy underbelly, the most amazing eyes and two neat rows of suckers on each of its eight tentacles. We must have watched this creature a good twenty minutes as it found its way back to the safely of deeper water. Once in its natural environment, it glided gently away. We carried on the walk through the Nant Porth reserve, where the violets and primroses flower amongst the debris of what was once a Council tip. What a great afternoon.

 

Incidentally, none of the musicians at the Chaplaincy became a target for that collared dove, but any suggestions for how to discourage it would be gratefully received.

 

Martin Barritt runs a landscaping business. After a career in countryside management and a spell writing a column on the great outdoors for the Daily Post, he currently spends as much time as possible walking, cycling and enjoying the countryside.