Light-Foot/Honey Paw,

the hunter home from the hill sings

of an old man, uncle of the woods.

Finnish Lapland. May ’18.

This in early July, (fittingly enough on Independence Day) was the last kites nest that I climbed to this year. The chick, by now full grown, glared at me, launched itself out of the nest, and flew off to sky dance and dream whatever it is that kites dream, if dream they do.

I’d been out for a quick hunt for a big rare bird. No sign of it but they are there and it is perfect habitat. On the way home I went looking for another bird. Hawfinch. There are some huge and unprecedented flocks kicking around the North Downs at present, driven here by the failure of the Beech mast crop in Central Europe and the cold spell. I was following up a couple of sightings which were along the Yew belt on the downs. Hawfinch feed on the Yew and recent sightings have been thickest where there is Yew. So here I was, when I found an old tree with thick limbs down to the ground, so up I went laddering my way up, heading out of the crepuscular gloom of the base towards the sunlight canopy. Near the top I found this nest, just out of safe reach, at least without a rope. I was tempted to make the move but having ripped my trousers to the crotch on the way up I was wary of being found dying at the base of a tree in a state of deshabille ( my underpants). No bird is worth that public shame.  And what connects Lucy (who was named in the Summer of Love after a famous song, itself named after an infamous fungus derivative), GBS and Rod Hull ? They all had a bad fall and no horses, kingsmen or anyone could put them together again.

Three Bows for Peter Matthiessen

One for the writer
One for the dharma teacher
One for the activist.
Landed on the other shore.
His work will survive, not least for The Snow Leopard, a luminous meditation on the Himalaya, but also for his devotion to Native American causes (In the Spirit of Crazy Horse & Indian Country are brilliant angry books), and to Buddhism, documented in Nine Headed Dragon River). The lawsuits over In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, stalled publication but kept the name of the political prisoner/Sioux activist, Leonard Peltier current.
I once saw Matthiessen describe the death of George Armstrong Custer as ‘possibly the most richly deserved death in American history’.

He’s an extraordinary figure, of whom it should be said of nearly every extraordinary, countercultural, adventurous journey that he did it first and he did it best.

A fuller piece is forthcoming.

We are now running the project in 2015 and are offering the chance to join us in the rainforest. More details here. http://www.onetreeinabillion.com/join-us/

Photo by esteemed One Tree colleague, Tom Ambrose.

Now that’s a subject really worth an elegy; ‘if thou beest that; But O how fall’n! how chang’d’.

Thanks very much Martin. The photograph below is by my One Tree colleague and partner in crime , Tom Ambrose. I love the Lost World feel to it.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1164221067/one-tree-in-a-billion

I’ll be posting updates here and on the fundraising page. Minimum investment is £1. If you have £2999 more and want to come out to work with the team in the Amazon rainforest including getting up into the canopy then get in touch. There is a range of other offers available, but we need your support to make the project happen.

What might this mean in terms of how we live on the planet ?

A recent press release from Panthera ( a charity that campaigns for Big Cats) sets out the direct link between the survival of the iconic Snow Leopard and the presence of Tibetan monasteries in the Sanjiangyuan reserve on the Tibetan Plateau that protects the headwaters of the Yangtse (Dri Chu) , Yellow (Ma Chu) and Mekong (Dza Chu) rivers. It is one of the most beautiful places that I’ve ever been.

You can read the original article from Conservation Biology here : http://www.panthera.org/sites/default/files/cobi12135.pdf?utm_source=Copy+of+Press+Release%3A+Tibetan+Monasteries+Serve+as+Critical+Allies+for+Snow+Leo&utm_campaign=Press+Release+Tibetan+Monasteries+to+Listserv&utm_medium=email

As the article points out is it is widely recognised that