Betchworth
13th May
Three mallards in the mist, circling low above the meadow, appearing and disappearing before their final approach, to land on water out of sight behind lush spring vegetation – but audible by a gentle, unobtrusive splash.
The mist ebbed and flowed for a long while after dawn, drifting around in a time not our time.
At Betchworth as I knelt by the river at a cluster of bluebells and vetch, I could hear just a gentle background of birdsong, a little breeze in the oak leaves above me, an occasional bee and, mingling with all this, the bells of Betchworth church drifting invisible from beyond the parkland – pealing in a timeless rhythm as though from another age. This field is well populated with a host of wild flowers; it is a pasture now as pastures then were.
By my last exposure, the bells had ceased and the service presumably commenced. A duck quacked quietly somewhere, just once, while the odd crow called in a subdued kind of way from around the parkland oaks across the slow waters of the river.
Ambling gently through the dense riverside vegetation, a plethora of fresh damselflies – some a gorgeous greeny gold, others an extraordinary blue, with delicate black banded wings. Looking them up, I found them to be the same species: the green grace of the female and the electric splendour of the banded male. The species is named Calopteryx splendens, or Beautiful Demoiselle. They flew in splendid silence all along the riverside, and I walked in joy on this quiet, still day.