110 Rain falls in Banfield Wood

Full Episode description

Sky greying. Rain coming. A muddy path under bare trees. This is the wood where we should record.

Beneath a buzzard circling, a perfect tree, mid-point within the forest. Mid-point, with a wide and detailed aural view, of boughs moving in the wind, of light sticks shifting, of silent fields sloping up to a green grey horizon.

The rain begins. It starts gently, as a fine sifting mist upon the ivy leaves that surround the trunk of this old tree. The tree, an elder, basks in the falling water, creaks in the changing air. On the forest floor the rain falls heavier, is scattered and blown in flurries. Above, banks of wind make passing shapes in the high bare branches.

Spring is coming though, and you can tell by the birds. Great tits, long tail tits, a jovial wood pigeon. Between the bands of rain they hop out from their sheltered places, and sing. Their song makes this not a winter wood anymore, but a place filled with the sounds of the approaching vernal equinox.  

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Last weekend we left our microphones alone to make this recording in Banfield Wood, rural Hertfordshire. It is the next wood across the valley from Comb’s Wood which featured in episode 104 ‘While away in winter woodland’ which we recorded in December.