Raising Heron – 05/10/2024

I can hardly express how moved I’ve been by Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, the story of finding a leveret in danger and rescuing it without domesticating it.

Chloe Dalton picked up the exposed leveret within mounds of damp grass hoping not to impart her scent but was told by a conservationist that its mother would now reject it. She could not return the leveret to the wild and everyone she consulted about its care was pessimistic: the leveret was likely to die.

She fed it kitten’s milk, handled it as little as possible, refused to enclose it (after a brief attempt, on rogue advice), changed her use of lighting and sound, and devoted hours to researching its needs. Fully grown, the hare comes and goes from her house and garden. It is wild and has had several leverets of its own – some near the house and some inside, near Chloe’s feet. The hare does not have a name. The hare is not hers. She does not see herself as a mother or an owner.

There are many nature-memoirs and sometimes I think I know what to expect from them. It is a delight to be proved wrong. There is no clichéd sense of wonder, no language of nature’s ‘miracles,’ nor calls to ‘get out into nature’ as if humans are not already part of it and as if it were not everywhere. The writing is practical, level and open about difficulties and compromises.

Further, the author is not its centre. We do learn how Chloe’s life and outlook have been changed by the hare – and one feels the profound effect in turn – but the hare, this hare specifically, then other hares and then questions of conservation are the subject matter.

I, who always romanticise images evoked by a story like this – a hare asleep on the back of the sofa; a hare seeming to want me to join its twirls in the high grass – did not even come away longing for a similar experience. For, while the author clearly adores the hare, she takes the utmost care to show that her every decision is made to keep it wild.

Still, it is OK to sigh warmly over some of the details: a leveret hiccupping after a porridge oat; changing fur patterns observed more closely than anyone else could hope to; a soft paw sticking out from a chewed curtain; a look back from an amber eye before jumping over the garden wall.

In her extensive research into hares and the land around her, from its animal species to soil to agriculture to poaching laws, the author draws on every possible resource including hunting diaries, poetry, even Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours on realising the dearth of ready vocabulary for describing what she sees. (Our edition is from Read & Co, a lovely, local independent publisher.)

I won’t pretend that The Good Slug Guide by Jo Kirby had quite the same emotional effect on me as Raising Hare but it may be as important. Not only should we not be attempting to fight slugs but most of the ways we do so are making it worse…  

Pair this with reading Emily Gravett’s new picture book, Bothered by Bugs, and even the most combative of gardeners might view things anew. Pete the badger is planning to make something from his new fruit cookbook when a tiny fly rudely interrupts him. Bothered as they are, he and his friends decide to get rid of ALL the bugs. Until they begin to observe the consequences of a world without them…

In other children’s books celebrating animals, large and small, this week:
The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers by Jonathan Emmett & Dr Adam S. Smith, illustrated by Stieven Van der Poorten is both a story about a T-Rex getting an image update and a detailed explanation of what is now known about how the dinosaur looked. One of those picture books from which young children learn reams of facts with which they challenge me in the shop. (No, I never did get over that five-year-old patiently explaining the hunting habits of a deinonychus in response to my patronising offer of a sticker.)
Turtle Moon by Hannah Gold: staying at an animal centre in Costa Rica, Silver is lucky enough to observe rare animals, including a leatherback turtle. But when its eggs are stolen and Silver sets out on a rescue mission, adventure soon turns to danger.
Fia & The Last Snow Deer by Eilish Fisher: in pre-historic Ireland, Fia and her snow deer are deeply connected. But the deer is also at the heart of a prophecy, a prophecy which could end the eternal winter facing the villagers who are struggling to survive…

Some transformative poetry recommendations to embed you in land and sea, all mentioning herons, which says more about the poetry in herons than my powers of selection:
The Keelie Hawk by Kathleen Jamie is written in Scots, with English translations, and examines homeland and language, observing animals and landscape in minute and grand detail. Enjoy trying to read the Scots aloud…
Battery Rocks by Katrina Naomi explores the strength of the sea and its creatures, as well as its ability to offer sanctuary and destruction. This collection too is fascinated by language itself, singing with Kernewek phrases throughout.
A new Collected Poems by Laurie Lee brings lively images of flowers, worms, foxes and herons up against barbed wire and war: man ‘watches through the black sights of a gun the winging flocks of migratory birds…’

Finally, two novels shaped by their landscape:
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood: a woman working in conservation gives into despair and retreats to a convent in the Australian outback. I shall say no more for the story is all in the pressure which builds on each quiet page…
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich: Kismet Poe reminded Gary Geist when he proposed that she has a boyfriend. Yet she seems to have agreed to marry Gary. He is from a wealthy farming family for which Kismet’s mother hauls sugar beet, working night shifts and listening to call-in radio shows. Gary’s mother calls in seeking expert advice on how to thank a guardian angel. Kismet’s father is a failed actor, who should not be trusted with a ticket float let alone a family’s money or a church renovation fund. The local priest is called Father Flirty… The story sprints forward from the shifting perspectives of a brilliant cast of characters exploring land ownership, environmental disaster, romance and farce.  

If moments for reading are rare this weekend, between rescuing slugs, this lovely little edition of Virginia Woolf’s In the Orchard is the cure.

On Monday, I am looking forward to a talk which feels both the opposite of and connected with all of the above: Bristol Humanists welcomes Susie Alegre, barrister and author of Human Rights, Robot Wrongs. Details are here.

Next Saturday, we welcome Glyn Maxwell and Kaycee Hill to Poetry in Herons. Tickets to set the world to rights are here.

May your weekend bring you the peace of a hare which, knowing it is quite safe from criticism, chews through every cable in the house, most of a sofa and the report you have just prepared for a Cabinet Minister.

Or, may your weekend bring you knowledge of the wild without imposing upon it,
Lizzie

Featured in the newsletter