Out of the 240 chalk streams globally, 160 are (or were) in England.
For a moment, I thought I heard a splosh and the whip of a fishing rod. But how? Ankle deep in dusty soft leaf litter, several yards down in the waterless bed of a dried up chalk stream, I craned my ears. There it was again. More of a splish, this time, or was it a wish just uttered, by the trees. They swayed in a gust of late summer wind, and I swayed with them.
There was someone there. An old man. He was sitting bolt upright on the bank just beside me, with crystal clear water lapping at his leather boots. He was smoking a pipe, and holding a fishing rod. And he was swinging it in, right past my nose, the most beautiful fish I'd ever seen. A dark silvery torpedo shaped body with proud fin, hoisted and shimmering, in the setting sun.
A fish! I exclaimed. Aye the old man muttered, from behind his puff of Parson's Pleasure. Just a grayling. It was so beautiful. Where did it come from I said? The wind gusted again in the overhanging trees, and they swayed. Swayed with what this time I knew was a kindly form of long-suffering impatience. Grayling used to live right there, where you are standing now. And many others like them. Mind you, there was a lot more life about when I was around, in those clear flowing waters.
Before he and the fish vanished, I saw its iridescent soul rise up, into one of the trees. And I realised there, it will have to stay, leaf like, waiting with its kin, until the chalk stream returns.
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We recorded the natural white noise created by these trees a few months ago in the countryside near Newport in Essex. It was a peaceful place, with a tractor tilling a field in the far distance. The trees grew along the banks of what we later found in bygone days used to be a chalk stream. We think of it as a barometer of human impact, and turn to listen to the wisdom of trees.
Chalk streams are rare and fascinating. Find out more.
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42 Night beside a stream in Wales (sleep safe)
Gulls at low tide along the River Thames
Low tide on the Thames Estuary at Benfleet creek (no loud noises and best with headphones)
Jackdaws and flooded winterbournes - watery emptiness
Tawny echoes in the cathedral of trees (sleep safe)
Rain in Abney Park
Wind over the Bridgemarsh Marina on the Dengie Peninsula
Suffolk Wood part 5 - the hour to 1am (sleep safe)
Wind on water under an equinoctial sky - on the Dengie peninsula Essex
Champagne shingle on Felixstowe beach
Folkestone Warren - Spitfire flypast then coastal murmurings
31 Late summer heat bathing under splendid trees - peace in the Clinton-Baker Pinetum
30 Wind and time passes in the Forest of Dean
Trains, planes and estuary birds
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside
Dead of night beside a lake in the Lee Valley Park - sleep special
August breezes through an ancient Oak
Cooling off beside sifting waves at Felixstowe Ferry
Peace beside the tidal Thames near Stanford-le-Hope in the county of Essex
Brutalism and crickets of the A10 flyover
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