Several miles up the sun-baked track, along overgrown footpaths and through fields high with meadow grass, lie the watery ditches of the Higham Marshes nature reserve. Nestled within the wide expanse of partly farmed, partly inhabited, but mostly untended land that runs along the lower reaches of the Thames Estuary in Kent. On a barmy summer's day, blown about by a friendly wind, it's a place of retreat and of well tempered quiet.
Beside one of the wild ditches, from inside a hawthorn bush at the water's edge, we find a secret space to record. Well defended by thorns, it gently creaks in sympathy with the breeze, but has a birds-ear view of the nearby wildlife and the landscape beyond.
The air is cooler beside the water. It rings with the pewit calls of the lapwings. Croaks stretchily with the marsh frogs. Echoes with the gliding yelps of distant geese. At ground level this world is all green and overgrown, but from the air, it must be laced with glints and pools.
Bees buzz quickly by and a farmer traverses a field on a quadbike. It's alive with sheep and lambs. Above, skylarks wheel beneath high thrumming planes. From over the horizon, fleeting whines of overtaking motors along a distant country road. These are the slow rhythms of an early summer's day on the Hoo Peninsula.
Derbyshire gales blow away the cobwebs
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside (part 2 - sleep safe)
Bucolic contrasts under low cloud - the land between Sandy and St Neots
43 Tidal water mirror still - a sound view from Canvey Island
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
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