Call of the wild was the spark that fired inspiration to write
MY inspiration for writing can come from anywhere and, generally, one spark ignites yet more sparks and I’m as happy as a pig in the proverbial.
It’s the greatest feeling and right up there with scoring a try for Glossop
RUFC, singing one of your own songs on stage and feeling the wind from the Atlantic on the Connemara coastline and, believe it or not, I’ve managed all four many times on the west coast of Ireland.
Well actually, not quite, as I never scored a point during one of the many tour matches I arranged and, truth be known, I think we have only won one match on tour anywhere, but hopefully readers will let me off with that slight exaggeration.
I do get carried away sometimes. I blame the drink.
My latest burst of creativity takes us in the opposite direction, to the far east of Poland and over the Border into Belarus and the interest was sparked by Sky TV’s ‘Chernobyl’.
It is an amazing piece of work about the nuclear disaster in 1986, which had me gripped, but it was also a reminder that I have an amazing link to the place along with one of my twin sons Culain.
Of course everything is connected if you have your finger in a few pies and I am guilty as charged.
I will let Culain take up the story, circa, 10 years ago, when he called in hushed tone at 2am from the dense forests of Eastern Belarus on the Border with Russia, ‘Dad’, he whispered, ‘Can you hear that, it’s wild wolves howling!’
I could hear for sure and it was a special moment.
Culain was studying Countryside Management at University and one of my contacts in Belarus,
Dmitry, had invited him out for a month to monitor Ural Owls and Capercaillie and also to keep an eye out for the wolves that patrolled the primeval forests around Dmitry’s woodland home.
Without recourse to any superlatives, where else can you watch otters, beaver, wolf, lynx, brown bear and wild boar from your kitchen window - it’s the kind of place where you would volunteer to do the washing up.
As for the Ural owls, one needs to be wary as they are known to attack humans at breeding time and some folk actually adorn their hats with sticks and small branches to deflect any talon action, but also to protect the birds hunting tools.
A broken talon or two during feeding times can seriously affect the owls hunting skills. As the Ural is mostly active by night, you need to listen for their distinctive call.
The ‘song’ of the male is a deep rhythmic sequence of notes with a pause of about 2-3 seconds after the first double note - wuhu huwuho-huwuwo.
This phrase is repeated at intervals of 10-50 seconds. The female has a similar higher-pitched song which is hoarse, giving it more of a ‘barking’ quality.
There is also a heronlike kraoh that is uttered by both sexes, as well as a rough barking series of nasal notes that is given in aggression.
A hoarse kuwett is likely a contact call.
Culain’s best sightings and soundings came about when they ventured out onto the boggy lakes found throughout the area, when the Urals crisscrossed the clearing scouting for voles and the like.
This was no easy studyjunket for Culain, early mornings and late nights, followed by the endless staple of buckwheat with everything, washed down with vodka, which left him craving for a bag of chips back in Glossop.
However, I think he would admit that the experience helped him fly through his course with First Class Honours and his unique thesis on how our threatened native water-voles could survive, almost cheek by jowl, with non-native American Mink. Culain’s trip back proved to be another eyeopening experience when, Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano on the Eastern Volcanic Zone in southern Iceland, began to erupt on April 14 2010.
A plume of volcanic ash was ejected several kilometres into the atmosphere by this eruption, causing European airspace to shut down, and it took him three days to travel back overland.
Next time, readers can hear some of my own Belarusian adventures as I followed in my son’s footsteps into Belarus with radio-collars for wolves.
Dmitry had permission to fit the collars to wild wolves in areas affected by the Chernobyl fallout.