Tread Lightly

In the existential orchard

May 29, 2025

Tread lightly upon the earth. This has become something of a mission statement for me. A pursuit at which I fail daily.

I idly walked into the orchard this morning, the dogs trailing behind. Bella bouncing through the long grass ears a-flapping, Leo doddering lazily a few metres behind.

This tiny orchard of elderly trees had grown into a thicket a couple of weeks ago, and John (the land owner) drove through it on his mower to cut a path.

I walked slowly, my earbuds in playing a podcast (‘Main Justice’). After a moment, I remembered to take out the earbuds and listen.

I took in the ripening fruit that shone on every branch. And then, scanning upward, saw that the trees were full of birds. A line of Long-Tailed Tit chicks sat on a thin bow of early apples, now only the size of a generous, mediterranean olive but swelling.

I watched for a moment, captivated. Back and forth between the boughs flew these tiny, exquisite birds, so many I could not take them in.

My immediate instinct, always, whenever I see something beautiful, unusual, funny, captivating, creative, or just something I want to remember is - like the clap of a lens shutter - ‘take a photo’.

I pulled out my phone and silently snapped a picture.

Of course, my battered old iPhone (I think an iPhone 13? I am years behind) was in no way up to the task of capturing the moment.

Slowly, but purposefully, I made my way out of the orchard. As soon as I was clear, I hustled back to the Barn as fast as I could in the clodding, plastic garden crocs that have become my constant uniform. I grabbed my camera and the glasses case containing my spare batteries and memory cards, which I shoved into the waistband of my Lulu Lemon leggings. As fast as I could I returned to where I had been standing, and scanned the trees for these tiny souls.

But of course they had gone. I sat on the still-soaking grass and waited.

The dogs puttered around while I held my breath hoping to see the chicks hopping along a branch.

But we are predators, I thought. They have seen me, they have seen us, and they have fled to a safer place.

In that moment I hated myself. I had intruded into their private scene, into their place of safety. This group of trees full of ripening fruit, providing food and shelter for them, had been a safe space until I had bumbled in.

I sat for a while, getting a wet bottom, contemplating my status as apex predator. Of course they might think this camera would do them harm. They will have seen the light flash off my iPhone screen and sensed danger. This is why bird watchers sit in blinds, silently, and without a dachshund (who barks at passing bumble bees) disturbing their subjects.

Some obliging birds did sit and allow me to take a photograph. The mechanical shutter on my camera - a sound I have barely noticed before - was suddenly deafening. As I shot, the sound exploded over and over, a metallic twang like a gun shot.

How I wished I could communicate to these birds that I want nothing more than to admire them. To capture their perfect beauty and share it with others.

But why should I? Why should they not be left to live unobserved.

Humankind’s great hubris (with emphasis on man, sorry chaps) is always just bumbling in where we don’t belong, and wanting to capture or obtain that which is not ours to have.

Walking through a gate and in amongst these trees seemed so innocuous. But of course it was just my ignorance. And the feeling that I ruined something will follow me around all day.

But I already want to go back. I want to be in a paradise of twittering birds, busily living their short, hurried lives. Battling to survive so prettily.

I am going to go and buy some trees today. I have been wondering about it for a while, torn between the likely fleeting nature of my time at Daisy Barn and my deep, deep desire to leave trees behind me wherever I go. But then there is the lack of abundance in my current account.

I recently read Sally Coulthard’s ‘The Apple: A Delicious History’ and have almost finished Michael Pollan’s ‘The Botany of Desire’. While they both cover some of the same ground re the apple, each has been an education. Each has changed the way I look at the world around me. And each has stoked that desire to plant trees. A while ago - before I became a tenant at Daisy Barn - I started Ruth Pavey’s ‘A Wood of One’s Own’. Pavey expresses a similar desire to plant trees. I really must find where I put it down, and finish reading it. Perhaps under a tree in the orchard. Staying very, very still.

But surely, any money spent on trees is money put to it’s absolute best use.

But only if the trees are left where they are planted. Left to become gnarled and lichenous, to fill out and fruit up and be filled with birds.