Bird place-name of the day 95: HARLOW HILL (Northumb). OE higera + hlaw. ‘Magpie-frequented hill/mound.’ #birdsandplace #naturewriting
All sold out for tonight’s event at Kemps Books in Malton! If you’re attending, thanks, and see you there! @amyjanebeer.bsky.social and I are in conversation about birds, the past and ancestral connections to the land. www.kempsgeneralstore.co.uk/pages/events... #thecuckooslea #naturewriting
Day birding in Storm Amy’s winds @rspbtitchwellsnett.bsky.social. A great selection of books in their shop, including, ahem, yours truly. #thecuckooslea #naturewriting
Reposted by: Michael Warren
@nicolawriting.bsky.social writes with poetic intensity, painting indelible portraits of local people and landscape, but at the same time she asks pertinent questions, reflecting on where our society is going...A joy to read."
morningstaronline.co.uk/article/when...
morningstaronline.co.uk/article/when...
When women work the land
Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and CommunityNicola Chester, Chelsea Green, £22FOLLOWING her award-winning On Gallows Down — a passionate and very personal account of life ...
morningstaronline.co.uk
Reposted by: Michael Warren
My latest book review looks at @nicolawriting.bsky.social's wonderful "Ghosts of the Farm". It tells the story of Julia White, a woman farmer in the 1940s, together with Nicola's own story and ponders land, gender, politics and much more. Read it.
resolutereader.blogspot.com/2025/10/nico...
resolutereader.blogspot.com/2025/10/nico...
Here’s a nightingale I filmed in April this year, at Fingringhoe in Essex close to where I live.
Bird place-name of the day 94: NIGHTINGALE WOOD (Hants). Modern English Nightingale + Wood. In the absence of any old nightingale place-names, but because I’m talking about nightingales and place tonight in Bainton for the Langdyke Trust, here’s a modern example. #birdsandplace #naturewriting
Why are there no old NIGHTINGALE place-names? Come and find out tonight in Bainton, plus hear me talk about Castor Hanglands, the most northern site for breeding nightingales in England. Tickets still available on the door! langdyke.org.uk/welcome-to-l... #nightingales #birdsandplace #naturewriting
Bird of the place-name 93: RAMSDEAN (WSsx). OE hramn + denu. ‘The raven’s valley.’ Close to where I grew up, just outside Worthing. Near a Roman site and Iron Age Cissbury. Mentioned in a 10th charter. #birdsandplace #naturewriting
Obviously loving this chapter @nicwilson.bsky.social. “These names send me back through the centuries.” 😁 #naturewriting
No record. A modern name I expect (by which I mean not medieval). But it means the place for talking associated with crows. Were the crows real (a chatter of jackdaws or rooks perhaps?) or metaphorical: a derogatory reference to dark gossip? I speculate!
Since I’m in Ely (Eel place or island) let’s make bird place-name of the day 92: FOWLMERE. OE fugol + mer. Wildfowl pool/wetlands. Only 23 miles from Ely and part of the same former fenlands. #birdsandplace #naturewriting
This evening I’m at Toppings in Ely. Hope to see you there! #thecuckooslea #naturewriting
That’s really great to know Ian; gives even more credence to the name. I just love the idea that our ancestors had topographical imagination enough to visualize landscapes from a bird’s-eye-view centuries before aerial photography and compare geological form metaphorically! Blows my mind.
Yes indeed Ian, that is the usual interpretation in place-name books. I think I mention this briefly in chapter 6 of TCL. It parallels names like Wulpenbek in Holland (piece of land shaped like a curlew’s beak or where curlews are seen’.
Reposted by: Michael Warren
I have been looking into the name Purbeck @drmjwarren.bsky.social and am wondering if it is at all possible that the origin is Bittern Hill.
Bearing in mind that it had extensive marshland around a navigable chalk ridge when the Saxons first explored it in the C7th.🤔
Bearing in mind that it had extensive marshland around a navigable chalk ridge when the Saxons first explored it in the C7th.🤔
Some do, yes. 😉 There won’t have been nightingales at this site before the estate was built (farmland), but the name is typical, in that nature names are more common than anything else in new build estates. But they’re chosen to sound pretty. Old names always reflect the ecological reality.
A great example of birds in new build naming schemes. From the brand new estate literally across from my house, built right on the edge of the River Blackwater in Essex. No nightingales here, new owners. #birdsandplace
Just a week until I’m at Toppings Books in Ely! Couldn’t be better: Ely cathedral and it’s old marshes is on the front cover of #thecuckooslea! Details and tickets here: www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/ely/w... #birdsandplace #naturewriting
Michael J Warren at First Floor, Topping & Company Booksellers of Ely
www.toppingbooks.co.uk
If you want examples of lots of places actually named after birds in situ, I’ve just finished cataloguing the crow page on my website: www.birdsandplace.co.uk/carrioncrow
Carrion crow — The Birds and Place Project
www.birdsandplace.co.uk
You’re right enough, goldcrests are common enough in gardens that this is likely, especially if there’s conifers. I suspect that the road won’t have been named after real, present goldcrests! Was more pointing up the contrast to old bird names, which are always a reflection of ecological truth.
If they were, I’m quite sure the developers who named it weren’t actually aware of their former presence.
Any goldcrests in Goldcrest Drive, do you reckon? #birdsandplace
A fine group of books and authors. ☺️ @chiffchat.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social #naturewriting
Bird place-name of the day 91: CRASTER (Northumb). OE crawe + ceaster. ‘Old fort inhabited by crows.’ www.birdsandplace.co.uk/carrioncrow #birdsandplace #naturewriting
Reposted by: Michael Warren
Reposted by: Michael Warren
🐦 Birds are written into the land.
In The Cuckoo’s Lea, Michael J. Warren uncovers the lost stories of birds hidden in English place names.
🌿 “Exquisitely crafted” – The Observer
In The Cuckoo’s Lea, Michael J. Warren uncovers the lost stories of birds hidden in English place names.
🌿 “Exquisitely crafted” – The Observer
If you’re in the Cambridgeshire area, I’m at Toppings Books in Ely on Fri 19th talking about #thecuckooslea. Come to hear about cuckoos and the old Fens. Couldn’t be a better venue: it’s Ely cathedral on the books’s front cover! www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/ely/w... #naturewriting #birdsandplace
