Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-06-07 06:10 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-06-07 06:10 pm
Guys, Where Are We?
I'm on holiday in Italy! Felt a bit perverse to be writing Lost fanfiction on the plane, if I'm honest.
The sky in Italy feels bigger than it does in England, somehow. It's a feeling I get in America, too; the sky seems huge. Maybe it's because being able to see far-off hills or mountains gives a sense of scale and distance, and much of England is relatively flat. Maybe it's just the awareness that you're standing on a huge continent, instead of a small island.
I played badminton with my brother while the sun set over the hills in the background. We'd found a bucket of cheap falling-apart shuttlecocks, and our game was half actual playing and half just watching in fascination as the shuttlecocks increasingly disintegrated.
Lots of little lizards around the place, which are always exciting. Apparently the UK does have lizards, but I don't think I've ever seen one at home.
I saw a little glowing creature hiding in a crack in a wall! A firefly larva, maybe, or a glowworm? I'd never seen any luminescent creature outside an aquarium before and was so puzzled to see a little green light in the wall; I was very excited to realise it was a living thing, rather than, say, a camera spying on us. Extremely cool!
Later, my brother pointed out that there were adult fireflies about! Little bright flashing lights moving through the dark! Again, I had never seen fireflies and actually seeing them in action is incredible. How can living things light up so brightly?
Lots of butterflies! Mainly species you'd see back in the UK - large and small whites, meadow browns, some beautiful little holly blues - but earlier today I caught sight of a scarce swallowtail in flight. Some sort of lovely fritillary that wouldn't let me get close enough to get a good look, but maybe a Queen of Spain fritillary? There was also a butterfly I thought was a meadow brown until it opened its wings and I realised its oranges were much more exciting; looking it up, I think it was a small copper.
(When I last went to Thorpe Park with RD, I kept exclaiming over the birds and butterflies we saw there - a wagtail! a brimstone! - and eventually she demanded to know how I knew their names. The answer is mainly my dad; he likes being able to identify birds, and we'll sometimes go out butterfly-spotting in the summer.)
Some lovely jays and swallows, and a magnificent pheasant strutting across the road in front of us. My most striking bird sighting of late was actually the day before the holiday, though; I was watching a family of coots when a heron swept in, grabbed one of the babies and flew away with it. 'Oh, Jesus!' I exclaimed aloud, involuntarily. I was so torn between 'that was a cool moment of nature in action and I'm lucky I was there to see it' and 'that was awful and now I'm sad'.
The weather is variable here, but that's no downside; it just means we can see the surrounding forested hills in different conditions. Right now, as I write these lines, I'm taking shelter from an intense downpour in the middle of bright sunshine, and it is astonishingly pretty.
Sometimes the rain falls so thickly it looks like static over the landscape, like we're in some sort of beautiful green Silent Hill. I very much hope we're not in Silent Hill, but, if we are, at least it looks good.
The sky in Italy feels bigger than it does in England, somehow. It's a feeling I get in America, too; the sky seems huge. Maybe it's because being able to see far-off hills or mountains gives a sense of scale and distance, and much of England is relatively flat. Maybe it's just the awareness that you're standing on a huge continent, instead of a small island.
I played badminton with my brother while the sun set over the hills in the background. We'd found a bucket of cheap falling-apart shuttlecocks, and our game was half actual playing and half just watching in fascination as the shuttlecocks increasingly disintegrated.
Lots of little lizards around the place, which are always exciting. Apparently the UK does have lizards, but I don't think I've ever seen one at home.
I saw a little glowing creature hiding in a crack in a wall! A firefly larva, maybe, or a glowworm? I'd never seen any luminescent creature outside an aquarium before and was so puzzled to see a little green light in the wall; I was very excited to realise it was a living thing, rather than, say, a camera spying on us. Extremely cool!
Later, my brother pointed out that there were adult fireflies about! Little bright flashing lights moving through the dark! Again, I had never seen fireflies and actually seeing them in action is incredible. How can living things light up so brightly?
Lots of butterflies! Mainly species you'd see back in the UK - large and small whites, meadow browns, some beautiful little holly blues - but earlier today I caught sight of a scarce swallowtail in flight. Some sort of lovely fritillary that wouldn't let me get close enough to get a good look, but maybe a Queen of Spain fritillary? There was also a butterfly I thought was a meadow brown until it opened its wings and I realised its oranges were much more exciting; looking it up, I think it was a small copper.
(When I last went to Thorpe Park with RD, I kept exclaiming over the birds and butterflies we saw there - a wagtail! a brimstone! - and eventually she demanded to know how I knew their names. The answer is mainly my dad; he likes being able to identify birds, and we'll sometimes go out butterfly-spotting in the summer.)
Some lovely jays and swallows, and a magnificent pheasant strutting across the road in front of us. My most striking bird sighting of late was actually the day before the holiday, though; I was watching a family of coots when a heron swept in, grabbed one of the babies and flew away with it. 'Oh, Jesus!' I exclaimed aloud, involuntarily. I was so torn between 'that was a cool moment of nature in action and I'm lucky I was there to see it' and 'that was awful and now I'm sad'.
The weather is variable here, but that's no downside; it just means we can see the surrounding forested hills in different conditions. Right now, as I write these lines, I'm taking shelter from an intense downpour in the middle of bright sunshine, and it is astonishingly pretty.
Sometimes the rain falls so thickly it looks like static over the landscape, like we're in some sort of beautiful green Silent Hill. I very much hope we're not in Silent Hill, but, if we are, at least it looks good.
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Oh what a way to end a journal entry! hahahahh!
Enjoy your holiday! I hope it remains free of disfigured nurses and amnesia!
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Also congrats on finding a part of Italy that isn't having torrential rainfall (constantly)!
I saw a little glowing creature hiding in a crack in a wall! A firefly larva, maybe, or a glowworm?
Oh I remember seeing them in the south of France!
How can living things light up so brightly?
Isn't it magical?!
I kept exclaiming over the birds and butterflies we saw there - a wagtail! a brimstone! - and eventually she demanded to know how I knew their names.
I... I thought it was normal to be able to do that, do other people not treat wildlife guides as a third parent
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Interesting! I'm forced to conclude that the sky actually is just bigger in different places. Mystery... solved...?
Isn't it magical?!
It really is! At night, I keep getting distracted by the fireflies; I just end up standing and watching them for ages.
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I loved watching them in France. There's something very calming about it, especially if there's a nice breeze and some evening birdsong
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I can name a decent number of butterflies, but I'm so hopeless about birds. Like, out of the birds that actually live here (and not exotic ones like flamingos and penguins and whatnot), I think my knowledge runs out at pigeons, sparrows, ducks and possibly crows
but other black birds exist too and then I'm confused(ETA: oh, and storks, I know storks xD)? Idek why, birds are just one thing I never learned about as a kid (despite always being surrounded by nature books and magazines and tv on just about every other topic) and I don't quite know where to start, so everything else is like 'this tiny bird'."I was so torn between 'that was a cool moment of nature in action and I'm lucky I was there to see it' and 'that was awful and now I'm sad'."
D: Both are true tbh.
Also I've never done anything Lost-related on a plane, what a lost opportunity. xD
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I don't quite know where to start, so everything else is like 'this tiny bird'.
If it helps, even birdwatching enthusiasts use the phrase 'little brown job' to mean 'it's a small brown bird and I don't know anything more than that, because it's really hard to tell all these small brown birds apart'.
Also I've never done anything Lost-related on a plane, what a lost opportunity.
I'm annoyed by how much I enjoyed this.
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Anyway it sounds like you are having fun in Italy? I haven't actually been there before. I live in the U.S. so I guess I'm pretty used to seeing wildly different animals/creatures by traveling a few states (or even in the same state, if you just cross a mountain range), but it's still fun to read about your creature adventures!
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It's always hard for me to get my head around the sheer variety of wildlife and scenery in the US. I've lived all my life on an island half the size of California, so it's difficult to process the idea of a country as large as a continent! I went to Yosemite once and was staggered by the scale and beauty of it.
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Meanwhile, whenever I'm in the UK: "Oh look, hills! Wow! Amazing!"
10/10 for the animal spotting!
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Love all your nature observations in this post. <3
Also, yay for badminton at sunset. Reminds me of when we did that during our holidays, years and years ago. Now I kind of miss it.
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Oh, that's cool! (And makes a lot of sense!) And I'm glad this post could be a reminder of sunset badminton.
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