Still life – with shadowy footprints

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/18/new-forest-pond-skater-woodland-rivers

Version 0 of 1.

Pond skaters are slender creatures, slim in body and skinny in leg. This lightweight structure makes these bugs ideal inhabitants of virtually any stretch of calm water. I watch as a group scull around the sunlit pool below the bridge at Millyford, their shadows on the rust-coloured silt bottom often revealing their whereabouts more clearly than their silhouettes on the surface. But there’s something strange about the shadows. Each leg appears to be a long-handled metal detector. On a bright day such as this, it’s possible to see something that is not visible in other light. The sunlight shows up the small circular indentation made by the pond skaters’ feet in the surface of the water, and this is slightly magnified as the shadow is cast on the bed below.

The track sides are lined with a scattering of yellow lesser celandines, a few patches of white wood anemones and wood sorrel, and some small clumps of wood spurge with light green heads. The woodland itself is only just beginning to awaken. Beech mast has germinated and the first shoots are showing through the leaf litter. They will not be here long. The absence of young beech makes clear how difficult it is for seedlings to survive the foraging deer and ponies. A woodpecker drums in the distance. Perhaps it’s the owner of the recently drilled nest hole with soft reddish edges in a dying oak tree, with marks in the bark where toes have gripped.

I sense a figure through the trees but decide it’s a trick of the light. Further on, and from another angle, I spot an old friend, Peter Frost, working at an easel, preparing for this weekend’s New Forest Painters exhibition at Brockenhurst. Our local artists create an important record of the forest.

On my way back, I’m drawn to the stream again to photograph reflections on the near still surface. Tree trunks are mirrored precisely, and the guano stripes on a mid-stream post are seen most sharply on the water.