Voices From The Crow's Nest

Alexander M Crow

Here, I share the voiceovers from my letters as a podcast, with occasional extras. I talk about being a part of nature, not apart from it, I talk about ancestral skills, or bushcraft, and I talk about our possible futures as a species living in uncertain, often dangerous times. One day, I might even narrate my fiction. All with hope, joy, and kindness. alexandermcrow.substack.com

  1. 3 hr ago ·  Bonus

    Summer Break

    As I write this, I only have one further post for The Crow’s Nest queued and ready to go next week. This is deliberate: summer on Substack is the quiet time, the pause between the seasons of interest and readership and, generally, not the right time to share anything you wish to actually be read by more than a few people. This year, I almost made the error of giving myself extra work to do, for potentially little to no return—I deeply considered a week-by-week deconstruction and discussion of the 13th season of the History Channel show, Alone, linking it to my own knowledge and experience, and also cunningly using it to touch on wider salient points. Thankfully, for my summer and, potentially, you, I gave myself a stern talking to and decided against it. I will be popping in on Substack Notes from time to time, and intend to also use the quieter months to read more of your work, including, but absolutely not limited to, that of Susie Mawhinney, Ailsa Ross, Anne Thomas, rebecca hooper, Feasts and Fables, Jonathan Foster, Kate Hill, Laura McVeigh, Rosie Whinray, Sarah Crowder, Stacy Boone. I’ve said it before, but I think considering your Substack subscriptions as a wonderful library is the best thing ever. I try not to stress too much about not being up to date with reading, but sometimes I do worry—then remind myself I can read those words at a point which suits, take a book out of the library, and appreciate every word. Thanks (I thoroughly intend to write more about the voices you might enjoy here but, for now, that small list is a good start). This summer, I shall also be trialling W Social, (Wsocial.eu) which, if you do not know, is a new social media platform advertising itself as: ‘A European social network governed by EU law, data hosted in Europe, and built for real, verified people. Trust your feed.’ We’ll see how well this pans out. I’m rather tired and jaded by the whole enshittification of the internet and, although I shall give this a chance, I don’t secretly hold out much hope for it being a good place to be (but I would be utterly delighted to be proven wrong). If you are also thinking of heading to W Social, or are already there, I’m alexandermcrow.wsocial.eu. Do say hi! What else can you expect after this summer interlude? Witness Notes will return in the autumn, precisely when remains to be seen, although I suspect it will be September. I have a lot more material to share, some new thoughts and snippets of my past, and some I’ll be reworking or resharing from previous work. I remain surprised by just how many words I’ve crafted over my life. It is a lot. Likewise, I intend to rework and reshare some other older work, such as my Edges & Entries series, for example. My subscriber numbers and people are quite different from when I shared those pieces. Whether I will reshare my A Fall In Time series, however, I do not yet know, but I doubt it. I have a number of essays already drafted or, in some cases, edited, which I shall also be sending out after summer. Several of them are linked to my currently passing through my 50th year (I’ll turn 50 in May 2027), whether other lists of 49 things, such as the recent scent-based one I shared, or reflective essays looking at who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I would like to go—whether physically, or metaphorically. Much of the work I’ve been doing this year has been offline, words which will be shared in another fashion at some point in the near(ish) future. That is lonely work—writing is by necessity a lonely process, even as we writers observe and notice all around us, secreting and squirrelling things away for digestion and regurgitation at a later date. And all of this has been done against the backdrop of a species and civilisation leaking stuffing from the seams, stitches popping and button eyes hanging by threads. I have made my peace with what is happening—not ‘what is coming’, for it is already here—and all my hope is now centred on things I can hope to influence and achieve, mostly personal and hyperlocal things, but also reaching out to those my words and work might just help. I shall be sharing more essays about hope, about how we can retool it, and about how we can grieve and mourn and move out from under the despair which so many seem to be overwhelmed beneath. In short—you can’t go wrong with being kind. You can’t go wrong with outlasting those who are doing their best to destroy and debase, and you can’t go wrong with finding joy, whether in a single flower or bee, a cooler night after many suffocating ones, or in the uncontrolled, utterly unselfconscious laughter of a child. There is a lot to be grateful for, and I’ll be sharing these things again after summer. Thanks for reading, or listening, as ever. Do please share this with anyone you think might like my work, whether the years of letters here on Substack, or that which is yet to come. And, if you can afford to, you can support my work in a few ways. The first is by taking out a subscription here (if you do, then I’ve found that The Crow’s Nest pops up on the lists curated by Substack and, when it does, I gain a number of new free subscribers and more followers, all of which is great). The second is by sending a tip of any amount, via this button, which will take you to my KoFi page. Finally, sharing my words is great support, and commenting on them likewise. I’m doing better at replying to comments, but still not quite as quickly as I’d like! Thank you, to all of you who have done one of the above, even if it is simply putting a little heart on a letter, that means a lot, too. Thanks. Have a great summer (or winter, for my friends in the global south), and I’ll hopefully see you all refreshed and ready for a new academic year in the Fall. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min

  2. 8 hr ago

    Cercal, Portugal. May 2020.

    (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Cercal, Portugal. May 2020. The storks have not reared any young. This is not for a lack of trying. Recently, we went for a drive, out along the coast and back, passing several stork nests with small storklings poking out the top. Interestingly, the pair are still mating and still return to guard their nest, especially at lunchtime, when the skies fill with silent gliding competitors and the sound of the pair clattering an aural defence, beaks moving swiftly, wings arranged and bodies bent. The landscape’s coat of flowers has been changed, several times, the principal base colour moving from a rich dark green, through lighter shades, to the greenish-brown she currently wears. I am determined to start to learn all these new friends. I’m doing well with birds, adding several new-to-me species (Iberian grey shrike! Montagu’s harrier! Bonelli’s eagle [today, at lunchtime!] Azure-winged magpie! Black-winged kite!), learning their names (first in French and their Linnaean classification, then English. Sometimes also Portuguese), their habits, why they are here. Next, I should add the flowers. The richness of this area, the sheer variety and abundance, is something I doubt I will ever take for granted. Yes, there are relatively dead areas, as in most places—in this case, the plantations of Eucalyptus but, on the whole, these are more than made up for by the other places. Our walks always invariably show something new. Here, a rich stand of wild apple-mint, there feral nasturtium showing where a garden once was tended. Pausing and looking closely always brings rewards. Insect life flourishes. It a bedrock of a food pyramid stretching high above me, all those tiny tiny thunderflies (Thrips or, hyper-locally from the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, England: Men of Wroot), all those minute spiderlings on silken threads—these are all snatched up and eaten in their millions. Then the eaters are eaten, and so on, and so forth. I could—and want to—write reams about the nature here. And I know I’ve barely scratched the surface. Sometimes, I wish I had more hours in the day, but I have my notes and photographs and memory and, perhaps, one day, I’ll have time to write something to do the subject justice. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min

  3. 23 Jun

    Cercal, Portugal. May 2020.

    (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Cercal, Portugal. May 2020. I have now lived in Portugal for nearly two months. I am taking the definition of “lived” as having been in the apartment, not the time spent on the road in January and February, exploring. This is a decent stretch of time to begin to draw some conclusions about a place, albeit with the caveat of lockdown and life being a little different in this day and age. It is, for example, very difficult to find friends or a community without the ability to move around. I originally started this section in long-form, writing paragraphs and explanations about each item on my list. However, as I am wont to do, it turned into a giant essay. Perhaps a bulleted list is more palatable: * Clouds, oh the clouds, the colours, the shapes, the movement. * The wind—an old, close friend, and how I have missed her. * Swiftly changing weather. * Warm sun and lots of it. * The quality of the light, indoors and out. I was spoilt by this, growing up in Orkney and later living in Caithness—but have missed it in Chiang Mai and SE Asia— here is similar to the north of Scotland, there’s just something about the air. Which leads to… * The air quality. It is so fresh, so pure, it is a joy and my lungs are so very thankful. The ocean winds keep it moving. * Unheated (other than by a fireplace) homes, wearing woollen clothes and hats inside, the evenings scented by woodsmoke. * The wealth of insect life, that crucial building block for a healthy ecosystem. * Birds everywhere. Their song a constant soundtrack to the day. The clattering of the storks, screaming swifts and squabbling sparrows just some of them. * Wildflowers in an abundance and variety I do not believe I have ever actually witnessed (the Machair in South Uist comes close for spectacle, but there are more species here). Makes me ashamed of the relative desert some parts of the UK have become. * The smell of the place—whether the eucalyptus plantations, the dry burnt scent of the pine trees, the woody deep smell of the cork oaks, the labdanum oleoresin of the brown-eyed rockrose, or the many different tendrils of flower perfume. * Portuguese blended coffee is surprisingly good. Really, very good. * The wine is an astonishing revelation. So much depth, richness, and flavour. * The wine labels are just as delicious, beautiful artwork often featuring local nature. * The unexpected joy at watching a roof being taken down and a new one put back up, using techniques I doubt have changed in a long, long time (chainsaw excepted!). * Also unexpected—a 13€ electricity bill for the whole of the month of March. * The beauty of the night sky, the stars sharp and bright, our position and a lack of artifical night lights enhancing this. * Fresh citrus, especially oranges and lemons. * Cutting down on food-miles—most of what we buy is produced very, very locally. For now, this list will suffice, there is more, much more, which I shall no doubt share over time. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  4. 16 Jun

    Cercal, Portugal. April 2020.

    (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Cercal, Portugal. April 2020. One thing the guidebooks rarely mention is the shadow of a large bird, in this case, the white stork (Ciconia ciconia)—how it plays across a landscape, adding another, different dimension to the view. There is a dichotomy about the stork; one moment it shines, bright and flashing in the sun, then it is higher and dark, a silhouette gliding on and on. As the birds leave the nest, or approach on their flightpath to land, they have a counterpart—the shadow stork. This darker bird, a twin of the silhouette, flits from white building to clay tiled roof and back again, crossing cobbled street and azure-painted detailing or bright, geometric azulejos in between, rippling across the world below, silent, leaving not a trace, other than a brief absence of the warmth and light from the sun. I am learning much about storks. Although, at the time of writing, we have not seen “our” storks on their nest for a day or so. I really hope they haven’t abandoned it (LATER EDIT: One of the birds is on the nest, right now, which makes us happy—I wonder if they hid from the rainstorms?). As detailed elsewhere, I am also learning about the strata of this village—being mostly inside of late (yes, the viral elephant in the world again) means I do ensure I take the time to look out. The views on both sides of our apartment are wonderful and, if I take the right amount of time, they reveal the secrets of the local nature. Admittedly, the idea of being able to walk and cycle and explore free in the countryside around is playing on my mind. I’m looking forward to the things we’ll see, the signs we’ll find—a feather here, a bone there, a string of tracks or a hair caught in the bark. However, signs can also come to me. Today, something airborne and feathered kindly deposited part of a bone on our balcony. I think it is probably from a lamb, but I may be wrong. I have found several websites with details of local wildlife and nature, such as here and here, if you are interested (Great Bustard! Iberian Pond Turtle! Iberian Mongoose! Rüppell’s Griffon!)? One final thing, also on the subject of nature—I am thrilled to once again have a view which is split between the land and the sky. It has been a while since I have lived somewhere with such a view available at all times and I did not realise how much I have missed a lively sky. Being so close to the ocean means there are clouds skipping here, slowing there. There are mornings where I look outside and the flatter plain to the north is hidden beneath a blanket of mist. Sometimes, the hills to the south disappear and it rains—we are in the cloud and all is water. The wind is another feature I love, places with wind feel like home to me. Orkney did that without my noticing—and I do not take it for granted. There is a power to the sky, a power to the water and the winds; elemental life is something too easily taken for granted and I acknowledge this and pause, listen to what the world tells me, find the stories, wait for others. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  5. 9 Jun

    Northern/Central Portugal. January, 2020.

    NOTE: If you are enjoying this series of memories and didn’t see it, I shared a letter with 49 (or more, if I’m honest) of my favourite scents. This has several little scenes in there, not dissimilar to Witness Notes, and you might enjoy reading or listening to that, too: (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Northern/Central Portugal. January, 2020. I have always covered distance, at least since I was eight and our first long drive up to Orkney from the flatlands of Lincolnshire, the only home I had known before this. Covering distance is not simply a matter of miles or kilometres, it is also time. Time and space combine in a journey, weave through one another until a whole is achieved, wrapped in an ongoing, continuous spiral of things seen. First this side, then the other, then above, below, in front, behind. The faster the speed, the more complex this weave becomes, the more gaps appear. On that first journey north, back in the mists of time, when the world was still young and I was too, I caught my first glimpse of an oystercatcher. It was dead, on a road in the far north close to where the MV St. Ola would carry us across the Pentland Firth, white and black feathers a monochrome backing for the blaze of sudden orange on its beak and legs. Since then, I have seen several other firsts in an equally macabre fashion. My first badger. Dead. My first polecat, dead. These thrills of recognition are always tempered by the simple fact of the death itself. I remember reading once that seeing dead badgers on a road is a good sign (or, at least, as good as any roadkill can be), as it suggests a healthy population with wide-ranging youngsters who do not yet know the dangers of a road. Personally, I’d prefer it without any cars or fast roads, a view which often raises eyebrows and incites laughter. Yet, look back just one hundred years, and our roads were still mostly unready and unpaved for the automobile. There may well come a time yet when this is once more the case. Many of the roads I have seen in the last few weeks seem to still be in a permanent state of unreadiness. Strips of land clinging to the side of a precipitous hill, or following a seemingly tortuous route through valley bottoms, mirroring the watercourse beside. These roads, these hints of roads, here in Portugal, were not made for cars, as they were not in many places across Europe. These roads are old. They remember the cart, the horse, the donkey, the tread of the sheep and their attendants, the vagabond, the roamer, the man-of-the-road. This week I saw another first, a common genet (Genetta genetta). Crushed into a small rug, markings clear, tail obvious. It was thrill and sadness combined. My chances of seeing one alive in the wild are slim, they are nocturnal and very secretive, but I not only place myself in locations and positions where I increase those chances, I am also lucky. Badgers, polecats, pine martens, Scottish wildcat, the howls and tracks of European wolves—I’ve been lucky with them all. Luck is something strangely important—it does not really exist, but I am sure you know others with either an excess or a dearth? Roll dice and I will consistently score higher than average. Turn cards and it is the same. I cannot control this, but I can listen to it, learn when I am nudged into something, when a turn of a road takes us into a village or town which feels right. On this journey, I am listening to luck, or the universe, or nature, or whatever you call it. Feelings—gut feelings—in our world today, we too often fail to listen to these, at our peril. I am listening. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    7 min

  6. 8 Jun

    A Celebration of Scent: 49 Favourites

    A while ago, back in March, Sarah Crowder shared a list she’d crafted about 41 of her favourite smells. (She is certainly charmed, having a birthday on the 21st of March. There’s power in that.) At the time, I thought this a great idea, and set myself the challenge of doing likewise once I reached the semi-mystical age of 49 years. Since, I have been keeping notes on this and, a few weeks after my birthday, it’s time to share my own list, in no particular order. (Note: I’d originally intended to do similarly to Sarah, a note listing things but then, as I kept my list of ideas, it turned into an obvious post.) I try not to include anything too universally admired (it’s hard, though, and I’ve sneakily snuck some of those smells into others below. There’s no petrichor, though, which is a shame). Before we begin with my own, here’s Sarah’s excellent list, with a frankly fantastic photograph (I’ve illustrated my own piece with photos of my own, linking to some of the scents I’ve shared): Finally, before we begin, I’m not including any scents deemed too adult by nature, as I know some of you might not appreciate that (also, my Mum reads this, hi Mum!). I’ll let your own imaginations fill in the blanks on these. Blimey! Your head went there?! (Shut up, Alex—Ed.) (This post might be cut short in some email clients, so do make sure you read it all!) The List. 49(+) Favourite Scents. 1. The scent of webbing straps left out in the forest. For example, those of my hammock and that of my wildlife trail camera. They absorb something of the spirit of a tree, something not quite bark, nor moss, but beyond both. 2. Similar to this, the scent of my principal tarp, the one I used for my extended stays out in the woods. It is rich in campfire notes, with hints of the forest itself, rain, sun, wind, cold and heat, falling leaves and fragments of lichen. Made from a sort of poly cotton, over the years the material has become something else, grown into a Thing, with a scent of its own. 3. The particular smell of knapping and abrading a flint. I think I prefer this to the scent derived from striking a light from a flint, but that is also delicious. 4. The dark rocks of the cove by Little Burrageo in Deerness, when there has been sunshine for three days and little wind. A rare phenomenon in Orkney, this warms them and traps and distills the sea and land and, particularly, the coast into one distinctive smell. It has top notes of crumbling sandstone, iodine, and salt, with a rich body derived from the more volcanic, harder rock. Other places on the same coast don’t quite capture the same depth of scent and, when I lived near there, if they did have the scent, it would have been lost beneath tonnes of guano from the tens of thousands of seabirds who used to nest there. Last time I visited in spring, those cliffs lay comparatively silent, many of the birds dead or gone northward. 5. Evening, night-blooming jasmine, and frangipani, after a hot tropical day. Before the night mosquitoes appear in force, but as the day ones are going to bed. 6. Old books, obviously but, to make it a little more personal, I’ll be a touch more specific—the scent of a particular journal, once a chunky ledger for a company back in the 1800s, a company who only filled in five pages of 2000+, before abandoning that ledger. Now, it has been passed to me and, every time I open her, the scent is transporting. And, if I’m honest, a little off-putting. I want to use her pages, fill her in some way, but I’ve yet to quite learn how and I find the ancient smell akin to an elderly mystic sitting silently and peacefully, yet somehow also judging me. 7. Tulsi I’ve grown, harvested, and dried myself. Particularly Ethiopian tulsi. It is a bit tutti-frutti, a bit sharp, a bit wonderful, all its own thing. 8. Otter spraint, or poop. Yeah, I know, but to smell this as you walk a river or a coast is one of those times where the nose can sometimes confirm an animal before the other senses, and I love that. (See also—the scent of deer in a thick wood, but not the scent of wild boar, despite being an awesome thing, knowing they’re hiding up in that thicket, on that ridge, just from smell alone—it ain’t as nice as deer—and neither can touch the otter poop for sheer sort-of-jasmine nose joy.) 9. Givenchy Very Irresistible For Men. My go-to scent back in the mid 2000s through to the early 2010s, criminally deleted by the company, it fit me and my skin so well. Somewhat chocolatey, although the middle notes are actually coffee and sesame. Top notes included mint and grapefruit, with a base of Virginia cedar and hazelnut. Absolutely my favourite manufactured perfume for men, hands-down, and I mourn its loss still. (Honourable mention over the years for Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme, and [vintage] Burberry Men [and, to a lesser extent, vintage Burberry Weekend for summer.]) These days, I wear nothing, have no added scent—I even use a simple, scentless, solid deodorant. I’m not even comfortable with too strong an odour from washing liquid—probably all due to AuDHD. If I find a scent I love, that’s different (oh! for the day my unanswered pleas to Givenchy are met!), but I ain’t spraying myself in something mediocre. 10. One particular green, Thai balm, used for all sorts of things, including mosquito bites, for example. I have no idea what it is called, or what is in it, but it came from Pun Pun and I love it. 11. That smell which emanates from a really good fish and chip shop when the door is opened. Part fish, part oil, part salt and vinegar, all addictive. 12. Hedgerows in spring bloom. This is a cheat, as it means I can include things like elderflower, hawthorn, wild roses, damp ditches after a night rain, warming leaves of stray raspberry canes and sharp tangles of blackberries, honeysuckle, linden, and so many others. 13. Oakwood burning on a campfire, beechwood burning in a stove. Ash on and in both. Birchwood forever. 14. Great draughts of humid, nighttime, August air, circa 1987, coming in from the once vast swamp of the Humberhead Levels, as the pea viners light up the fields and cast the scent far and wide. 15. The leather sheath on my favourite knife (an Iisakki Järvenpää puukko), worn and full of my own oils and hints of all the times it has been out in the woods, coast, mountains, and moors, perhaps a memory of blood from slips and carelessness when I was younger. (See also: the leather belt I have worn for years, and old, well-maintained vegetable-tanned leather in general.) 16. Whatever plastic Lego is made of, when accumulated in a box, played with for years, perhaps chewed a little, full of promise and hope. 17. Turpentine, including the turpentine scent of fatwood when harvested. Breaking a pine branch or chopping at the base of a dead pine and smelling this is like smelling the fire it will kindle in a different form. 18. Wild chives, brushed past on a forest trail. And also the cool mountain wind bringing down the overpowering scent of wild bear garlic every spring, rushing through the village and reminding me it’s time to make pesto. 19. Similarly, wild strawberry. Their scent is a vast part of the taste and, oh my, it is heavenly. (I also love gathering their leaves for tisane.) I could wax lyrical about sun-warmed strawberries, or a perfect passion fruit, or those purple fleshed dragon fruit, or several other types of fruit, how the scent of those freshly picked is utterly different from the pallid and dry examples you find in shops, how we should all try and taste these things properly, at least once in our lives, and how such a massive part of that tasting comes through the nose. 20. Sphagnum moss, when plucked for cleaning purposes, whether for my billy can (with wood ash and sand) or my derriere (without wood ash or sand). 21. Balloons, when stretched out and then as I blow into them and inhale again. A scent that goes hand-in-hand with an excited child. 22. My fedora, dating to 1930s Germany, with the later addition of an added, internal soft leather headband after I cut off all my hair back in 2002ish, to compensate for its lack and make it fit again. It is rich in memory of felt, wearing and weather, and carries a dignified weight which befits being nearly 100 years old and as good as it ever was (£10 from Oxfam, Broomhill, Sheffield, 2001). I wear it a lot in winter here, mostly at my computer on dark days, so as to stop the glare of the lights above annoying me too much and to keep my head warm. I always wonder at its journey. And yes, of course Indy was an inspiration, I was reading Archaeology and Prehistory at the time, after all. 23. Turning and using compost when time has done its magic. A richness and reward, a promise of life to come. 24. Opening a new, quality board-game box, pushing out cardboard counters and pieces, handling wooden tokens and thinking of how many times they’ll be moved around, and all the little stories they’ll build, stories which will rarely be remembered. The scent of this is intrinsically tied in with the future. 25. Likewise, certain acrylic paints—also tied to a memory of the future, reminding me of when I used to paint Games Workshop models, and wonder what the future would bring for them, the battles and campaigns to be fought (ultimately, it brought me selling almost all of them, years later, now ‘vintage’, the money funding months of adventure out in the woods. A fair trade.). Acrylic paint smell will always transport me back to my teenage years in the 1990s. 26. The smell of the art hut used by Stromness Primary school, but actually a part of the old Stromness Academy, mid 1980s, all warm wooden floors and walls, pencil shavings, paints, paint-water (which I once drank for a dare and did not die), inks, papers, canvas, and rubbers perhaps made of real vulcanised rubber, those tiny used tendrils of onc

    26 min

  7. 2 Jun

    Brough of Deerness, Orkney. Summer, 1995.

    (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Brough of Deerness, Orkney. Summer, 1995. I am partway up the cliff when I realise my mistake. Not climbing in welly boots, nor climbing without ropes—those are normal—but picking a route which takes me too close to a fulmar nest. Usually, I check this but, on this particular day I did not notice the bird, tucked into a ledge, away from view. I see the bird, the bird sees me and, as is the custom of fulmar, it leans forward to try and vomit a foul-scented mess on me. I lean back. Which is, of course, a mistake. Sticky, oily vomit or not—leaning back from a cliff face is unwise. The rock I was holding starts to come away, comically slow. It, like much of this cliff, was loose—held together on one plane, fractured on another. Like so many of us. Something pulls the wrong way, you come apart. I fall. It is not that far to the rocks below, but it is far enough to make me understand the gravity of the situation as I am weightless, attracted by gravity and thoroughly seen off by a cousin of the albatross family. Damn tube-noses. When I was young, Stenness Primary School had two classrooms—the Big End and the Peedie End. I was in the former, and my teacher at that time was the headmaster, writer, Orcadian scholar and collector of stories, Gregor Lamb. I remember a story he used to tell, one which seems fitting to slip into this piece, here. It took place not far from where I was falling, on the now-uninhabited island of Copinsay. A visitor to the island, perhaps someone connected to the lighthouse, or maybe someone visiting during the war years, when the population of Orkney became swollen like the corpse of a beached whale—I forget which—asked to go along with one of the families who still lived there, as they went to collect eggs. Now, collecting eggs in our modern parlance might sound quaint for many. It is something not too many city-based folk have done, after all and, in their mind, probably involves ducking into a chicken coop and plucking out the eggs neatly arranged there. As someone who has actually collected eggs, I can affirm that, yes, this is often the case but, quite often, it is considerably more work than that. The eggs have been hidden. The chickens do not want you to take them. You slip and end up sitting in chicken poop. You bang your head trying to escape the angry hen. However, in the case in point in this tale, the eggs were considerably more free range than this. Copinsay is gently sloping, rising up from the direction of Mainland Orkney and Deerness—where I lived at that time—to the other side of the island, stark and naked to the whims of the North Sea, sheer cliffs, not unlike the one I was climbing. The tourist, the visitor, whoever they were, watched, as the man tied a rope around the waist of one of his children, then lowered them down, to gather seabird eggs. They would scramble this way and that, filling a basket with the eggs and avoiding the angry parents as best they could. It was a dangerous, messy business, but essential for survival, the eggs feeding the family for a long time, able to be traded for other items, all of which needed to be rowed across from the Mainland. Watching this, mildly horrified at the risks taken with the children, the man asked the father, ‘What happens if the rope breaks?’ To which he received the reply, ‘Well, don’t worry, I’ve plenty more rope.’ Of course, this reply would have been in Orcadian dialect, a rich and beautiful thing, a remnant of a past thankfully being guarded for our future. As I fell, I wonder if that story popped into my head. Perhaps. It seems more likely I used that time to try and direct my downwards descent, successfully, as it turned out, landing on the only patch of grass and sea pink amongst a mass of jagged rock. I still badly twisted my knee, but was able to mostly laugh it off. The walk home was not fun, however, and I seem to recall that was the last time I ever climbed in wellington boots. I have also been wary of fulmar ever since and, ever since, my right knee hurts in wet weather or, increasingly—if I’m honest—dry weather, too. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min

  8. 26 May

    Isère, France. July, 2021.

    (After you have read these introductory paragraphs once, you can skip to the new/old content below. If you are listening, then the time stamp is around the two minute 45 second mark.) Introduction The word settled, to me, carries connotations I am keen to avoid. I have never felt settled or, perhaps, I cannot recall a time I felt settled. I do not feel settled now, writing this, and I’ve lived in the same house for three and a half years. Without even discussing the obvious issues of colonisation, I just don’t feel like I could, or should, settle; better to keep my constituent parts shook up, agitated perhaps, rather than separating and stagnant. Instead, I feel as though I have been travelling for years, maybe because I have not lived in my ‘home’ nation of Scotland for eight and a half years, perhaps because I know I won’t stay here forever, or maybe because I carry that concept of home in a way which differs from many? More precisely, I still think of myself as a slow traveller, globally feral. Recently, I have been revisiting places through the photographs and words I recorded when my feet crossed their soil. This is a way of reminding myself of where I have been, not just in space and time, but in mind, too. It is a wonderful thing, to come out of a low and rediscover myself through words I crafted, through the lens of a camera, when memory has wandered in the fog for too long. Thank you, past me. When I first started sharing letters with the world in this fashion, six or more years ago, I usually began them with a vignette of where I was, a sort-of travel diary, mixed with nature observation, locking in the setting for the reader, before I spoke of other things—and, by so doing, ensuring that place fed into the whole. It was a useful device, for reader and myself both but, as these letters were sent to so few readers, and now languish archived behind a paywall, I thought it a shame not to share these snippets again. As such, I am going to share a short series of these sketches, accompanied by a photograph from that time, sent to you in date order. I shall include the above paragraphs in each of the letters in this series, but I shall also include a link at the very start, so you can skip ahead once you are familiar with the above words. If you are listening and similarly want to skip, then the timestamp you want to navigate to will be in the same place. Taken without these paragraphs, each is a short read, and I hope you enjoy them. Isère, France. July, 2021. Moving through a natural woodland is different from passing through any other environment. You cannot rush, you cannot allow yourself to miss the little details. The more time you spend amongst the trees, the more you realise this and the quicker your pace alters: slow, slower, pause, repeat. Essentially, you return to a more natural state, a rhythm as old as our species itself. You listen, you look, these senses you already know well pulling in huge amounts of data. For most people, the vast majority of their information comes from sight and sound, but spend time in the woods and you learn to touch things—that tree bark, that rock or leaf, for example, you learn to inhale in a different way, deliberately sampling the air and all the varied perfumes it brings. You can even learn to taste that same air, or pick a leaf or fruit and chew. Then there are the senses we don’t always realise exist, let alone consciously utilise. Some of these can be a little unnerving when you first start to actively use and acknowledge them—some people call them a sixth sense which, quite frankly, is silly. We have far more than five senses, after all. Learning to listen to that little voice in your head, the one which tells you something is watching you, or that there’s something ahead on the trail, these things take time, but it is time which is well spent indeed. Of course, this isn’t supernatural at all, but simply your brain processing different information and picking up on tiny details you have consciously missed. Perhaps a change in the air brought a tendril of scent? We often fail to use our noses as we can—try it, now, sitting reading this, open your nostrils wide and inhale slowly and deliberately, you may be surprised what you can sample. Similarly, learning to snuffle like a dog at a scent trail is possible too, involving faster inhalation and sampling, your sense of smell actually being worked properly. Both these things can seem like strange magic, but also seek to remind us how civilisation can dull our own bodily functions. The woodland is a complex machine of many parts. It exists on different scales and even across time. I have walked across Scottish hillsides, devoid of any tree cover, but have known from the wide flourishes of native bluebells and anemones that I was walking through the ghost of a wood. If you look closely at the ground around you, you can often see small depressions, pockmarks from where trees were once blown over, tearing the ground and leaving their mark, long after they have rotted into the soil, eaten by large mouths and small. There exists a special light in woods, it filters through seasons and sun and rain, drifting through lifetimes, whether that of the tiny flowers carpeting the forest floor, your own, or that of the grandest oak. Wooded mountain valleys can maintain microclimates of their own, entirely different to that a stone’s throw away. Each area attracting a differing clientele, a question of scale within scales, Matryoshka-style. One side of a wooded valley is entirely different to the other. Different species of trees allow different understoreys, different flora and fauna, all within a tiny area. You can even teach yourself to know what species of trees are present by listening to the wind—different leaves make different sounds, watch, listen, learn: one rustle for oak and another for ash. To learn about the wood is to learn about life itself. It can teach us as much about ourselves as it does about this tree or that, or who that caterpillar becomes, what chewed those holes, why is this leaf patterned like that, which friend left those tracks? To learn about the wood is to be reminded of what matters, to be rejuvenated, to be healed of those myriad invisible wounds we receive within the urban environment. This process can be difficult for some people, taking a step back, revisiting atrophied senses, sometimes feeling enclosed and claustrophobic, primal and imagined fears rearing their head—but the results are worth it. Once, a friend of mine was concerned about my leaving my job to spend time in the woods on my own, worried about the dangerous lone men in the woods, with their knives and axes. I gently pointed out these men are nearly always fictional, that they simply don’t exist and I would be fine out there. With my knives and axe. Alone. It’s not hard to see how these stories and fears appear—if hikers or kayakers had met me at my wildest, with a long beard, woodsmoke-scented, wearing my axe on my belt, a knife at the other side and another around my neck, then I wonder what they would have thought. In the UK, certainly, these things are no longer common, nor always legal. (As a counterpoint of sorts to the above, I remember one long, rambling conversation with my sadly now dead dissertation tutor, the larger-than-life Professor [and Count, I believe] Marek Zvelebil. We were talking about woodlands, and [human] life in woods, and he explained about Finnish settlers to the mid-west US, and how they would often plant trees all around their homestead, close, blocking extensive views, the wide-open prairie deeply unsettling for them, having come from a place where the woods were deep and all-pervasive.) To me, to walk in a woodland, especially one less-managed, less tamed, is to hear the voices of our ancestors, to understand how we are but a blink in time, connected to something vast and essentially, reassuringly, incompressible. They are our ancestral home and to sit beneath the spreading branches of ancient friends is to step back in time, become something we are perhaps meant to be. Finally If you can afford to, there are currently two direct ways to support my work here. The first way is to take out a paid subscription. The second way to support me here is to use my Kofi button/link to send a tip of any amount. If you enjoyed this letter and wish to share it with others, please do so! I love it when someone shares my work. I also love it when you comment on a piece—really, really love it, thank you. Finally, many thanks for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you who does. Get full access to The Crow's Nest at alexandermcrow.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min
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About

Here, I share the voiceovers from my letters as a podcast, with occasional extras. I talk about being a part of nature, not apart from it, I talk about ancestral skills, or bushcraft, and I talk about our possible futures as a species living in uncertain, often dangerous times. One day, I might even narrate my fiction. All with hope, joy, and kindness. alexandermcrow.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Alexander M Crow
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    55
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Alexander M Crow
  • Show Website
    Voices From The Crow's Nest