First whooper swans, then greylag geese. Spring must be in the air: they’re heading north. My voiceover is again recorded outside. As the words are written around and punctuate the images, you’ll get the most out of listening if you’re able to view these at the same time.

Welcome to this week’s letter from the moss.

Less is more. I know it’s less cold but it feels more so in the damp. Cold grey has come to rest over much of the UK. The hills are playing hide and seek: now you see me, now you don’t. Traffic rumbles in the still air. I watch the deer watching me from the far side of the pine: we are both waiting for spring.

I set off wondering how I might abstract with graphite and ink the tangled worlds of the moss. So I choose a black and white preset on my phone, and determine to look ever closer. By removing colour, I cross a threshold.

I hover like a fly, finding patterns in the woody stems of heather and in icy shallows. I manoeuvre myself down to the ground to look horizontally: the perspective of a mouse, or the frogs that I occasionally meet here. I’m back to the minutiae, with a twist. It leads me to wonder—if we saw the world through such tiny eyes might we cherish earth more?

In monochrome elements stand out not because they demand attention but because they invite contemplation. I am reminded how often we take for granted the smallest of things. The way that we process information selectively; our reliance on colour. If our vision was limited to shades of grey, would we be more attuned to these nuances? The quiet elegance found in a curved blade of sedge? The other worlds glimpsed in a mirror of water?

To find inspiration amidst life's chaos, perhaps we need only look more closely at what surrounds us daily—the corners where nature resides quietly until summoned forth by our curious gaze.

What if caring more deeply about our environment begins with appreciating these small details? By shifting focus from sweeping panoramas towards humble vignettes we open ourselves up not just artistically but emotionally too. A gift of attention grows love, builds empathy, for all of the species that we share this planet with.

Through photographs and paintings we try to net the butterflies of fleeting moments and preserve them. Through words sifted, pooled onto page, to distil their essence into the purest form possible. And so to find solace for a few minutes more.

In the process of writing this I’ve learned that mice ‘see skies of blue’.1 And that frogs and toads are able to see colour even when it is so dark that humans cannot see anything at all.2

So perhaps my squares should, after all, have been in colour?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s letter. Thank you for being here; I appreciate every comment, like and share.

Until next week,

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Encore:

The red deer have been down to the moss too often, disturbing patches and hummocks of sphagnum. While I dearly wish that they had remained intact, it does provide a window into the way that these mosses grow ladders between the living acrotelm3 and the dead catotelm on a lowland raised bog.