Starry Malverns, Hannah Lawson
In England, we have pretty much half-and-half regarding day and night, unlike our Scandinavian friends, who often have all-night for the winter months, and all-daylight during high summer. How does day and night work? Simply put, the earth rotates at a tilt to the sun. One side of our planet earth is bathed in sunlight, and the other in darkness (as the earth blocks the sun). So because the North Pole is at an angle, the sun does not set above the Arctic Circle. This is what gives Norway its ‘midnight sun’ where it never sets, giving 24 hours of daylight. Sounds nice, but difficult to get to sleep!
Read which animals are nocturnal to learn of creatures that prefer to stay up all night! Don’t disturb wildlife if gazing at night. Using torches and lights can confuse birds and other wildlife.
In the far north of Norway, the sun hardly rises for a few months of the year. This is makes it dark all day, though it’s easier to see in the dark, as everything’s covered in snow! Some people have developed the same kind of vision as reindeer, so they see better in the dark. Never visit reindeer in Christmas shopping centres, as most are terrified by the noise and bright lights (they also need specialised diets).
Dark skies simply refer to places where there is little light pollution (Northumberland comes out top here, possibly because it has the lowest population). However, light pollution elsewhere causes huge issues. One is causing birds to wake up earlier and start singing at night (due to lampposts etc) and billions of birds crash into lit glass buildings worldwide, as they get confused by artificial light (read how to stop birds flying into windows).
Elsewhere, many creatures (like crabs and turtles) are coming out of the sea to lay their eggs near multi-storey car parks (attracted by the light, mistakenly thinking it’s the moon). Read more on how protecting night skies helps wildlife.
A Printmaker’s Day and Night
Wild Light: A Printmaker’s Day and Night is a beautiful book with over 70 original illustrations, to invite us to look at how the light changes the world around us, and how that changes us in its turn. The book follows a journey through 24 hours of collected memories of the nature that surrounds.
I, like many other people, find great inspiration in the way mornings, evenings or bright midday light changes the way we see the things around us. The bouncing light of a cloud-filled storm sky can change a seascape through a palette of blues, greys and turquoises. The cool summer mood of the garden from homely to unfamiliar. And whether it’s the low light of an English February afternoon or the sharp bright mid-morning light of the Cornish seaside, the light and dark we experience affects our moods.
Angela Harding trained in Fine Art at Leicester Polytechnic and printmaking at Nottingham Trent University. She created the image for the iconic cover of The Salt Path. She lives in England’s smallest county of Rutland, working from a studio at the bottom of her garden.
