How do moles tell the time?

Image: K Morley

I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with moles…

After exploring the ideas of ‘sensescapes’ and sensory difference I’ve been pondering how my aural diversity means that I experience the land here differently to those with what some would call ‘normal’ hearing, whilst acknowledging Alison Kafer’s words “We all have bodies and minds with shifting abilities” and reflecting on how people who have different embodied experiences of a place perceive a more “nature-full” space.

This has led me down a “rabbit hole” (or should I say mole hole) thinking about how different species with different ways of hearing exist in our place, and how they might sense their environments differently, such as by using tactile cues from fur or whiskers to interact with the world outside.

We are lucky enough that moles have found a home at Hill Crest. They tunnel away and unless they surface at an inopportune moment of a passing owl or stoat, are rarely ‘seen’ here at Hill Crest but the evidence of their daily toil pepper the landscape, where their crumbly piles of soil are a testament to the time they spend digging away looking for the jewels of earthworms or ant pupae.

Molehills on track (Image: R Morley)

In Rob Atkinson’s fantastic “Moles” book he describes how Moles will eat up to 60 grams of earthworms a day which is more than half its body weight. To seek out these treasures, moles are equipped with wondrous articulated shoulders and forelegs with broad ‘hands’ and nails that are perfectly compatible for chiselling and scooping away the soil to create a network of interconnected tunnels.

These ‘scoopings’ are sometimes deposited above ground in domes of soil- often the only indication that moles are present. These soil piles provide golden opportunities for seed establishment. Wood ants often colonise molehills, which in turn become food sources for many birds.

The intricacy of a mole's hand and 'nails' (Image: R Morley)

Nevertheless, the mole has a chequered history of co-existing with humans. Seen as a pest creating ‘trip hazards’, disrupting immaculate lawns, with soil from molehills contaminating hay or silage which could lead to listeriosis in livestock.

However here at Hill Crest, the moles are integral in our rewilding efforts. I collect some of the soil for mixing in with our homegrown compost for use in the Tree Hub, with the thought that perhaps mycorrhizal spores will enrich the saplings and acclimatise them to our local soil type. But as I do so, I ponder how these moles live their lives.

Rob Atkinson has a great chapter about the physiology of moles and how the tunnels they live in often have oxygen levels that are “15% lower” than at the surface, “Moles' blood contains a lot of haemoglobin- the protein that carries oxygen to the organs.”

If you search for images of moles nearly all the characterful renditions are bespectacled. Isn’t it funny how humans have assumed that moles' visual inputs require some sort of intervention… the reality of a mole’s eyesight is that they see differently than humans and can perceive UV light. This sensory difference is also apparent in their auditory system. To protect their hearing system from soil encroachment moles do not have fleshy ear flaps (pinnae), and they are known to have a hearing range of 0.1-15kHz. This astonishing ability to hear low-frequency sounds means that moles can hear much lower-pitched sounds than humans, bats or even mice.

But are these hearing ranges assuming that auditory perception is solely by air conduction (how sounds travel through the air to reach the auditory system- the ear), could moles have a much more sensitive system for perceiving sound vibrations via bone conduction?

If their bodies; bones, fur and whiskers are more attuned to direct vibrations could this 3D embodied visceral detection of sound create much more information about their surroundings and influence how they interact with the structure of the place and those other beings that also inhabit it?

As I walk the tracks above them how do they perceive me…? Do we perceive this place differently, together?  

As I watch the clock and rigidly plan a day which is driven by a capitalist society’s timeframe, how do moles spend their lives? As they spend most of their days in the dark below ground are they driven by the night and day circadian rhythm? Do the other creatures that inhabit the subterranean mole’s realm have their own rhythm and does this rhythm impact the mole? Does a mole have any reference to time?

Being driven by society’s clock is something that Disability Studies theorists and activists have explored. This non-normative framing of time is often referred to as ‘Crip Time’. Crip Time may be where time becomes elastic and negotiating societal barriers requires time to assess and overcome. Similarly, Crip Time might also encompass the time needed to negotiate life admin, the time needed to interact with medical professionals, and the time needed to rest.

In my own case, my long-term health condition means that sometimes during the month I can be turbocharged, time flies, I’m energised and can interact with society at my pace- sometimes society is moving too slow for my “zingy brain”, but the moment passes and my desire to crawl into a hole and slow down creeps over me. My ‘productivity’ slumps and I spend my time wondering how I can crawl through the day where time stretches only long enough to get the nitty gritty done.

This awareness of how my timeframe shifts has in some respects been revelatory but in a society that requires everyone to work at its supercharged pace, with little understanding or accommodating of immovable deadlines, frustration and feelings of failure are often the end result.

My beloved Gramps used to have a saying that he often used: “Time waits for no man”- but as I get older I can now understand this to mean “Society has no time to wait for anyone”.

As Alison Kafer says “Rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, Crip Time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds.”

In her beautiful essay,  Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time Ellen Samuels reflects:

“For crip time is broken time. It requires us to break in our bodies and minds to new rhythms, new patterns of thinking and feeling and moving through the world. It forces us to take breaks, even when we don't want to, even when we want to keep going, to move ahead. It insists that we listen to our bodyminds so closely, so attentively, in a culture that tells us to divide the two and push the body away from us while also pushing it beyond its limits. Crip time means listening to the broken languages of our bodies, translating them, honoring their words.”

I often talk about Rewilding being on a spectrum, but the reality is that this is not a linear journey.

Trees grow at various rates- squirrels come and ring bark some trees “setting them back”- storms come, death intervenes but new life is injected into the system via the mycorrhizal network. Where does time really sit within all these ‘natural processes’?

So I reflect on how much of nature’s rhythms we don’t understand; the interconnectedness of nature and the interdependence of each species’ timeframe upon each other. The timeframes that shift seemingly imperceptibly ensure that the timings of when a flower emerges and the anthers unfurl to feed a passing insect, which has bred and flourished at a time that coincides with the return of the swallows. This intricate timing and synchronicity of a multitude of species is a complex attunement of so many systems, but in a changing climate, do all these beings have time to adapt?

As we move towards a more nature-full space here at Rewilding Hill Crest I puzzle and wonder what time means to the returning nature, and by rewilding the land we are in turn stretching and moulding what we mean by timeframes, timelines and shifting baselines…

So mole, I shall sit in my world and my time and ponder on your life. Are you having the “time of your life”? I’m just grateful that you spend your time near to mine.

Further information:

Atkinson. R. (2013). Moles. The British Natural History Collection. Book 3. Essex: Whittet Books.

Bell, S.L., Hickman, C., and Houghton. F. (2023) From therapeutic landscape to therapeutic ‘sensescape’ experiences with nature? A scoping review - ScienceDirect 

Harrod, A. and von Benzon, N. (2024) Untangling nature-based interventions’ influences on participants’ mental wellbeing Critiquing ‘nature on prescription’.  Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Eds. Boyd, C.P., Boyle, L.E., Bell, S.L., Högström, E., Evans, J., Paul, A., and Foley, R.  London: Routledge.

Kafer, A. (2013) Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Samuels, E. (2017) Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time | Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 3: Summer 2017

YouTube video for Rewilding Britain Webinar: Smaller Scale Rewilding: Hill Crest, Embercombe & Devon Wildland (2022) A conversation with Sara King- Rewilding Britain with Kate Morley and Laura Fairs.

PhD Lightning Talk- with a difference...

Once a year as part of our PhD studies, researchers at the Faculty of Health and Life Science's Department of Public Health and Sports Science are encouraged to present our current progress to the wider research community. Last year as a first year PhD researcher I created an academic poster that outlined my aims and methodology. This year I was asked to present a Lightning Talk. This is a type of presentation that is meant to be short in length, provides an overview of the topic and portrays your message in a clear concise, engaged way. In this case, the brief was to present "for a maximum of 10 mins... followed by 5 mins for Questions & Answers".

As someone who has never spent much time in full-time academia in a traditional sense, the workings of academic life still baffle me. In my first degree and Master's degree I studied part-time on block release where one week a month I would attend university but the other three weeks I would be in the clinic working with patients... Without doubt, studying this way was incredibly enriching; building clinical knowledge by listening and learning from people with lived experience of the conditions one week, and then perhaps studying those conditions in more depth the next month... I have attended (and presented) at many commercial and professional conferences over the years but navigating the workings of an academic conference still feels a bit 'mystical'.

So having never heard of Lightning Talks before I had a quick browse on the internet to see what was involved and came across this really helpful article on the Nature website: Lightning talks: science in 5 minutes or less (nature.com). In the article, Chris Woolston talks about the pitfalls of trying to adjust or shorten a previous presentation, as well as using over-complicated slides. As someone who started giving presentations in the 1990s when the 'high-tech option' of using acetate sheets and an overhead projector was 'de rigueur' the main technical worry about giving a presentation in those days was whether the projector bulb would blow halfway through or that the slides would get smudged. During a recent clear-out of paperwork I found some of the old slides that I used in a presentation which I gave as part of our Audiology department's successful bid to be one of the first hospitals in the South West to carry out Bone Anchored Hearing Aid surgery and fitting. Here is a hand-drawn picture of the abutment screw which was one of the 'slides':

With the advance of PowerPoint, we have got sucked into a certain way of presenting which encourages us to stare at the screen rather than making eye contact with the audience. With the opportunities that the increased use and associated accessibility of online meetings, PowerPoint is undoubtedly an incredibly useful tool, but sometimes it feels as though I spend ages agonising over fonts and layout rather than really dwelling on the key messages that I want each slide to convey.

So when I heard from the organisers that the Lightning talk would not be online and in-person only, I thought I would minimise the use of PowerPoint slides, by only using three slides and by using a variety of physical objects that I have been creating over the last 18 months. These objects have been a way for me to articulate and reflect on my learnings. (You might like to check out my previous post, which explains how I have used creative methods to communicate nature recovery messages in our community). So because the Lightning talk was not recorded or available online I thought I would share some photos and context here, for those who would like to know more:

First PowerPoint slide: title page

Exhibit 1. Wooden knot depicting the Aims of the study: "Drawing on critical disability studies, disability justice and environmental justice scholarship, this PhD aims to explore how growing efforts to make space for urban nature – be it in urban parks, community gardens, nature reserves, woodlands or less formal nature settings – could influence the nature experiences of disabled people. The project will explore how urban nature policies and decision-making frameworks shape experiences of and responses to urban nature settings amongst residents with varied experiences and histories of disability".

Second PowerPoint slide: Research Questions

Exhibit 2. Viewpoint to Equity Transition.

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that time spent in and with urban nature can benefit people’s health and well-being. Urban greenspace is deemed specifically important as a relatively cost-efficient and accessible health and social intervention for people within their own communities. However, it remains unclear whether: (a) these benefits can be fully realised by all members of the community, including disabled people; and (b) how these benefits may arise through the varied forms of urban nature that people may encounter. Health inequities are complex and by solely focusing on the medicalised model of disability can miss the myriad of other factors and barriers that can influence how disabled people are able to experience urban nature. This PhD will therefore consider policies that impact health inequities and urban nature in a wider context.

Exhibit 3. The Three Ps of the Rationale of my PhD.

This PhD will explore which policies impact disabled people and urban nature. Who is involved in making these policies and what are their impacts? This PhD will examine whether and how disabled people are involved in the co-design, planning and implementation of urban nature settings. How do disabled people perceive and interact with varied forms of urban nature, and how does this impact their lives in potentially positive and negative ways? Existing research has identified several barriers to accessing nature (urban and rural) amongst disabled people. These barriers can be broadly characterised as physical, informational, financial, social, and emotional barriers. This PhD aims to conceptualise how disability and environmental justice could be embedded in efforts to promote inclusive nature access in ways that recognise human diversity as an integral dimension of biodiversity. How can accessible paths be built so that they protect and enhance biodiversity?

Image credit: Cara Patel

Exhibit 4. Case Study Area- Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole (BCP).

A bucket and flag were used to depict that the case study area of BCP has areas of green space and blue space. The area has been identified as having health inequities with often neighbouring areas having different socio-economic conditions that might impact how communities interact with urban nature. I put each coat of arms of the towns of Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole on the flag... interestingly during this process I noted that each coat of arms depicts an element of nature that each town is renowned for:

Bournemouth's crest consists of four English Roses surmounted by a pine tree, symbolising the town's gardens and parks.

On Christchurch's crest the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Stour are represented. The salmon on the chevron show the importance of the ancient fishing industry, and two lions rest their hind paws on tree stumps, to show the proximity of the New Forest.

Poole's coat of arms depicts a dolphin and the waves, highlighting the importance of the seascape to the town, where green space and blue space meet.

Exhibit 5. The Strands of Methodology.

The qualitative ethnographic case study is made up of three strands. Strand 1 Documentary Analysis. Strand 2 Key Informant Interviews and Strand 3 is split in two; Lived experience of disability semi-structured interviews and lived experience of disability Go-Along Interviews.

Exhibit 6. Positionality in Qualitative Research.

Qualitative research requires reflection on how my personal lived experience, assumptions and privilege as a researcher may impact the research. Here I created a 'wordsearch' of influence.

Exhibit 7. Grey squirrel skull and bark shavings

Having nature in urban spaces can create conflict. Grey squirrels have found a home in urban spaces and many people enjoy watching and interacting with them. However grey squirrels are non-native and are known to strip bark from trees which will thwart efforts to increase tree canopy cover. This is just an example of how different people may experience nature differently and with space in urban areas under pressure from competing interests, how nature finds a home in urban environments can be widely contested.

Image Credit: Cara Patel

Exhibit 8. Percy the Peregrine Falcon.

Percy the soft toy peregrine was used to explain how iconic and awe-inspiring species, such as peregrines, ospreys and white-tailed eagles are finding homes in urban spaces in BCP. Do local communities notice these species returning? How do they interact with them? With peregrines using the local supermarket and the prime real-estate site of the Barclays building (as shown in the second PowerPoint slide) how land is used by these species when humans may have different ideas for its use will be explored.

Exhibit 9. The chain of Access.

This was based on the Sensory Trust's Access Chain inclusive design tool. The Access Chain outlines all of the steps that are need for a person to have a successful visitor experience. There are 4 main links in the chain:

1. Decision to visit

2. Journey and arrival

3. On-site experience

4. Return home So with this item, I used it to talk about the factors that may influence how people are able to access urban nature, as well as the barriers that exist which might impact that experience.

Exhibit 10. Models of disability.

This plaque has two sides. One side explains the medical model of disability whilst the other side depicts the social model of disability. I discussed this before in a blog post last year. Although time was limited I felt that it was important in my lightning talk to reference the different ways that disability can be conceptualised, this is particularly important in the context of being in a University's Medical School as there is often tension around 'diagnosis' and individualising health conditions without considering social barriers faced by people with lived experience of disability.

Exhibit 11. The Disability Justice Tree.

I created this wooden plaque to depict the ten principles of Disability Justice. Disability Justice is a social justice movement that examines disability and ableism as they relate to other forms of oppression and identity, such as race, class, gender and sexuality. Disability Justice was conceived by queer, disabled women of colour. I discussed that my PhD will reflect on how Disability Justice intersects with Environmental Justice, but also how this has led me to the Eco-crip literature and writings by critical disability scholars such as Alison Kafer, Eli Clare, Sunaura Taylor and Sarah Jaquette Ray. I also reflected that these teachings have influenced my thinking outside of my PhD, in how I conceptualise and frame Rewilding and nature recovery.

Final PowerPoint slide. Questions & Acknowledgements.

Image credit: Cara Patel Image credit: Gavin Buckingham

The conference was a great opportunity to meet other researchers working in the Faculty, and to hear about the huge range of fantastic research that is being undertaken; from stress fractures in Royal Marine recruits, anti-microbial resistance, to using Virtual Reality to improve grip strength. I also had the opportunity to have a lively discussion about the ethics of VR, and the use of alternative realities to supplement or replace access to nature.

At the end of the day, I was really surprised and delighted to be awarded first prize in the Lightning Talks. Sometimes it can be beneficial to be a mature student, who has no pre-conceived awareness of expectations or worries around the pressures of academic culture. I am also lucky to have three very supportive supervisors who allow me the space and freedom to be creative and trust me to "deliver' in my own way.

The fact that other researchers came up to me at the end of the conference, and said they would be keen to try to use alternative creative communication methods and to venture away from the podium and laptop, was really heartening. I look forward to next year's conference!

Devon Rewilding Network visit to Rewilding Hill Crest...

On the 22nd of June we welcomed the Devon Rewilding Network to Rewilding Hill Crest, to discuss the social history of the site and how this has influenced land use, the move towards nature recovery and the importance of connectivity and the Devon Wildland initiative. We also invited the parliamentary candidates for Central Devon to come and learn about rewilding and share their ideas for nature recovery.

I have written before about the history of the land and how my Great-Grandmother and Great-Uncle managed to keep the dairy herd, by farming our 16 acres and adding to the holding by becoming tenant farmers of the local estate and neighbouring land. Granny Jilbert was widowed when her youngest boy, Joe was just three, when my great-grandfather died from tuberculosis which he contracted whilst working as a tin miner. Being a woman on her own with three boys and keeping the dairy herd going was a particular challenge in the face of two world wars. Each son was encouraged to go and learn a trade as Granny Jilbert felt there was no future in small-scale farming. My grandfather (the middle son) went and trained as a hairdresser but the declaration of the Second World War pulled him into the 49th (West Riding) Reconnaissance Regiment, taking him into the conflict where unspeakable horrors awaited him and his involvement in the liberation of the Netherlands greatly shaped his outlook on life. The oldest son, Uncle Bill (who trained as a watch and clock repairer with the Exeter jeweller, Brufords) the farmer, was a member of the home guard but his main focus was also on food production where every inch of land was used (and exploited) to help 'feed the nation'.

After the war, the precarious food security situation and the ongoing rationing until 1954 meant that farmers were highly respected and encouraged to maximise yields. The end of rationing didn't let up the pressure on the land, with many farmers looking to diversify. When the M5 and later the A30 were built Uncle Bill allowed spoil from the build to be dumped on the fields (as well as asbestos sheets) to supplement his watch-repairing income, in order to pay the two mortgages to keep the land in the family.

Why does any of this matter? What relevance is this to rewilding? Well in my opinion knowing the origin of the land is crucial to understanding the social pressures that have shaped its use. Sunaura Taylor writes about this in her wonderful new book; Disabled Ecologies. In her book, she discusses the concept of 'sacrifice zones' and why some land is subject to environmental harm and is deemed an 'expected loss'. The idea of taking land out of agricultural (capital) food production is often seen by many as a radical move, and socially unacceptable. But as I have said before the land here at Hill Crest is still involved in food production but for nonhuman species that inhabit it, rather than putting human needs above all others.

So when the Devon Rewilding Network visited we were able to take them onto the land and tell the story of the land, what Sunaura Taylor calls its 'Origin Story,' and how this now influences the changes which are happening. We also reflected on 'shifting baseline syndrome' and how the land would have looked to my Great-Grandmother... would she have seen the electricity pylons that marched across the skyline in the 1950s as progress for society, enabling people to use the new modern technologies such as washing machines and televisions, or would she have viewed them as eyesores and worried about their impact on birds. Feeding the nation, technological changes and the increased traffic on the main road from Exeter to Dartmoor may well have caused her concerns but now as I view the landscape and the rapid changes that are needed to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, social justice and issues of land use come to the fore.

We touched on so much of this during the Devon Rewilding Network visit, and whilst we talked about a huge variety of subjects; from mycorrhizal networks, sheep and wool to thinking about local impact to landscape scale nature recovery, the huge variety of attendees also shared their perspectives.

The 'walk and talk' was followed by tea and cake and a talk from my husband, Richard Morley, Charity Director of The Wolves and Humans Foundation discussing global and European perspectives of co-existence with large carnivores.

I have shared some photographs of the day below:

The weekend was also momentous as the first barn owl chick fledged from the barn owl box we put up last year and the Glow worms started glowing that weekend...

A huge thanks to Simon Roper and Molly Turner at Ambios for continuing to facilitate the Devon Rewilding Network and creating valued connections. The day felt like a really positive impactful day.