About MarshScapes
MarshScapes is a space for some musings, photos, maybe the occasional sketch, on nature, wildlife, our relationship with the 'wild', natural history, science, archaeology and really anything that might catch my attention.
My name is Anke Marsh and I am a research scientist, writer and editor who dabbles in photography. I got my PhD from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL and my research focuses on the use of sedimentary and microfossil (shout out to phytoliths!) evidence to better understand past environments and the ever so complicated human-nature relationship - a theme I will be writing about here (edit: ok, got distracted by birds!). I am also active in conservation and natural history volunteering with both the London Natural History Society and the Earthworm Society of Britain.
One thing that has remained constant in my life is photography. In high school, I took photography (back in the darkroom ages) and continued to take photos after. Until my camera got stolen. Then I took a loooong break. When I was doing my PhD, I bought myself a DSLR and entered the digital age. I used the camera a lot in my fieldwork, photographing landscapes, landforms, and trench sections (basically layers of dirt). Then my kid came along...
She started asking so many questions about what she saw, trees, bugs, birds, and I realised that I knew nothing. Sure I could ID plants based on little silica bits (phabulous phytoliths), I could tell you loads about dirt and rocks, and maybe even a bit about that old pot. But that little eight-legged thing? It's a spider and that's all I got. So, I started to learn. Got into macro photography, and discovered a whole new world of little things that lurk, almost invisibly, in the undergrowth, under bark, under leaves. The thing about invertebrates though is that in the winter, they mostly disappear, and I wanted to continue to photograph things when I wandered around. So I started birdwatching. Birds are great, and are around the whole year.
I take long walks, photograph what I see, record them (biological records that end up eventually in the national biodiversity database), and do a lot of thinking. And a lot of that is about nature and our relationship with the 'wild'. So, this site was born - to explore these ideas and to share photos of the beautiful part of the world that I am so fortunate to have on my doorstep.
I'll also be blogging generally about the lake I visit regularly, documenting the goings on through the seasons. And, I'm a fibre fiend - I love to crochet, so there's gonna be stuff about that too! So a real mix, I hope you like it!
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