Vhs To Dvd Isle Of Wight
Violet Mcdow
A name can reveal something about its owner. Mine, Hannah: starts off laughing and ends up negative; an approximation of my emotional output. My home, the Isle of Wight: a population that's 97.3 percent white. Everything is black and white. No space for fluidity, ambiguity or subtlety. People are straight or "gay"; one of us or one of them. Times are good or hard, the situation at hand right or wrong. The season is summer or "the other one" (only June to August matters when your economy relies on the fluctuating public desire to eat a 99 Flake).
The island is shaped like a kiss, and I describe it to those unfamiliar with the place as "that dot as south as you can go on the map". People occasionally confuse us with The Isle of Man, but whatever mad shit they do up there, it has nothing on what goes on down here. There's a playground rumour that residents are inbred, a claim I cannot confirm or deny, and instead will refer you to the head of Ofsted, who called us an "inbred, poor, white ghetto".
There's only one nickname for the Isle of Wight, and that's The Island. Everything that is not The Island is The Mainland. Either, or. Black, wight. As every man with a humanities degree has reminded me on dates, the person to give it this moniker was possibly Jane Austen, who wrote in Mansfield Park: "She thinks of nothing but the Isle of Wight, and she calls it the Island, as if there were no other island in the world."
Life trails 30 to 40 years behind the rest of the country here, and the shops that close on a monthly basis either look decrepit, with worn 70s signs, or parachuted in from a low-budget movie set, with garish fronts painted by the same local sign maker. Mood-wise, the Island is thoughtful and foreboding. Beautiful but isolated and a bit unhinged. Something is just off. It's finding a photograph of a haunted Victorian child in a charity shop; the feeling after someone tells you "we need to talk"; seeing an ice cream van ride over the meadows on an overcast day; The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" playing in an empty seaside caf. Once upon a time we had witches and smugglers; now, we have a large and thriving Pagan population, an active dogging scene and conspiracy theorist David Icke. Lewis Carroll was greatly inspired by the Isle of Wight, and his stories were weird and horrible.
One summer the Island was plagued with myxomatosis, and every morning I woke up to find five to ten dead rabbits in our garden, pink eyes bulging from their sockets. My dad would go out early with a shovel and pick each one up like they were pizzas for a wood oven, and toss them into the adjacent woods, whistling to himself.
A teenage girl who'd gone to sketch was murdered and left naked in the quarry on the downs behind my house, and none of us girls were allowed to walk the 100 meters alone to primary school anymore. With a notebook and binoculars, I once spied on the colony of wild goats with horns as thick as my thighs that roam the Island, as they were called in for their yearly health check. Quite Black Phillip from The Witch meets Animal Hospital.
Brading is the creepy little town I lived in before my parents separated. It's on the east side of the Island, where everything is. You don't live in West Wight unless you're preparing for the long sleep. There used to be a waxworks, most of which was dedicated to a torture chamber and filled with pallid models rotating on racks and getting their balls lopped off, soundtracked by a looped recording of agonising cries and yelps. It famously gave visitors "recurring nightmares" and shut down. There's also "Little Jane's Cottage", the thatched home of another teen girl who died of tuberculosis, which, for posterity or something, has been kept preserved. And then a Doll and Toy Museum, which is exactly as unnecessary as it sounds.
Once you're a teenager, all the open space becomes simultaneously more oppressive and your own personal playground. Everything you can see is a party spot waiting to happen, provided you have alcohol and regularly snog someone with a car (public transport runs whenever drivers can be bothered, so infrequently).
This meant getting pissed with farmers; throwing burning balls of organic matter down country lanes; smoking weed in overturned boats; sharing cigarettes and stolen sweets in fields; and going to any of the beaches to do whatever teens find fun, which in the mid to late-2000s was shooting each other with super-soakers of pee, masturbating each other and getting driven home with sand in your pants.
Better than Ryde or house parties, the landscape allowed for extended weekend adventures that parents never knew about. My favourite place was Woodside. You could only reach this concrete platform next to the sea by venturing through an abandoned holiday park, ripping your trousers and cutting your arms on the bramble, a nightmarish initiation ceremony.
We'd set up tents around the static homes, and light fires on the concrete, smoke weed and play music loud enough to echo. The tide would be high, threatening to spill over, and you could see the Mainland like fairy lights on the horizon. Now, the woodland has been cleared, the empty homes removed, and a sparkling new yuppy holiday home is in its place, obviously.
The Nature Park has a large paved parking area and two fishing piers. The east pier of the Nature Park is approached by a gravel path heading out of the loop at the easternmost end of the parking area. The east pier is T-shaped, with a long boardwalk running along the large rip-rap boulders of the shoreline, and a shorted extension out into the water. The south pier, which heads due south from the parking area, is a 6000 foot-long boardwalk through a swampy forest and open marsh and ending at the open waters of Isle of Wight Bay, overlooking the towering buildings of Ocean City to the east, the gentler suburban landscape of West Ocean City to the west, and to the south, the Isle of Wight Bay, dotted here and there with sandy islets, some of which are part of Sinepuxent Bay Wildlife Management Area. Both piers provide excellent exposure to habitats of open water, marsh, and forested swamp. In winter particularly, this area is often teeming with birds. In addition, the Nature Park offers a canoe and kayak soft launch and a couple of picnic tables. This is an extremely popular place for fishing, crabbing, and catching great sunset views.
With all the surrounding water, as you might expect, waterfowl occupy a prominent part of the Isle of Wight checklist, with 25 species reported. Most of these are wintering species; in the summer, only Canada Geese and Mallards are to be expected. In addition, there are Pied-billed and Horned Grebes and Common and Red-throated Loons. Red-necked Grebes are less common but are possible in late winter. Double-crested Cormorants are abundant year-round; Brown Pelicans are seen sporadically. The marshes support Clapper and Virginia Rails.
Belted Kingfishers are easy to find. The woods hold Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers in winter, and year-round populations of Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers. Hairy Woodpecker is less often reported but is a possible breeding species in this Atlas block. Pileated Woodpeckers have been reported from April through July and probably breed.
Flycatchers found in the woodlands include Eastern Wood-Pewee, Eastern Phoebe, Great Crested Flycatcher and Eastern Kingbird. White-eyed Vireo is considered a probable breeder. Red-eyed Vireo is present, but mostly in late summer, and might not nest on the island. Blue Jays, American Crows, and Fish Crows are common all year-round, along with Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice. In the warm months, expect Purple Martins and Tree and Barn Swallows. Cave Swallows are a rare find during November. Also expect Blue-gray Gnatcatchers from April through August.
Wintering songbirds include Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and Brown Creepers. White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches can be found at any time of year.
In the wren department, Carolina Wrens are an abundant year-round resident and breeder. House Wrens have been reported during spring and fall and is a possible breeder. Winter Wrens are regular in winter; Marsh Wrens are occasional in fall migration or winter, but do not breed here; and Sedge Wrens are a rare find in winter.
House Sparrows are present in spring and fall. House Finches are found from April through November and are a probably breeder. American Goldfinches are abundant year-round. Pine Siskins may be present during the winter.
European Starlings are common year-round. Bobolinks and Baltimore Orioles come through during fall migration, and Eastern Meadowlarks have been found during spring migration. Red-winged Blackbirds are abundant year-round. Brown-headed Cowbirds are present from March through June and then during fall migration, but are relatively absent in winter. Common Grackles are found in large numbers except during the dead of winter; Boat-tailed Grackles might pop up in spring. Both grackles breed in this Atlas block.
Twenty species of warblers have been reported. Common Yellowthroat and Pine Warblers are probable breeders; the others are spring and fall migrants, except for Yellow-rumped, which overwinters in large numbers and can be found from October through May. Look for them on bayberry plants.
93ddb68554