Pokemon Hunting with an Eye on Nature

I couldn't resist it.

I had an excuse, the idea of writing a piece comparing nature hunting with hunting for Pokemon, those ubiquitous augmented reality creatures that only appear on your mobile phone. But really, I wanted to do it since I heard of it, the chance for me to be in at the beginning of a craze for a change, the chance to be a child again and be in the open air.

My flat is in a hotspot for Pokemon activity - looking at this I really can't believe I'm writing this - full of virtual Pokestops and Gyms, and even after midnight there's usually a few twenty somethings trundling around heads down, faces illuminated by the blue Poke-Glow of their mobile phone screen.

And a couple of days ago I became one of them, and immediately headed for Sconce Park, another busy Poke-Place full of children and their parents or elder siblings wandering around excitedly pointing at things that you couldn't actually see.

It didn't take me long to be seeing things either. My mobile phone buzzed, I switched on the virtual view, and there was a Pokemon right before my Poke-Eyes in the car park.

This rodent looking thing is a "rattata". What it does, I have no idea, but I caught it. I found a friend of his not far away.

This is a spearow, and I caught it not far from the start of the Parkrun route. Looks rather stern.

Technology though soon was Poke-Stumped however. The servers crashed, as they always do, and whereas others would perhaps pack up and go home, I had a whole park to still enjoy on a lovely evening.

That being said, I still think it's a good thing. Children are outside walking in the open air in parks - the game incentivizes you to do that by rewarding you for every kilometre or two you walk. Local nature reserves are reporting an increase in visitors, and people are posting pictures of butterflies or birds they have found on their Poke-Hunts so now the reserves are encouraging people to come and play.

Even more dramatically, a bunch of young lands out looking for Pokemon found a guy collapsed with heart failure right outside my flat. They found him a few minutes before I did, and in that time they were able to get paramedics out to treat him. If they hadn't been playing Pokemon, he'd have been Poke-Dead.

Let them play, say I! I'm going to carry on. For just a little while...

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.07.16

Harebell Hills

The Harebells seem to be out very early at Sconce Hills Park this year; I normally associate them with August - September flowering. I noticed them yesterday, small bright blue carpets, usually on sun facing slopes on the fortification itself and nowhere else on the park.

For a long time, I had no idea that harebells were a species in their own right, thanks to an erroneous wildflower book I had that said that "harebell" is what bluebells were called in England. And when I say a long time, I mean until about four years ago.

Same as I believed that Jimi Hendrix sang "Excuse me, while I kiss this guy" in Purple Haze for years and years. Yes, I was one of those "really was that stupid" stupid people.

The harebells themselves of course don't have to worry about such things. They can just get on with being pretty in the dazzling sun we've had for the last three days.

As long as they don't mind that a Pokestop has sprung up right on top of them...

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 19.07.16