Alder is a motif along the RIver Kent,  favouring riverbanks and wet ground.  In winter, the crowns of mature trees are dark with cones, and catkins awaiting the coming of spring.
In Kendal.  a mingle of alder and hazel grows in a sliver of river bank beside the walkway.  Hardly trees, there's little soil for them to grow to maturity but  a couple of days of perfect light when catkins are at their best gives a rare opportunity to study them close-up.   All the image lacks is siskin, redpoll and goldfinch feeding on seeds as last-summer's cones burst open.

 All eyes were intent on snipe, closest to the hide but camouflaged in reed-stubble.  Water-birds were hunkered-down, roosting and preening.  A peaceful scene, then whoosh- up they went in a moment of panic. Alighting  on the water, they became distinct.   Courtship pairs in their best breeding plumage; pintail, gadwall, wigeon, shoveller and mallard. White feathers drifted on the water where it met the reeds, discards from preening.  

Hazel catkins herald the coming of spring in a drift of gold. The woodland track is fringed with coppiced hazel,  slender shrubs  with catkins that are perhaps the earliest tree-flowers.  Where yellow male catkins are  ready to release pollen we look for  red female flowers,  tiny and fewer.  A glimmering light reveals a hazel growing along a fence-line bordering Kentmere Tarn, a shapely tree unlike the wands of  woodland coppice shrubs.  Its limbs are green with moss, its crown glorious with  golden catkins.  A play of sunlight and mist shows the hazel  deep bronze, then pale gold against the still waters of the tarn.  It's enchanting.

Green woodpecker and raven call from the wood, with small birds piping.  Tracks are puddled and muddy after a mid-week downpour.   Sunlight and mist gives a glimmering and constantly changing light.  With most trees bare of leaves our focus is on lichens and mosses, on the herb layer.  A clump of wild garlic has been swept downstream and lies uprooted in a beck. The first leaves of wild garlic show, and opposite- leaved golden saxifrage.   Winter storms have brought down trees and the track has been cleared and made safe for walkers.

Skylark are singing and the laughing call of Green Woodpecker comes out of the mist, out of the stillness.  Mist suffuses the woods below the escarpment and a dense white pall fills the Lyth Valley.  Wisps of white cloud drift above  its western fringe with a hint of the fells with illuminated white cloud above, then clear blue sky. The weather forecast had suggested the sun would burn off the fog but it did not.  By mid-day the blue was gone  and mist came down over Scout Scar. A runner passed by, ' just clag, isn't it?'  But what a glorious few hours had preceded it.

 Through wind and showers I thought I heard skylark over Kendal Race Course but could see nothing. Not the full song but a contact call I recognise.  Then the sun broke through cloud, a hint of  blue appeared and I headed for skylark territory.  The moment I reached the spot I had predicted a male skylark rose in full song, a year to the day. Not a chance encounter, I had hoped and prayed and here they are on cue.  My first skylark of 2025 and spring is in the air. 

  If this image were not mine, if I had to date it, I'd say February. It's the beginning of the breeding season for moles and pastures are patterned with mole hills, those mounds of fine soil that mark the course of their tunnelling underground. 
By mid-February there are snowdrops and daylight hours grow longer.  Looking down over the trees fringing Nobles' Rest there are hazel catkins fully opened.   Toward Scout Scar catkins bide their time and it will be some while before the first tree flowers show.

​​On Scout Scar escarpment a lone figure stands looking west over the Lyth Valley toward the fells, south toward Morecambe Bay.   Wait a while, perhaps he’ll share the moment and what it means.
Peace, often we seek peace. 
​Here is Eden. a lady told me once.  She had come to Kendal to care for her mother and would take home to her a benediction from Scout Scar.  

  High-tide and the salt-marsh is inundated,  ribbons of green submerged beneath the blue. After a good feed, flocks  roost on the shore-line.  They're indistinct but Knot, probably Knot. In the middle-distance  Brent Geese continue grazing.  A dark mantle looping  beneath pale bellies gleaming in sunlight, a caparison of black on white.   Through January, I've contemplated  Brent Geese so in good light I can tell at a glance, afar off.  Toward the horizon,  a mystery flock shows in flight over the deep blue of Piel Channel with Barrow in Furness  transformed in sunlight. 

​A marsh harrier flies over the wetland and comes down in a tree almost lost in mist. A heron alights on the fringe of the reed-bed and stands motionless, seeking prey.  A fox appears out of the golden reeds and crosses before the heron, stepping gingerly as if he doesn’t want to muddy his paws in water-logged stubble.  He might swim, if he chose.  

 Mike Zeller interviewed me on the publication of About Scout Scar in 2008.  Scout Scar, my study area,the countryside on my doorstep. Unfortunately, Mike phoned in sick so Pete Otway stepped-in, last minute. 
'Can't you go somewhere else?'   I live close to Scout Scar, it's where I come alive. I'm existential on Scout Scar.  To be denied my place  is a loss of freedom, of independence.  I am existential on Scout Scar.  In challenging winter weather,  dark winter days,  residents need a spontaneous and impromptu walk, not a grand plan.
'Do you understand the need for safety? '
A pause, muffled laugh from me. I've been campaigning for a 'safe, direct and familiar' route for over 12 years. From 2012, for a footway on the approach to Brigsteer Bridge to keep walkers/ runners safe.
Since bridge closure on 12th June I've campaigned for this same 'SAFE, DIRECT and FAMILIAR' access via Brigsteer Bridge.  What is happening daily at the bridge IS HIGHLY DANGEROUS. Not a hypothetical risk but real and actual
THE COUNTRYSIDE on our DOORSTEP
I'm a naturalist and wherever I might live becomes my study area.  The bond grows deeper over time, as we tune-in to the rhythms of the seasons, learn to know our place, learn to love it in all weathers. 
Can't you go somewhere else?  Well no, not when you're recovering from an illness or an injury. Not if you're elderly and infirm.  Not at a moment's notice.  And there's a Scout Scar community so it's a place to meet friends.

A landscape of sparkling frost with New Year's Eve floodwaters now gleaming ice.  Minus 2 degrees as we cross  Jubilee Bridge onto South Walney.  The track from Coastguard Cottages is floodwater and ice.  On a cold, calm and bright day at New Year the saltmarsh looks wonderful, its rich reds threaded with pools and shallows of ice-blue,  deep blue in the deeps of Piel Channel.  Piel Castle always the focal point.   A faint call of curlew, and redshank.  South Walney in winter can be a wildlife spectacle so what might the day bring. 

​Sunlight and an ebb tide create pattern as sand-bars show through the water.  We sit on lichened rocks looking out to Morecambe Bay, entranced by the constantly changing  light.  Behind us, to landward, the sky is deep blue.   Arnside Knott is no more than a shadow.  
​

Water-birds roost half-hidden in reeds on the fringe of the pool.  After somnolence  comes lively action as pintail take to the water close to the hide. They give a ring-side performance in a flurry of courtship behaviour and feather-care. Winter visitors, most will  breed in  Iceland and Scandinavia and that migratory flight calls for good condition, with strong flight-feathers.

​With the sun low in the sky winter light is distinctive.  Hawthorn along the disused railway track were bare of fruit so with scant food-source there were no fieldfare or redwing.  A small flock in flight might have been winter thrush, might not.  Scandal Beck gleamed out of the shadows. A dipper perched on a rock and flew beneath  Smardale packhorse bridge.  Can we name the flower from the winter seed-heads, or from memory of the summer? 

The Mirror and the Light 

​'The title mirrors what’s gone before, casts light on it, sometimes fresh light, sometimes things are not as we thought, we come at them from a fresh angle, gaps are filled in, things we did not know.’   Hilary Mantel.

Choristers sing softly, a Tudor Mass, The Westron Wynde,  tells of loss and longing, of separation.

From today's cache of Bearded Tit images here's a favourite.  I might almost count the number of ginger feathers in the fanned tail. Black vent and under-tail  complement   drooping black moustachios against a soft white breast. How might this fluffed-up portly little bird feel in the hand? It's been ringed so someone knows.  We cluster round the grit trays, cameras clicking- hoping for images of the Bearded Tit. Also named the  Bearded Reedling of reed-bed habitat.

 Face-down in leaf litter by barriers blocking access to Brigsteer Bridge, I knew what it was before I turned it over.  It's a map with a diversion for walkers and runners.   REJECTED, it's a rubbish diversion. 
The Brigsteer Bridge has long been the de facto way to Scout Scar.  20 years a de facto route and, by law, pedestrians must have access.   I made this challenge of legality to Westmorland and Furness Council, to the Senior Countryside Officer, via my MP Tim Farron.  The reply ignored  my question. So I understand why that map got ripped off.