Blog

Winter Thrush at Halloween

22/10/2020

Birch catkins and witch's broom

I remember winter thrush resplendent. Fieldfare erupt from tall trees in scolding call and fly in sunlit colour. Redwing of whistling note, a smaller thrush with a streak of warm colour half-hidden by the wing, and with pale supercilium. Mistle thrush sounding like a football rattle. Winter thrush close, intimate, and abundant.
Halloween is high season for migration, when flocks are borne on a north-east wind. Halloween, when the clocks go back, the nights draw in and the woods are golden.

Patterdale Red Deer Rut: an aura

16/10/2020

Raven

Red deer and raven, aura of the fells in October. Stags roar, bellow and grunt- notes of low horn and tuba. Accompanists in the seasonal ritual of the rut. Posturing, if we could see the action unfolding somewhere in the enveloping mist A symphony of stags scattered over the amphitheatre of the fells. Each responsive to the other’s voice, loud, resonant, yet secret. Raven is the saxophonist in a riff of stag and scavenger, then an interlude of silence until a stag bellows and they're off again.

Mistlethrush, fieldfare and redwing: Helsington Barrows

11/10/2020

Mistle Thrush

Not a cloud in the sky early on a bright October morning. In the parkland habitat of Helsington Barrows the sun highlights anthills, a faerie light through tall larch now shadowed by gathering cloud. A clash of darkness and light. I hear mistlethrush, here in small flocks in August. And my focus sharpens as I catch a thrilling call. Winter thrush from the North, autumn migrants whose arrival on a such a warm October morning, seems anomalous, although the season is right.
Hush, be still and on with the cloak of invisibility. Look and listen. The wildwood will come alive.

RIver Kent: salmon leap at Stramongate Weir

5/10/2020

Stramongate Weir

Inky black and smooth, the water is held back by the weir, then plunges down in a cascade, into white water where a goosander is fishing, flapping her wings on the edge of the churn of white water. Sounds of falling water and of boulders rumbling in the bed of the river. A swan drifts toward the weir, hesitates, and drops white into turbulent white.

South Walney September 2020

25/9/2020

Salt-marsh with mud creeks, and Piel Castle

Spotlight and floodlight play over Piel Castle and cloud-shadows flow over the salt-marsh threaded with creeks where curlew and redshank call. Shingle, mud-flats and deep-water channels are sunlit, colour and fade. .
To the north, Piel Castle, Barrow, Black Combe and White Combe, the outliers of the fells. To the south, Morecambe Bay and Blackpool Tower. To the west, sand-dunes and the Irish Sea and wind farms.

Roudsea Wood and Raised Mire

17/9/2020

Small-leaved lime, Tilia cordata in Roudsea wood

Sunlight filters through a canopy of ancient woodland on a September day at Roudsea wood. Insects are lively in the warm sun. Speckled wood butterflies on the wing in glades between woodland fringe and rides, settling in leaf litter, on leaf and flower. Common darter and black darters bask in the warmth and mate.
Rousdea wood has charcoal pit-steads, tan bark barn, bark peelers house, potash kiln and powder house, The industrial archaeology of ancient woodland.

Smardale and Waitby Greenriggs in September

10/9/2020

Guelder Rose, Viburnum Opulus

I have longed for Smardale, longed so deep that the reality may not live up to the longing. This year, this long year, spring and summer pass by with Smardale unvisited, autumn is come and here we are, at last.
For my companion I choose a looker, someone who delves dimensions and misses nothing. Someone curious. Who has to include Waitby Greenriggs in the fading light to see how every loop of railway line connects, from live lines with trains to disused railway tracks with embankments now habitat for flora and butterflies.

Jenny Brown's Point and Leighton Moss

6/9/2020

Tales from the Stave: starling

I heard a chorus of birds and followed to find a flock of starling strung along triple wires between telegraph poles. Dark shapes like notes of music on a stave. A stave of starling, that's my collective noun for them. Plumage of subtle colour, sheen and pattern. Birds preening. fluttering above and below the wires, then all off in a whoosh.
A soloist sang close by in the reed beds, clear and insistent. Forget the starling chorus, I'm the one.

Scout Scar, August Bank Holiday

1/9/2020

Sunlit grasshopper

Cumbria Wildlife Trust reminds us that the stridulations of grasshoppers are the sound of summer. This one was silent as it settled in bright sunshine on a chunk of limestone.
I've noticed that there are days when few butterflies are on the wing but still the grasshopper chorus is loud in the grass. It's unusual to see one so well and the rock makes a perfect foil.
Beautiful weather for the Bank Holiday and the last days of August. So my theme is sunlight and shadow. Shadow-play over the fells to the west. The Langdale Pikes are always a focal point and all morning they are sunlit and shadowed, by turns.

Swallows 24 August 2020

24/8/2020

Fledgling swallows

After three days of rain, a morning fair and bright.
Storm Francis is imminent and should make landfall in the early hours of Tuesday. After so much rain there is mud underfoot on Scout Scar. Swallows skim the grass over Kendal Race Course, gathering insects.
On my return, I watch them feeding their fledglings. It is three weeks since I found an earlier brood of young swallows here.

Whitbarrow

19/8/2020

Whitbarrow, looking north to the Hervey Monument

On Whitbarrow, the track to the Hervey Monument is an air-strip and my reconnaissance plane gathers pace, takes off and soars through cloud into blue sky. Perspective from the airy ridge suggests it.
A day of vistas. Perhaps we'll complete our walk before heavy showers reach us on strengthening south-east winds. If we wait for the wild weather of the coming days this exposed track will be just the place for flights of fancy.

Making Hay Whilst The Sun Shines

15/8/2020

Making haylage in the Lyth Valley

An August heat-wave is not yet over. The morning is hotter than forecast, and humid. From Scout Scar escarpment I see the Langdale Valley filled with luminous mist and LImgoor, Side Pike and the Langdales Pikes rising above it. In the mist it will be cooler than here on Scout Scar where flocks of goldfinch twitter. And a few meadow brown butterflies alight on rock and are lost, unless you keep your eye steadily on them. It's their vanishing trick.

Bumblebee with corbicula, a pollen-basket

12/8/2020

Bumblebee with pollen-basket on her hind leg

With a buzz, a bumblebee alights on a flower - seeking pollen and nectar. Which it stores in a corbicula, a pollen basket visible on its hind leg.
There's a heat-wave and the early morning sun is strong. I see strands of spider silk strung across the flowers of Japanese anemone. But my camera cannot see them- the spider needs his web to be invisible to his insect prey.
In summer 2014, I was writing Cumbrian Contrasts, and studying pollination. That was the first time I photographed a Bumblebee pollen-basket.
Today's image is clearer

Quest for Autumn Gentian, Gentianella Amarella

9/8/2020

Autumn Gentian, Felwort, Gentianella Amarella

On a quest to find Autumn Gentian, think habitat, geology, and season. On the limestone grassland of the Scout Scar ridge, in the short turf, they're looking good right now. From finding the plant a fortnight ago, they have put on growth and now show as a short, erect plant with dark, linear leaves and dark buds.. I glimpse them on approach, standing proud of short grass. The bud is deep pink to purple, the tiny flowers are lilac or white. From year to year the distribution may vary, they relocate, One worn path is fringed with them.

Foulshaw Moss and Meathop Moss

6/8/2020

Cross-leaved heath with pink flowers fading to ochre

Foulshaw Moss and Meathop Moss were out of reach- until today. Raised mire is a rare habitat and here are species I have not seen this year. What a joy to return!
A prolonged spring drought and a wet summer affects the vegetation of the raised mires and in early August it’s rank. There's the sound of running water and raindrops stand proud on the Meathop Moss reeds. The morning is cloudy, hot and humid, so it’s ideal for a close-focus on the special plants and insects of the Reserves.

Autumn gentian and frog orchid

3/8/2020

Autumn gentian, felwort, Gentianella amarella

Autumn gentian and frog orchid can be hard to find. Both are delicate and lovely flowers but they are not showy and you need to look closely to appreciate them.
Autumn gentian is a short, erect plant with dark, lanceolate leaves . It is found on short turf of the limestone grassland. The flowers open to the sun so many are still in bud during overcast days. Its flowers are pale lilac in colour, occasionally white. And they are tiny, easy to confuse at a glance with flowers of thyme.
Today, I found a single frog orchid. And several new gentian plants.

Swallow migration

2/8/2020

All aboard for South Africa

In September, swallows will migrate to South Africa and these enterprising fledglings have booked their passage on a boat. Good luck with that!
They're clamorous and all a-flutter as parents fly in with food. A pale, wide gape, a hint of down in their plumage and a food=begging posture define the young birds whose tail streamers begin to show- picked-out in shadows as the sun comes out.

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Scout Scar 1st August

1/8/2020

Scout Scar escarpment is the perfect spot for watching rain clouds flow east from the fells, across the Lyth Valley, toward you - and here comes a squall. The wind roars, lashing trees, and the temperature drops. Rain and hail, perhaps. The sun is gone, light fades and the raven calls in a deep gurgle. A kestrel rides the wind, wind-hover, against dark clouds.
Trying to spy out autumn gentian and frog orchid in poor light, hoping to identify birds drained of all colour, is a challenge. On such rainy days you may find solitude and the weather is volatile and thrilling.

Holker Hall Gardens

30/7/2020

An outing to Holker Hall Garde3ns! A scenic drive through landscapes I've known this millenium, but out of reach this spring and summer, until today. A first visit to these lovely gardens, and so memorable.
Herbacerous borders are fragrant and drenched with raindrops. Fragrances of exotic and unfamiliar flowers. Then the morning brightens and the sun appears, bringing forth butterflies that flutter over the border of delicate flowers about the lawns.

Brimstone Butterfly, Autumn Gentian, Harebell

24/7/2020

Female Brimstone butterfly

Being in the moment is the best thing, In deep.

In the moment and mindful of all that has gone before, here in this place, for me and my friends, for others over time, over centuries as our stories interweave.