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The Howgills - a geography of being English

26/2/2020

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PictureThe Howgills, looking east from Scout Scar
Fresh snowfall on the Howgills and cloud hugs the fells.  Mountains make their own weather.
Up on Scout Scar there's a panoramic view. We are encircled by sunlit, snow-clad fells.  
The Howgills are distinctive fells, rounded and grassy- smooth and voluptuous under snow.  Stone walls show dark  and gullies gleam, packed dense with snow.
To the north and west, the Lake District fells have a different geology, a different  configuration..


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Scout Scar- seizing the day

23/2/2020

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PictureSunlit crag and the hanging wood below Scout Scar escarpment
A crag on the limestone cliff of Scout Scar escarpment illuminates against an indigo sky.  I watch the sun striving to break free of clouds, see the amethyst of birch trees in the hanging wood,  see a white-washed farmhouse glimmer ghostly out of the darkness.  The fells are hidden under dark skies and storm-clouds gathering in the north.
Quickly to The Mushroom Shelter before another pelting squall of hail.   When it;s over the sun comes out and we step forth to see the fells gleaming under snow- the grand reveal.  


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Elemental on Scout Scar

23/2/2020

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PictureHail-bearing cloud sweeps south to Morecambe Bay

 The elements at play on Scout Scar.
 Flood-waters in the Lyth Valley tell of days and days of incessant rain. Hail-bearing cloud sweeps south from the Mushroom Shelter toward Morecambe Bay. blotting out blue sky. Hail stones melt  on my camera lens. Sunlight from the south-west refracts fragments of ice in bursts of rainbow colour. 


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The RIver Kent in spate

21/2/2020

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PictureRiver Kent, looking downstream from MIller Bridge. 20 February
Wind and rain relentless today.    Yesterday afternoon there was some respite. From the Parish Church, the river flowed fast and silent, an olive brown.  No water-birds at all. They must take shelter in vegetation and in eddies upstream. Nothing could swim in this turbulent river.  
Stramongate Weir is always dramatic when the river rises.  You can hear rocks in the river bed smashing together in the force of the water.


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Leighton Moss    February 1986 and 2020

14/2/2020

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PictureMale teal in breeding plumage
'Is this your first visit to Leighton Moss?’ he asked.
I remember a  winter sun burnishing the reed beds, ice and biting cold.   We were staying in a guest house on the front at Morecambe Bay.  ‘Why come to Morecambe?’ a local asked, bemused.  The sea froze that winter, chunks of ice clunked on the shore-line. A peregrine killed.  Our leader followed its flight and we drove along the front, stopped to watch the raptor pluck its prey.  Bristol Ornithological Club in the North West. February 1986 I think it was.  


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Scout Scar: to wish to fly

12/2/2020

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PictureLooking north from Scout Scar escarpment
Snow on the horizon, on the distant fells.  And flood-waters in the Lyth Valley to the south. The wind howls and it's bitterly cold with squalls of hail-stones.  Light and darkness sweep over the landscape so rapidly the photograph you glimpsed   is gone before you click the shutter button with a wind-chilled finger.  Ash trees confer, radiant  against an indigo sky.  The light fades and the moment is lost. The drama of weather makes the day. 


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Northern Pintail at Leighton Moss

5/2/2020

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PictureNorthern pintail in breeding plumage
An early February day at Leighton Moss.  For me, the Northern Pintail is the highlight of the season.   A focus that came upon us gradually.
Walking the causeway through the reed-beds is always full of interest.  Handfuls of bird seed, scattered by the path  lured birds into view.  Willow tits,  a tree creeper and  a nuthatch.  I could hear redpoll but could not see them. 


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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books)

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