Cumbria Naturally
  • Home
  • Blog
  • My Books
    • Cumbrian Contrasts
    • A Lakeland Experience >
      • Introduction
      • Derwent
      • Langdale
      • Ullswater
      • Kentdale
    • About Scout Scar
    • Atlantic Odyssey
  • Other Writing
    • What Larks!
    • Further - Explore Shetland
    • Autumn Migration
    • Rydal and Nab Scar
    • Perspectives
    • The River Kent
    • Wings
  • Gallery
  • Contact

Grasmere and Rydal: Nature Notes

26/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureRoe doe
Snow on the tops, sunny and bright. After days of rain the becks flow high and fast. Water pours off the fells.   Buzzards mewing. Sunlight pours down through slender trees in Redbank Wood, down to the woodland floor where fallen trees and stone walls are cushioned  with mosses. The herb layer responds, reaching up to absorb the light. Photosythesis made visible. Dog’s mercury budding, its leaves translucent. Seedlings rise from mosses, amidst fallen winter leaves.
Daffodils on Loughrigg Terrace: the delicate wild daffodil, the bolder cultivar.  Spring comes late to the fells. I remember the year I lived on Loughrigg Fell, amongst its tarns, to catch the first fresh flowers of bog bean.



Read More
0 Comments

Stonechat on Scout Scar

25/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureFemale stonechat
Stonechat prepare to breed on Scout Scar.  The habitat is perfect.  Early this millennium you might hear some half a dozen on a morning. But in the last few years they’ve fallen silent, impossible to find, absent. Then last spring and summer I found a breeding pair.  And they’re back. Yesterday the male was singing, not the alarm call like two stones struck together that give the bird its name, but his song. I know a glacial erratic scooped smooth as a recliner and I lay in the sun, apricating, soaking up sunlight like an apricot on a south-facing wall.  In my stillness and silence the stonechat sang.


Read More
0 Comments

Weather Watching on Scout Scar

21/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureLooking south toward Morecambe Bay
Turbulent weather on Scout Scar. Pellets of hail  bounced off waterproofs and whitened the earth. From the Lake District Fells in the west, soft veils crept slowly toward me. When they strike there's nothing soft about them.  Strong gusts of wind batter  and the sting of hail hurts. Hail in the eyes is painful. Taking photos in wild weather is chancy because you can't see what you're doing.  But I like the drama of sunlight and hail.


Read More
0 Comments

Singing in the Rain

16/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureColtsfoot, Tussilago farfara
Waking before dawn on a mid-March morning, I'm torn between favourite things.  The Shipping Forecast and the Dawn Chorus which coincide at this season. Soon, dawn will come earlier and I can listen to both. If I'm alert and attentive I can hear blackbirds singing through the storm force winds of The Shipping Forecast.  This morning, they're singing in the rain. Undaunted.
Yesterday, I headed for Scout Scar where skylark were singing, and curlew.  A hazy morning, the sun didn't break forth until later. I found the first coltsfoot, not the beauty pictured here two years ago, but the same site- so I'll be back.


Read More
0 Comments

Nature notes: rue-leaved saxifrage and chiff-chaff

14/3/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
My first chiff-chaff of spring sings somewhere beyond a blackthorn.  Up on Scout Scar it will be some while before blackthorn flowers. 
Some years ago, as I was writing About Scout Scar, I was photographing blackthorn flowers hugging close to a fragment of limestone pavement when I noticed tiny white flowers on a rosy succulent in a mossy depression in the rock.  Rue-leaved saxifrage,  Saxifraga tridactylites.  In her Illustrated Flora, Marjorie Blamey describes it as 'stickily hairy annual, often reddish.'  Let's see what the pictures show. 


Read More
0 Comments

Shelling out for a new kitchen  

10/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureShell of a kitchen being prepared for refurbishment
Strip out the old and take the kitchen back to its shell. Show what makes a kitchen work, all those features behind the façade.  And prepare to refurbish. 
Outside in the garden a pair of long-tailed tits was busy building an intricate nest, somewhere in dense shrubs.  Daffodils bloomed, and lungwort, as I sat outside in the sun- a kitchen consultant ready to listen to advice. What a peaceful afternoon! I wondered for a moment if Nigel the builder was there in his domain, once the kitchen of the house, now a shell of a kitchen.


Read More
0 Comments

Allegory of Good Government: Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

2/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureGood Government: raising roof timbers
In the Palazzo Pubblico,  frescos show Good Government: town and countryside cherished and well looked after, men up on roofs  fixing tiles,  building, workmen  taking pride in their craft. And Good Government reaches out into the countryside where orchard trees are  pruned, fruit harvested, crops sown and  harvested and borne into the city to feed its people. Today, on a sunny and blustery morning, that’s my vision of Kendal. Today, it’s all about civic harmony.  
.


Read More
0 Comments

Skylark and snow on Shrove Tuesday: 28th February

1/3/2017

0 Comments

 
PictureLight snow on Scout Scar and vapour in the valley below
Snow on roof-tops and plumes of smoke rising through still air to mingle with mist  lit by sunrise. Vapour defines the course of the River Kent flowing  through Kendal. The castle  shows ghostly, then vanishes. Off to Scout Scar, eager for skylark. There’s a thin scatter of snow and I think I can hear them-  tentative and exploratory notes as they settle in to their spring and summer quarters. Then a short burst of song-flight. Late February, they arrive on cue.


Read More
0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

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

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    November 2009
    January 2009
    January 2004

    Categories

    All
    A Local Patch
    Birdlife
    Butterflies And Moths
    Flowers
    Locations
    Views
    Walks
    Weather
    WIldlife

    RSS Feed

Website
Home
Blog
Gallery
Contact



​Cookie Policy
My Books
  • Intro - My books
  • ​Cumbrian Contrasts
  • A Lakeland Experience
  • About Scout Scar
  • Atlantic Odyssey
    ​
Other Writing
  • Intro - Other Writing
  • What Larks!
  • Further - Explore Shetland
  • Autumn Migration
  • Rydal and Nab Scar
  • Perspectives
  • The River Kent
  • Wings
Jan Wiltshire - Cumbria Naturally
© Jan Wiltshire 2022 All rights reserved
Website by Treble3