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Lyth Valley: Reading a Landscape

29/5/2017

Lyth Valley 28 May 2017

An escarpment opens up horizons. Today low cloud lingers over the distant fells and, without clarity, I am well content with the middle-distance. Vistas another time. This chequer-board of fields down in the Lyth Valley is my objective. From up on Scout Scar escarpment it resembles a map spread out below. A map with an overlay of farming calendar, of season and of weather. Traces of flood water linger from yesterday's thunderstorms . Armed with binoculars and camera, all I need is a vantage point and for the sun to play along. I sit contemplating the landscape, thinking upon the hours I spend waiting for the sun to shake off clouds and shed light where I’d like it. That coincidence of elements coming together is rare, and elusive.

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Cuckoo on Scout Scar

20/5/2017

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White-beam on Scout Scar

Hearing a distant cuckoo I was alert and listening, following the sound. I scanned the taller trees, the dead trees it often displays from. And heard it closer. I walked in the cover of the wall, attentive. Then I glimpsed a bird in flight and fixed my binoculars on it, unmistakeably the cuckoo. Fast and purposeful flight, long rounded tail and pointed wings. Strong light showed the greys of its plumage. Maybe I've photographed this bird before, certainly I know its lineage. Welcome home cuckoo.

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May highlights: Scout Scar escarpment

15/5/2017

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Scout Scar escarpment, looking north

Sunlight and shadows play over the face of Scout Scar escarpment. The woods below show all the freshness of May. Birch trees of vibrant green, the pallor of white-beam on the grass and scree of the buttress, tapering fine as they climb the cliff-face. Dark slivers of yew like shadows in the rock. Louring cloud with welcome rain is not far off, after weeks of blustery, fine weather that dries and cracks the earth. At this season the cliff-face flowers with hoary-rock rose and the motif of yellow takes hold on the cliff-top, the very edge. What flowers grow in this exposed location?

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Bluebells at Oxenber Wood and Wharfe Wood

10/5/2017

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Approaching Feizor

A beautiful May day for the bluebells of Wharfe Wood and Oxenber Wood. The abundance of flowers is breathtaking: bluebells, primroses, early purple orchids and cowslips. There's wood sorrel growing in shady places, but the sun is so strong that light blazes through the wood and there's little shade.

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Redstart, stonechat and linnet

9/5/2017

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Redstart in breeding plumage 7 May 2017

The redstart sings from a slender white-beam, its leaf buds bursting. His song carries loud along the escarpment edge, eager to attract females who arrive a few days later. As the sun rises higher in the sky it dispels shadows in the hanging wood below. Runners and dog walkers arrive and the redstart will dip out of sight and sing invisible, tantalising, from sunlit tree-tops directly below the cliff- top. For the last ten years I've heard redstart singing from this tree. They're faithful to site and I wonder how many lineages of redstart have claimed this territory.

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Green-veined white butterfly, Pieris napi

8/5/2017

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Green-veined white nectaring on garlic mustard, its proboscis seeking the nectar source

A fresh brood of green-veined whites flitted about a bank of flowers of garlic mustard and green alkanet. Some were nectaring, proboscis drinking nectar. A green-veined white alighted in a profusion of wings- a pair of butterflies mating. Bright sunlight created shadows that make this image sequence interesting: sometimes shadows show sharper than the pale butterfly. Shadow-play offers two butterflies with six antennae, a flurry of shadow legs.

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Orange-tip butterfly, Anthocaris cardamines

8/5/2017

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Male orange-tip butterfly on garlic mustard 7 May

I know a bank where garlic mustard grows, sheltered from wind off the North Sea, and by mid-day the flowers are in full sun. Surely today will be a butterfly day, at last, as that north- north- east wind eases. Orange-tip butterflies have been on my wish list since the day I found one sheltering from fine rain beneath Jack-by-the-hedge, Garlic mustard, at Waitby Greenriggs. So long ago I was without a camera. This morning there are white butterflies on the wing amidst white flowers and I follow their flight over garlic mustard, over nettles and brambles.

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The Helm Wind and lenticular cloud

8/5/2017

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Lenticular clouds 6 May 2017

The Helm Wind has made magic in the clouds this last week, in Cumbria. Beautiful lenticular clouds over Scout Scar. And the Helm Bar has been photographed in the North West. The Helm Wind is a phenomenon of the Cross Fell escarpment and this week dramatic clouds have featured on the evening weather forecast.
I had marvelled at the early morning cloudscape but had not realised this was the creation of the Helm Wind until a neighbour mentioned the weather report.

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Redstart: interpreting song

6/5/2017

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White-beam favoured by redstart

To watch redstart singing in the white-beam rising from Scout Scar escarpment, I have to be there soon after sunrise. The cliff-edge is the viewpoint, popular with runners and dog walkers and the redstart tolerate neither. I approach the cliff with caution, so as not to disturb the birds. But after a glorious redstart morning three days ago there's nothing. A blustery wind didn't deter them before. Perhaps the early frost and the chill in the NNE wind affects them.

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Redstart on Scout Scar

4/5/2017

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Male redstart, showing the red tail for which the bird is named. 4 May 2017

Redstart are singing all along Scout Scar escarpment and each year a male sings from this same white-beam growing in the cliff- edge. He sings to attract a mate and does his best to conceal himself from a photographer- there's no cover up here and I can come no closer. The moment walkers with dogs appear the bird dips silently over the cliff into the hanging wood. They are faithful to territory, returning to the same trees year after year. Once the breeding season is well underway they're less vocal, so now is the time to admire them.

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Blencathra with Ring ouzel

3/5/2017

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Blencathra and Scales Tarn 2 May

Sharp Edge is always a focus, shall we, shan't we attempt that airy arête. Conditions are perfect- a fine day with little wind and there's been almost no rain for weeks. Steep screes fall from Sharp Edge, to the corrie lake of Scales Tarn. Sunlight plays over outcropping crags and I think I hear ring ouzel. It's the perfect habitat, if they can tolerate the popularity of Sharp Edge. I listen, intent and eager. If only I could see the bird to confirm the sighting.

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To Birdcage Walk, Clifton, Bristol

1/5/2017

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Birdcherry at Birdcage Walk, Clifton 25 April

A literary pilgrimage, after listening to Helen Dunmore’s novel Birdcage Walk. At Bristol Harbourside the Matthew was under sail and as we climbed up toward Clifton Hill we paused to look down on the SS Great Britain, and over toward Ashton Court. Vistas over the city and the surrounding countryside. I had thought Birdcage Walk would look out over the Avon Gorge, but it does not. I wonder how I lived in this city for so long and only now discover this peaceful spot.

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Lyth Valley: Reading a Landscape

Cuckoo on Scout Scar

May highlights: Scout Scar escarpment

Bluebells at Oxenber Wood and Wharfe Wood

Redstart, stonechat and linnet

Green-veined white butterfly, Pieris napi

Orange-tip butterfly, Anthocaris cardamines

The Helm Wind and lenticular cloud

Redstart: interpreting song

Redstart on Scout Scar

Blencathra with Ring ouzel

To Birdcage Walk, Clifton, Bristol

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