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Winter Thrush at Halloween

22/10/2020

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PictureBirch 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. 




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Patterdale Red Deer Rut: an aura

16/10/2020

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PictureRaven
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.



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Mistlethrush, fieldfare and redwing: Helsington Barrows

11/10/2020

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PictureMistle 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. 



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RIver Kent: salmon leap at Stramongate Weir

5/10/2020

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PictureStramongate 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.



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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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