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Kestrel Hunting

19/11/2018

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PictureFemale Kestrel, Helsington Barrows
Out of the blue, a female kestrel.  She  illuminates the day. Hovering, she is mantled in shadows. The poise and grace of the falcon as she scans  the earth.  Angel-messenger in a winter  sky.  She knows of old the secret life of the place. She swoops, flies low across the slope and alights in  larch trees.  Hidden, I cannot tell if she has prey.
She is the highlight of a winter's  morning.  Unexpected.  I was seeking winter thrush, heard mistle-thrush and a lone fieldfare, redwing perhaps. The yew trees seemed bare of fruit, those fleshy red arils the birds love.
Then the falcon appears, out of the blue and nothing else is.  She arrests time.



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To The Countryside

17/11/2018

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PictureMist over Windermere
Mist defines Windermere- a soft silver-blue toward the distant fells. The morning grows warm and a peacock butterfly settles on stone.  Shots ring out in the stillness: a pheasant shoot below the escarpment.  A beautiful, hazy morning attracts lone runners and a few walkers.  The woods colour- up and the day seems unremarkable. 
A long line of runners bursts onto the escarpment, organised by the Kendal Mountain Festival.  ' What shall I do with this bottle?' asks a girl. 'There isn't a litter bin.'


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Toward Armistice Sunrise

10/11/2018

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PictureSilver birch at sunrise
 A rough and rainy night. At sunrise, raindrops pattern the window and the sun transfigures everything.  Raindrops shimmer on leaves of gold  on a tall and slender birch.  And on the dark and leafless birch beyond it. A shimmering sunrise. The effect is sublime, and transitory.
Impossible to catch the full glory on camera.  Louring cloud blots out the shimmer, until the next sunburst. Angle and alignment is everything for refracted light: the sun, the raindrop birch, the raindrop glass of the window, and me.  Outdoors and looking up into the trees the effect is lost.  It's about coincidence.
Listening to Thought For the Day this morning, I was taken back to Liverpool and a Sunday morning exploring in the vicinity of the University Sports Centre.


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Reflections on a heat-wave summer

8/11/2018

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PicturePainted lady at sunset
'I have a fly-swatter beside my bed,' she confided. ' Mosquitoes. Got one last week.' It is early November.
'Bread in the windows,' she said.
'Why is there bread in your windows?'
'Flies bred in the windows.' After a frenzy if fly-swatting she had to clean the walls. The art of fly-swatting calls for the proper implement with the right kind of flap for the swatting action. Their old stone cottage is fringed with woodland, that's where the plague of summer flies originated. The beck  dried up, leaving only a couple of puddles for their golden Labrador to lie in.  Didn't have the wit to keep in the shade. The cat had more sense.
Another day, once more a captive listener.  I hone my skills.


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A Writer's Sources: tales of the unexpected

8/11/2018

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PictureLIttle ringed plover
You never know a writer's sources, not entirely.  There are hidden encounters  in a  story, never reaching  the acknowledgements.  As a resourceful nature writer I like to consider  fresh perspectives, yours as well as mine.
When writing Cumbrian Contrasts I found myself stuck on a train in the company of an engine driver from Walney Island.  He was stranded, couldn't reach his train. So he talked to me about the mirage effect of  wind turbines off Walney and there's the ghost of an engine driver in that chapter.


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Dotterel on Cairngorm Mountain

7/11/2018

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PictureDotterel amongst granite boulders
Great images  but what’s the dotterel  story? The Cairngorm Mountain experience is memorable but there’s a lifestyle to investigate.
From their wintering grounds in North Africa dotterel head north. With traditional stopping-off points a ‘trip’ of dotterel may appear on the summit of Pendle Hill, Lancashire before reaching the Cairngorms in mid-May to coincide with a hatching of craneflies, an abundance of insects.



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Scout Scar 2 November

2/11/2018

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Picture
Sunlight soon melted a dawn frost. The morning was so still.  Mistle thrush and green woodpecker audible. A group of pheasants strutted across the escarpment, and flew off the cliff-edge.  Distant church bells.  Warm enough to bask in the sun.
A faint haze over the fells.  Remember the film ' Girl With The Pearl Ear-ring,' where Colin Firth tells Scarlett Johannson to look at the clouds and asks the colour she sees? Or colours.  What is it makes the colour of clouds?


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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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