Fieldfare and redwing in an ash tree Hearing fieldfare and redwing, we found them in the top of a leafless tree , amongst ash keys. On a cloudy November day winter thrush appear darkly. No sun to illumine them but look closely and you can make out the grey head, the light grey rump and dark tail, the disposition of the wings when the bird is at rest.
On Cunswick Fell there are plentiful haws on hawthorn, with red arils on yew and holly berries.
The last hazel leaves fall to leave branches thick with green catkins, dormant and ready for winter.
On Cunswick Fell there are plentiful haws on hawthorn, with red arils on yew and holly berries.
The last hazel leaves fall to leave branches thick with green catkins, dormant and ready for winter.
Lockdown 2 feels unlike the first lockdown early in spring. The season is different but It's not that. Cunswick quarry is packed with cars, so lots of folk out on the fell. Friendliness, the sense of our all being in this together and doing it right, characterised the first lockdown. And it has gone. We wish walkers with aggressive dogs would respect our personal space, keep them on leads.
Gamblesmire Lane, such an evocative name. A pastoral landscape opens up. We're watching winter thrush in the tree tops when we hear the first of half a dozen youths on some kind of quad bikes yelling and racing down the track. And in a whoosh our birds fly and are gone
Gamblesmire Lane, such an evocative name. A pastoral landscape opens up. We're watching winter thrush in the tree tops when we hear the first of half a dozen youths on some kind of quad bikes yelling and racing down the track. And in a whoosh our birds fly and are gone
The difference each day brings. At this season dawn can be the most beautiful time of day, the skies at sunrise. Some days ago I found a fieldfare gleaming in sunlight against a blue sky, a lone bird. Today, the light is poor but there are winter thrush all about us in the canopy, flying silently.
Cunswick Scar is a continuation of Scout Scar, a limestone escarpment but its configuration with the hanging wood is quite different. At first, the wood is half hidden behind a wall - the cliff obscured until you come close to the wall and peer over into the trees. All those hazel thick with catkins. In spring, the tree flowers of the hanging wood are lovely and you learn the trees whilst looking for spring migrants like redstart.
Cunswick Scar is a continuation of Scout Scar, a limestone escarpment but its configuration with the hanging wood is quite different. At first, the wood is half hidden behind a wall - the cliff obscured until you come close to the wall and peer over into the trees. All those hazel thick with catkins. In spring, the tree flowers of the hanging wood are lovely and you learn the trees whilst looking for spring migrants like redstart.
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