Rough Fell ewe and her lamb
Sunrise gilds the Kentmere tops and down in the dale the puddled track is iced over. To be in Kentmere once more feels like a home-coming.
It is lambing time and the rhythms of pastoral feel remote from the world beyond the dale. By Kentmere Hall, a farmer drives his quadbike through the pasture to deliver feed to heavily pregnant ewes.
A flock of Cheviots comes running after Tony Booth of Hartrigg who brings them feed, his dog beside him on his quad bike. We're approaching Raven Crag where I hope for a reprise of the birds I used to find here. It’s over ten years since I came to Kentmere several times a week. Tony Booth tells of the loss of species in the valley, due to predations of badgers and buzzards. He takes photographs, and I wonder what his subjects are, his farmer’s perspective. Living here, tending his flock, he'll be fine-tuned to the coming of spring although he can't have much opportunity for photography at lambing time. It’s early morning and the sun has scarcely risen high enough to reach Tony and his Cheviots. Better light is to come.
Highlights of the day are often a surprise, not what was looked for. In the fells, lambing is just beginning, spring migrants begin to reach our shores. The nights are cold and wildlife likes to gather energy from the sun. We hear contact calls of small birds on rocky fell-sides but cannot always locate them. There are pipits but not skylark. A woodpecker drums, and another drums in the Scots Pine sheltering Hartrigg Farm. A male stonechat sings in a hawthorn by Skeel Gill, his springtime song, not the alarm call that tells he’s aware of our presence.
The sun is brighter, the Rainsbarrow Crag quarries are long-silent, secluded and green. Here I’ve found peregrine and wheatear in the past, and montane flora on a quarried rock-face. Adits, entrances to quarrymen’s tunnels show on Rainsbarrow Crag. Quarry spoil, like scree, spills from an adit. Below Rainsborrow Crag, below the wall, their cryptic colouring merging with winter grasses, a herd of deer. A peregrine calls over Tongue Scar. I like the mysteries and uncertainties of the place.
We walk around Kentmere Reservoir, stonechat and pied wagtails close to the water. Waterfalls before the River Kent flows into the reservoir. I remember waterfalls on LIngmell Gill, descending from Nan Bield Pass. The reflections in the reservoir are beguiling. An interlude of contemplation as we try to fathom these mirror images. It’s so still they are so precise the water has disappeared and the reflected knolls and valleys look as if we could step forth and walk on what we know is water but resembles land.
At Jumb Quarry a female wheatear perches sunlit on a rock, its white vent visible.
The sun is brighter, the Rainsbarrow Crag quarries are long-silent, secluded and green. Here I’ve found peregrine and wheatear in the past, and montane flora on a quarried rock-face. Adits, entrances to quarrymen’s tunnels show on Rainsbarrow Crag. Quarry spoil, like scree, spills from an adit. Below Rainsborrow Crag, below the wall, their cryptic colouring merging with winter grasses, a herd of deer. A peregrine calls over Tongue Scar. I like the mysteries and uncertainties of the place.
We walk around Kentmere Reservoir, stonechat and pied wagtails close to the water. Waterfalls before the River Kent flows into the reservoir. I remember waterfalls on LIngmell Gill, descending from Nan Bield Pass. The reflections in the reservoir are beguiling. An interlude of contemplation as we try to fathom these mirror images. It’s so still they are so precise the water has disappeared and the reflected knolls and valleys look as if we could step forth and walk on what we know is water but resembles land.
At Jumb Quarry a female wheatear perches sunlit on a rock, its white vent visible.
Rough Fell ewes graze above the River Kent where there’s a sheep fold where shepherds would gather their flock off the fell, guide them one by one into a riverside pen, then wash them in the River Kent.
Raven over Tongue Scar where once there was a Viking settlement. Ivan Dickinson’s pure bred Rough Fell ewes from Brockstones feed on sheep-nuts in troughs in their barn yard. His flock with long white fleeces is stained with red and blue. Ewes will begin lambing in a couple of days . Two lambs already. Their mothers were tupped up on Kentmere Common before the ewes were brought off and tupping began according to the farmer’s plan. Ivan Dickinson says the RSPB dislike his sheep and numbers in Mardale are now so low his Rough Fells stray from their hefts over to Mardale. I first met Ivan Dickinson well over a decade ago and at lambing time I’ve met him since when he’s tending his flock beside this outlying barn.
Kentmere feels like a home-coming. It isn’t far from home but lockdown put it out of reach. It’s a joy to return once more.
Raven over Tongue Scar where once there was a Viking settlement. Ivan Dickinson’s pure bred Rough Fell ewes from Brockstones feed on sheep-nuts in troughs in their barn yard. His flock with long white fleeces is stained with red and blue. Ewes will begin lambing in a couple of days . Two lambs already. Their mothers were tupped up on Kentmere Common before the ewes were brought off and tupping began according to the farmer’s plan. Ivan Dickinson says the RSPB dislike his sheep and numbers in Mardale are now so low his Rough Fells stray from their hefts over to Mardale. I first met Ivan Dickinson well over a decade ago and at lambing time I’ve met him since when he’s tending his flock beside this outlying barn.
Kentmere feels like a home-coming. It isn’t far from home but lockdown put it out of reach. It’s a joy to return once more.
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