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Saturday 28th March 2020

28/3/2020

1 Comment

 
PictureWind-shear at altitude


​​From the photographs, you would not know. .  You cannot hear the silence,  fewer aircraft, less traffic.  If your local patch is like mine, if you can walk from home to reach it,  you might notice something different.  It’s unusual to see families on Scout Scar.  I hope this continues once Corvid 19 is beaten.  That parents bring their children to engage with the natural world, to look and listen.

​Saturday 28th March there’s a biting NE wind.  You can read wind at altitude in the stunning cloud patterns that form and reform rapidly.  This last week has been surreal.  Sunday 22nd was warm and sunny, busier than a Bank Holiday. Visitors from who knows where,  largish groups who clearly were not families. Advice on social distancing often ignored. A pattern of behaviour replicated across the UK at beauty spots and beaches. In the evening of the following day came a UK lock-down. Stay at Home. Protect the NHS. 
And Saturday 28th  everyone I saw was being responsible.  We walk from home, to take exercise and keep ourselves fit.  So the NHS is not overwhelmed in a sudden surge of Corona Virus patients. 
​During the warm weather of the past week I’ve seen bumble bees, dark butterflies establishing territories, not settling.  Black thorn begins to flower.  Larch buds are green, no sign of the pink female flowers.  A jay was clamorous, and a green woodpecker. Lapwing in display flight, with plaintive song. Snipe jinking away in alarm.   Lambs in the nursery pasture close to Barrowfield Farm. Twice, a male skylark in song flight was attacked by a rival male in territorial dispute.
There is goodwill and friendliness abroad. We need to assure each other that we’ll get through this in a spirit of national unity.  That’s the sub-text to short chats at  significantly more than  two metres apart. 
​How to negotiate a kissing gate or a stile without touching it with your hands.  A slithering technique  often works.  If a gate is too heavy, I use exercise poles to pull it closer, then slide around it.  A loop of rope over an upright, no problem.  Flick it off with exercise pole, loop it back in place.   Wear gloves and wash them once you’re home.  
The Nature Cure can work marvellously, body and soul.   The chilly air is invigorating and those cloud-patterns beautiful.  Out every day, you observe each new sign of spring. Redpoll arrived this week.  Larch buds appeared amongst last summer's cones.    A friend challenged me to find all the erratics on Scout Scar and I set about it.  Find a lichen-covered boulder that looks comfortable and sit a while with a flask of hot chocolate.  On a day like today the light is changing every second .      
1 Comment
An orienteer
31/3/2020 03:43:56 pm

Great sky scapes and reflections upon Britain's first week of virus lockdown.
Do keep up the uplifting commentary on the wonders of nature as more people have time to appreciate the wonders of the great outdoors

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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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