Whitebeam berries, Scout Scar escarpment Below the cliff, the hanging wood is a secret place. Exposed to the south-westerlies, trees lose their leaves quickly. Birch are almost bare, The last whitebeam leaves linger among clusters of rich red berries. With dark red hawthorn berries on shrubs rooted in scree.
On a calm October morning the sun illuminates the limestone cliff where it rises sheer from a scree buttress, a focal point. Trees are outlined against the distant fells. Curves and kinks of the cliff-edge give shifting perspectives along your way.
On a calm October morning the sun illuminates the limestone cliff where it rises sheer from a scree buttress, a focal point. Trees are outlined against the distant fells. Curves and kinks of the cliff-edge give shifting perspectives along your way.
Fascinated by trees clinging below the sheer cliff, my camera and I head north, hoping for close-up images. But where the cliff is steepest the escarpment thrusts west, hiding the trees from view. A secret place, inaccessible. I hear jackdaws and watch them land in the topmost branches of a birch.
There's a rich red glow of berries fringing the wood and I'm eager to see what birds might come to feast on them. A bright day, calm and mild. I heard a single mistlethrush and a few corvids. The only other sound of birds was the alarm call of pheasants and gunshots shoot down in Honeybee Wood. Perhaps the weather has been too mild to bring in fieldfare and redwing. Perhaps it's species loss. It's some years since I found large flocks of fieldfare and redwing here.
There's a rich red glow of berries fringing the wood and I'm eager to see what birds might come to feast on them. A bright day, calm and mild. I heard a single mistlethrush and a few corvids. The only other sound of birds was the alarm call of pheasants and gunshots shoot down in Honeybee Wood. Perhaps the weather has been too mild to bring in fieldfare and redwing. Perhaps it's species loss. It's some years since I found large flocks of fieldfare and redwing here.
The choice: should I head for Scout Scar, seeking autumn migrants and vistas, or the River Kent where I stood by Stramongate Weir watching a cormorant and black headed gulls and sunlight sparking through a curtain of water to hear that two women had spied a kingfisher, one had seen an otter with kits only a few days ago. We swop finds and I hear where kingfisher may most often be found, close to town. Next time.
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