HIgh tide floods the salt marsh fringing Piel Channel, intense blue under a clear blue sky. In the stillness, calls of redshank and curlew ring clear over the solitude of the salt marsh, its maritime flora warm gold in October sunlight. A curlew rises and disappears toward the open channel. Distant water-birds feed amongst the channels of the salt marsh. The coincidence of weather and season colours a lovely October day, the one fine day of the week. South Walney appears so rich and bright, the sea gleaming and streaked with pattern.
Piel Castle is always a focal point as we drive the track beside to Coastguard Cottages. The ten year old Lambert Simnel landed at Piel Castle with a force hoping to challenge the new Tudor dynasty and Henry VII. A pretender to the throne but a boy of humble origin, his challenge came to nothing. Not a Plantaganet, possibly Lambert Simnel was not his real name. In the solitude of the morning I imagine this moment , before the boy is lost to history. Like a migrating bird that touches down briefly and scarcely anyone observes it. Like Henry Tudor who landed at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, in 1485 intent on seizing the crown from Richard III, an outcome by no means certain. Where did Henry Tudor come from, that gave him a claim to the throne?
The solitude of South Walney is perfect for waifs and strays, what might be and what is illusory. Some birds are resident, others migratory and passing through. Sometimes there are rarities blown off-course. The October sun illuminates the scene but discovers only a little of the life of the place. There's so much more, half-hidden, far off, glimpsed fleetingly. Out toward Shelly Bars there's a flock of oyster catcher, large and bold in colouring. Closer to the hide there's a bank of shingle and just beyond there are turnstone foraging amongst the flora of the mud-flats. Their bellies gleam white, the mottling of their mantles blends into the vegetation and half-conceals Further off, feeding on the mud flats, they show better. Home again and zooming closer and closer on images, until they're almost out of focus, I make out birds I couldn't see at the time. A presence, a blur of white, a mystery unresolved.
South Walney of myth and legend. You might think strong light brings everything into focus, into the light of day, but it does not. A flock rises in panic, there's a predator about and birds must hide. As for hiding, we conceal ourselves in bird hides and disappear. Some hides are built onto the concrete foundations of wartime gun emplacements, ghosts of the past. Lambert SImnel or Edward of Warwick with a strong claim to the throne. And just what is this bird, its bill probing the mud, back toward me and beams of light playing with colour and reflection in a sheen of water. Uncertainty is the birders constant and one has to live with it, myth or legend. I glimpsed a gannet but my friend might doubt it. A hundred had been reported two days ago. But the tide ebbs and we see only a few distant shag.
The solitude of South Walney is perfect for waifs and strays, what might be and what is illusory. Some birds are resident, others migratory and passing through. Sometimes there are rarities blown off-course. The October sun illuminates the scene but discovers only a little of the life of the place. There's so much more, half-hidden, far off, glimpsed fleetingly. Out toward Shelly Bars there's a flock of oyster catcher, large and bold in colouring. Closer to the hide there's a bank of shingle and just beyond there are turnstone foraging amongst the flora of the mud-flats. Their bellies gleam white, the mottling of their mantles blends into the vegetation and half-conceals Further off, feeding on the mud flats, they show better. Home again and zooming closer and closer on images, until they're almost out of focus, I make out birds I couldn't see at the time. A presence, a blur of white, a mystery unresolved.
South Walney of myth and legend. You might think strong light brings everything into focus, into the light of day, but it does not. A flock rises in panic, there's a predator about and birds must hide. As for hiding, we conceal ourselves in bird hides and disappear. Some hides are built onto the concrete foundations of wartime gun emplacements, ghosts of the past. Lambert SImnel or Edward of Warwick with a strong claim to the throne. And just what is this bird, its bill probing the mud, back toward me and beams of light playing with colour and reflection in a sheen of water. Uncertainty is the birders constant and one has to live with it, myth or legend. I glimpsed a gannet but my friend might doubt it. A hundred had been reported two days ago. But the tide ebbs and we see only a few distant shag.
Cattle graze on the fringes of the salt marsh. From Groyne Hide we look out toward the grey seals hauled up on the spit where white wavelets break.There's a scatter of birds all along the shoreline, approaching the hide. A seal calls. a pale pup alone on the shingle and bound who knows where. seeming directionless. It's much closer to us than the colony but it's has yet to moult into sleek selkie. looking fluffy and amorphous. A pale ghostly blob struggling over a shingle beach. At three weeks a seal pup is abandoned by its mother to fend for itself. Is this the moment of abandonment.
The new sea hide has floor to roof windows, sealed windows, so we sit enclosed with the sun beaming down on us and by now the chill of dawn is forgotten and it's so warm it's hard to keep awake. The tide ebbs and cormorants are far off, toward the wind turbines that slowly gyrate. Wisps of high cloud develop. Walking back to Coastguard Cottages I 'd like to stay for sunset over the sea, or to stay overnight and be up at dawn to experience the ebb and flow of the tide and the rhythm of the day. To see bird passing through on migration, mingling with residents.
Next day, and the rainy days after, I begin to write this latest South Walney experience. The report from the Walney Bird Observatory is published, a different version of the day. The wind was from the east E2/3. Someone spent an hour at sunrise on sea-watch, on a flow tide, to find numbers of razorbill, gannet (I saw one maybe two) common scoter and shag. We saw shag but nothing else on an ebb tide. We heard and saw pink-footed goose. I'd like to have seen peregrine, sparrowhawk, merlin and kestrel.
A fresh perspective on 14th October on South Walney. Being a nature writer is a different discipline. Total immersion would be good, and it happened the moment I got out of the car to hear redshank and to see a curlew rise from the salt marsh flooded at high tide.
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