Category Archives: nature

They promised me Ravens

We went to Wales today. Derby first, then Burton, Lichfield, Cannock, Telford, Shrewsbury…

Didn’t actually see any of them as the roads now just take you past instead of through them. If they didn’t, we’d still be travelling. The road follows a lot of the Watling Street route. This was originally a grass trackway used by the Britons. The Romans paved it and subsequent generations of academics have argued over its route.

It may have gone to Preston, it may have gone to Holyhead. Who cares? They are both nice places and have roads that go to them. For now, let’s say that if you are on the A2 in Kent or the A5 in the Midlands, you are part of a travel tradition going back thousands of years.

In AD 60 or 61 Queen Boudicca, or Boadicea, if you prefer the old-fashioned way, faced the Romans somewhere along the road. Nobody is quite sure where (there are several possibilities) but after burning London, St Albans and Colchester, and killing an estimated 70 – 80,000 Romans, she was finally defeated.

We then struck out into Wales, where we visited Rhayader before travelling up through Snowdonia to Bangor. We’re currently sitting in the Bangor Travel Lodge drinking Aspall’s Suffolk Cider from plastic glasses after a meal from Burger King. Tomorrow I am intending to send a stinging rebuke to the Travel Lodge head office.

The details clearly state: “Guests can enjoy a variety of food and drink choices within easy walking distance from this hotel. ”

Translation: “There is a Little Chef (which closes at 8pm), Burger King and shop at the filling station.”

It’s not quite what I was expecting.

Anyway, the bird watchers among you will have stopped at Rhayader. It’s the home of Gigrin Farm, where they feed 300 to 600 Red Kites every day.

I’ll post a few photos to give you a flavour of the day, but most need some cropping as I has to hold back on the zoom to give myself room to keep the birds in the frame. If you crop it too tight the bird flies out of shot. I have photos of grass, photos of sky and photos of tail feathers.

I’ll tell you what I don’t have – photos of Ravens.

They promised me Ravens and I had to make do with 300 Red Kites.

Sometimes you have days like that.

A Day in Derbyshire

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We dropped Number 2 son off in Sheffield after lunch and took a trip into the Peaks. It was a lovely day, the verges were full of celandines and wood anemones in the appropriate places and all was right with the world, apart from one thing. For some reason whenever we say something worth photographing there was nowhere to park.

I’m not saying Derbyshire County Council has designed the road system to stop drivers taking photographs but if they ever decide to do so it will be difficult to improve on the current situation.

Despite this I did manage to get some shots of scenery, or fields and rocks, as Julia pointed out. With a bit more enthusiasm I could have parked and walked a bit more, but that would have meant spending less time at the Brierlow Bar Bookshop.

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We’ve been there before, as regular readers will know. The tea is still up to standard and we had some very acceptable cashew and banana cake (though it was a little rich, even for me). I think my new healthy diet might be blunting my ability to appreciate cake. It’s a stiff price to pay, even for a few extra years of life.

I’m afraid a high price has also been paid by the book stock. The Nature section doesn’t seem as strong as it used to be, and the Poetry section seems to be depleted, although my other favourite sections seem either the same (History) or expanded (Crime Fiction). Julia says the Craft section is much smaller too. I like tea but I like books too. I am conflicted.

Hope Valley

Celandines

Hope Cement Factory

Hope Valley

I suppose I should have bought a guidebook to the Peak District to address my ignorance but I bought one on stained glass, one on War Poets and one about an archaeologist who solves murders.

That’s why there’s a lack of information on Lead Mining, sheep and Blue John in this post. In future posts I will try to address this failing.

The Odd Couple and Strange Pigeons

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We went to the park today to see the ducks. The first thing I saw was a Wood Pigeon in a tree and a charm of Goldfinches drinking from the stream which acts as an overflow for the pond. The pigeon looked a little rumpled and the Goldfinches were too quick for me, so there are no photographs of those two.

We were surrounded by feral pigeons at one point. I counted them twice, getting 57 in one count and 62 in the next. Call it 60. That’s a lot of verminous skyrats. It may be that I’m being unfair to them, as they do look quite tidy, and even seem keen on taking a bath.

The odd couple are still there, though the goose does seem to be paired up with another goose too. The three of them were together on the grass at the far end of the pond. It now looks a bit like one of those situations where a man has married but still has one of his old mates hanging round, or playing gooseberry.

The birds seem to be paired up and defending territories, but apart from daffodils and a few mahonias there is nothing much happening to suggest Spring. Outside the walls Spring is definitely here but inside the park things are a bit behind. It may be the trees, or the stone wall holding cold air in, but it just seems like the park is a couple of weeks behind the surrounding streets.

Red Crested Pochard at the duck pond

Greylag Goose – Arnot Hill Park

Robin at Arnot Hill Park

The Odd Couple

Feral Pigeon – Arnold

Mandarin Drake- Arnold

Orton Mere

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I just realised that although I said I was going to start on the Ely visit next, I still have to finish off the visit to Peterborough. The subject is Orton Mere.

If you travel south on the Great North Road (or A1 as it is now less interestingly known) you turn left at Alwalton and carry on a few miles until you come to a set of traffic lights. On the right is the village of Orton Longueville and on the left is Orton Mere. The village is a lot more interesting than you would think from the Wikipedia entry, though maybe that’s just my view. My childhood memories are, I suppose, of limited interest – probably limited to me and a few of my contemporaries.

For now, turn left and go down the hill to the car park. There are now several ponds, a flyover and a golf course. In my day there was just the one pond. Where the flyover now towers above you, there used to be tanks where effluent from the British Sugar factory was piped – I’m not quite clear on the process as we rarely went there due to the high sides, scrub and quicksand-like nature of some of the tanks. The golf course was just water meadow.

The reed beds, I recall, used to support a large population of Reed Buntings.

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Reed Bed at Orton Mere

Circular lichen on a kerbstone

The Duck Pond at Orton Mere

Information Board – Orton Mere

We didn’t use the name Orton Mere, it was “the pond near the Staunch”, and I only heard the name in the 1980s when they started to develop it. The name Orton Mere seems to be used for the wider area these days, as in this news article. Whenever there’s a drowning, and there have been a few over the years, Orton Staunch seems to be known as Orton Mere. (I added this 12.05.20 after revisiting the post and finding that the news article link now goes to a Sheffield Wednesday related page rather than news of a rescue from drowning – I have left it all as it was but removed the hyperlink.)

We used to have rafts down at the pond, which was less reed-fringed in those days and had shallower beaches. Someone had made them from railway sleepers and they just stayed there to be used by generations of kids. My mum used to go mad with me for doing it, as I couldn’t swim in those days. The poles which went with the rafts were about a foot shorter than the depth of the pond, and sometimes called for interesting contortions, with hands underwater, to get back to shore, so she may have had a point.

There used to be a large tench in the pond during the 1980s, after Health and Safety had landscaped the pond and burned the rafts. I recall seeing its dorsal fin breaking the surface once and it was huge. I can’t remember what its reported weight was when it was caught, but it was a good size.

I’m not sure what a staunch actually is, but from what I’ve seen on the river it is a set of vertically acting gates that controls the flow of water. This sets up a series of currents and undertows, which is why a few people have drowned there over the years, and scours out channels down stream of the gates. These used to attract large numbers of chub, which, according to Wikipedia, are easy to catch. This takes a bit of gloss off my memories of summer evenings spent catching good numbers of chub, but in time I’ll forget Wiki, whereas I will always remember the summer evenings.

Orton Mere – Landscape Filter

Orton Mere – Dramatic filter

Orton Mere – no filter

The photographs show Orton Mere with no filter, Dramatic filter and Landscape filter. Even with no filter it looks the sort of place you’d find secretive fish and arms raising swords from the depths.

You can’t fish there now because the area is reserved for canoeists.

Looking for links I found this one relating to helping with eel migration. I remember seeing the glass eels trying to make their way up the stream when I lived there, and had been thinking about them recently after reading an article about declining eel numbers. It’s nice to see something being done for them.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is an overcast day back in 1970. I was walking home from school when I noticed the police had closed off access down to the river. Two brothers from school had been canoeing during a games lesson and had drowned after getting into difficulties. This was in the days before risk assessment. We weren’t close, as I was only 11 and they were in their late teens, but we played rugby together. In those days all ages used to train together, and one or two of us even played in school matches with the big boys – unthinkable in these days. To be honest, the Bukowski brothers were very big boys compared to me, and scared the life out of me, though I tried to hide it.

So there you go. I suppose it’s a sign of getting old when your memories run to this length…

At the Garden Centre

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We had some time to kill yesterday in Peterborough so we went to Notcutt’s Garden Centre at Ferry Meadows for an Apple and Cinnamon scone. I took the opportunity for some spring flower photography.

The scone was large and had a good flavour (much of it down to sugar, I think). On the downside, it was a bit dry and crumbly and could have done with more apple. It wasn’t bad but I won’t be rushing in to buy another.

Dad’s brother Tom was down visiting from Lancashire. He’s 86 and much fitter than Dad, who just turned 88. That’s probably due to a lifetime working outdoors, in contrast to Dad who spent most of his time in cars and offices. He travelled with his son and daughter-in-law this time as the drive is getting a bit tiring these days.

After Peterborough they are going to Buckinghamshire to see my Uncle Jim (94). He spent his life using a bicycle and never owned a car. He met my aunt when he was stationed in Lancashire during the war and after he left the army cycled up from London to see her. He’s still 100% mentally, though he recently had a knee replaced.

I’m seeing a pattern here.

Barn Owls and Peace – an Unlikely Story

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This is an interesting link about Barn Owls. They are traditional thought of as wise birds, though I’ve never seen one on The Chase, and this is the first time I’ve seen them linked to politics and the peace process. I particularly liked the bit about bats at the end of the article.

I used to see Barn Owls regularly cruising the Fens when I lived there, and we had several pairs around the farm, including one that became involved in a synchronised flying display with a Buzzard. I’m still not sure what that was about but the superior manoeuvrability of the owl enabled it to give the Buzzard the slip.

There are links to this sort of behaviour here and here.

On a day that the UK is gradually learning more yesterday’s terror attack, and a couple of days after the death of Martin McGuinness, I suppose I could go on to discuss peace, but I have nothing useful to say. I’m sure that most people agree that peace is a good thing but violence never seems to go out of fashion.

I’ll just leave you with this.

Two go to Anderby Creek

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Anderby Creek is, according to its website, Lincolnshire’s hidden coastal gem. Or, to quote Julia, it’s “like the places we used to go in the sixties”. Even the name makes it sound like an Enid Blyton story.

The website admits to having five caravan parks and a chalet park, so I’m not quite sure what it will be like in summer – but I’m guessing that the word “unspoilt”, as used on their website, is relative. They are, however, free from amusement arcades and night clubs, though there is a cafe, a couple of shops, a pub, a Cloud Bar and a car park. In the high season I imagine it’s a badly heated version of hell.

Cloud Bar – Anderby Creek

Structures on the Edge

Beach at Anderby CreekRA

Julia on the beach

Out of season, as one a warmish spring evening, it was a very acceptable way of spending an hour on the beach taking pictures and thinking of chips.

I didn’t go up to the top deck due to my creaky knee and a deeply held belief I didn’t need to see more sand. Julia went up because she’s more adventurous than me – they have mirrors for looking at clouds and information boards. Each to his own.

I liked the poem on the goose silhouettes, though I’m not sure why they didn’t use cloud shapes.

Goose poem = Anderby Creek

Steel Goose on the Cloud Bar

Goose poem – Anderby Creek

It’s part of a series of structures along the coast – Structures on the Edge. This is the second we’ve seen, though we didn’t realise at the time. The wave-like screen we saw at Frampton Marsh is actually one, called Reflector. I don’t have a photo, because it’s on the card I lost.

On the way to the beach we’d passed several sets of telegraph wires covered in hundreds of Starlings so we kept a lookout as the sun went down, and weren’t disappointed when three groups of Starlings started to whirl around the sky. It wasn’t a massive murmuration, but it was one, and there were just two of us to see it. The picture only shows one of the three flocks, by the time they’d joined up I couldn’t get a decent shot.

Murmuration of Starlings – Anderby Creek

As I said to Julia, I may have my faults, but how many husbands would lay on a murmuration especially for their wife.

Then we went for chips.

Time goes by

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Sorry, this is one of those posts that runs contrary to the nature of time. After telling you about the visit to Gibraltar Point I still had plenty to tell, and was going to post a second installment on Wednesday. However, as you know, I had a lucky escape yesterday, (or a frustrating waste of time, depending on point of view), and wrote about Carsington Water.

I could have written about my view of the National Health Service, but why bother. They waste enough of my time without me going over it all again.

So, going back in time two days, imagine yourself standing on a windswept saltmarsh, with just a visitor centre, a car park and some bits of whalebone for company.

Whale bones at Gibraltar Point

Whale vertabra

There’s no explanation with the whale bones, they are lined up and left on the grass. I’m assuming that it hasn’t been done by the person responsible for grass cutting. These could be from the 1985 whale, they certainly look old enough and the size seems right. However, there are a lot of dead whales knocking about on that part of the coast when you start looking at the links. Mass strandings and art installations are all part of the story, and according to this report a sunfish and blue shark were also washed ashore in 1998.

The first birds we saw, whilst walking back to the car, appeared in a big noisy flock, flying between trees. They were against the light and just looked like tubby brown birds. We didn’t have the telescope with us (no more will be said on that subject, as Julia is of the opinion that I mentioned it enough on Tuesday) and we couldn’t get a good look with the binoculars. I couldn’t even get a decent photograph, though we did manage to see streaked underparts, white face markings and black breast markings.

I haven’t seen Corn Buntings for a while, but that’s what they were. In addition they were very vocal (a song described as “jangling keys” in the book) and (biggest clue of all) there was a flock of 40 Corn Buntings recorded in the sightings book.

It was a good start to the day, which got better when we drove to the other car park and heard the call of waders. Two curlews flew over as we were standing by the car deciding which way to go. That made the decision easier.

In the first hide, after mentioning that things would have been better with a telescope (I’m reporting what I said, here, not actually commenting on People Who Forget Your Telescope) we immediately saw a variety of birds, which became better when two avocets flew across to join an assortment of dots in the distance. The dots proved to be more avocets (23 in all, when we managed to count them) though, due to lack of telescope, we had to move hides to complete the count.

Avocets, Canada Goose and Cormorants

There were other birds about, including (on the other side of the road) a male Goldeneye that kept diving just as I tried to take the photo and a pair of mating Mallards. I would normally have allowed them some privacy but the fact they disappeared underwater completely several times made it more more interesting. By the time I got round to using the video button they stopped and swam away. It’s quite clear that Mallard drakes aren’t gentlemen.

Dabchick

Elusive Goldeneye Drake

Mating Mallards

Black Headed Gull

There was a lot to see, and we saw quite a lot of it. However, there is still a lot more to see so, as with everywhere we go, we will be going back.

We went home the long way round, but that’s a story for another post.

A Lucky Escape

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I went to Urology today. I was clean, fragrant and mentally prepared. My paperwork was in order, I had filled in my IPSS test and monitored my liquid intake and output for three days.

Those of you who like anagrams and word games may well be looking at those letters and pursing their lips. If you know that IPSS stands for International Prostate Symptom Score, and is therefore connected with urine, that pursing is probably becoming more pronounced.

I asked if they realised it was a badly chosen anagram and after a moment of thinking the nurse smile and said, “Yes, it does look like they’re taking…”

The result of today’s tests?

We didn’t actually get that far as there’s another procedure that needs doing before the test results will mean anything.

However, I’m not downhearted. Or annoyed. Or wondering why the hell we spend so much money on a health service.

I’m just glad that the whole fiasco only took forty minutes and gave me a whole day of beautiful Spring weather.

We went to Carsington Water, saw plenty of birds, Scarlet Elf Cups and two Brimstones.

Carving at Sheepwash Car Park – Carsington

I had a Chicken Tikka pie and chips for lunch Julia had a pasty. What more can I say? It was “Today’s Special” and I love a bargain. I’m on nine types of fruit and veg for the day and about to make it ten with an apple. May go mad and have some grapes for eleven.

The pictures are from the stones in the Sheepwash car park and a few other things we saw around.

Scarlet Elf Cup

Redshank at Sheepwash

Jacob’s Ewe and Lamb

Lapwings and Knot

Gibraltar Point

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No, it isn’t as far as it sounds, just a trip to the coast near Skegness. That’s 81 miles. The proper Gibraltar is 1,611 miles away and too far for a day trip. It’s a nostalgic trip. I first visited it with school 50 years ago. Twenty years ago we took the kids. Now we do it for fun. Of course, Visitor Centre and windmills weren’t there in the old days.

Nor was the bagged dog excrement left neatly by the side of the centre.

Here are a few shots of the day – more will follow later, with more details.

Spring at last!

Present from an idle dog owner

The Visitor Centre

Peaceful use for military gabions

Skegness Yacht Club

quercuscommunity

Life after the Care Farm