The Valley

As I said in my opening post, I don't live in the country, much as I'd like to.I live in Leeds, alongside half a million other people. However that doesn't mean I am surrounded by concrete, in one direction I am a stone's throw away from Temple Newsam Country Park and in the other, a slightly longer stone's throw is Roundhay Park.
This is not where I walk Jess though, I walk her by taking a walk down the garden and opening a gate in the fence at the bottom which leads onto the valley.

 The valley is part park, part wasteland, part nature reserve. It was once something less pretty, a map of the 1890's shows 3 quarries, Halton Sewage works and a disused colliery. Later the quarries were used as a convenient landfill tip which has in part guaranteed its status as a green area as the long grassed over tip produces too much methane for building to be safe. Instead it is mainly used by dog walkers, footballers, people taking shortcuts to work or school, teenagers needing a place to congregate and drink alcohol (less of them at this time of year) and thieves hiding from the police (in summer the noise of the police helicopter hovering over the valley using its thermal imaging camera is quite common).
Despite all this human  activity, there is a surprising amount of wildlife. Since starting my daily walks there with Jess I have seen foxes, rabbits, pheasants, jays a whole flock of magpies and amazingly a kingfisher. My route is beginning to be known to me by the animals I see in each location. Thus the thicket beyond my fence is where I have seen the foxes (dangerously close to the gardens with their chicken coops), I walk down towards the railway bridge passing the magpies field where a whole flock of twelve or more will often congregate. Turning right to walk by the railway I have twice seen rabbits dash across the path and into the embankment, further along is the jay;s wood, I saw a pair there this morning fluttering in the air together before settling on a branch. Doubling back at the next railway bridge, I pass a less than spectacular pond.

To my amazement at New Year, I saw the bright blue flash of a kingfisher there. It was as amazing as it was unmistakeable and I am delighted to say I have seen it once more since. On the hillside slightly above the pond I have seen a heron, with its huge grey slightly menacing presence. My route then takes me back past the magpies field (useless to try and hold on to superstitions when there are so many about), and up the hill past the bowling green, which I think of as the pheasant's territory having seen them on two occasions there.
Who knows what  I will see when spring comes and the days lengthen, fox cubs playing in the grass? Is the kingfisher a passing winter visitor or could we see chicks? As long as I have Jess to walk, I will be out there every day, marking the changes brought by the seasons.
I wrote this yesterday but had no chance to post it due to the internet being down, this morning's walk gave me the chance to examine paw prints in fresh snow. There were a surprising large numbers of rabbit prints which led to patches of grass cleared of snow by the wind. The presence of droppings suggested that the rabbits had come to take advantage of this.
It is snowing now and due to carry on until midnight, leaving me a fresh set of tracks to folow in the morning no doubt.