As I Walked Out One May Morning

Oliver woke me this morning around 4.30, I slipped into his bed to soothe him and he was soon asleep again which left me lying watching the dawn and trying to listen to the dawn chorus through the sound of Oliver snoring (he has a cold). I decided to get up.
Consequently I was up with the sun

 It was amazing on the valley  at this time, experiencing the world of activity that goes on when the people are not there. I saw three rabbits, going lippity lippity, not very fast, until they saw me and scarpered. There were clouds of cherry blossom everywhere (excellent for bees)

Clumps of cowslips

And some early bluebells:

As if to emphasize how much nicer it all was without humans, I came across evidence of their destructive presence. This is most likely where a stolen car has been set on fire:

And it was whilst gazing at the absolute beauty of the mist rising from the pond in the early morning sunshine trying to work out who has a contemplative beer and then tries to spoil the scene for everyone else by chucking the empty can in the water, that I disturbed a heron that flapped slowly away across the valley.

Trying to follow a pair of mallards who were waddling away from the pond, I came across a fox trotting purposefully aware, clearly he had business elsewhere.
Finally I climbed the hill that we sledged down in March to take a picture to show the difference that six weeks can take. Here are the trees covered in cherry blossom with the city in the distance and looming across the photo is my immense shadow. Rosie is currently working hard trying to finish illustrating our children's story about two creatures who are tormented by their own shadows. Given the size of mine I can see why they were scared. As I was alone out there, I tried a few arm movements to try to make my shadow  look more threatening. Sadly it is impossible to make a scary shadow and take pictures of it on a mobile phone.

Spring is here, Spring is here!

I woke early this morning. I'm not sure what time as I don't currently have a clock in the bedroom (maybe I unplugged it to plug in the incubator) but it looked early, the sun was just coming up and the birds were tweeting away at the dawn chorus. I came downstairs to make tea and put some washing on, normal morning stuff and then went outside to let the chickens out, which is also part of the routine.
It was so nice out there, fresh and green in the early sun that I wandered around the garden, (I managed to cut the lawn for the first time this year on Wednesday and it was looking good). I took the opportunity to pin down a loose floor in hive 3, I always forget when I am suited up and during the day the guard bees don't like a hand messing around the entrance to the hive.
Then I followed temptation and slipped onto the valley. It looked very beautiful in the early sun, clouds of blossom covering what I'm guessing to be ornamental cherry trees.Hopefully a good source of pollen and nectar for the bees. I wished I had brought a camera but this being a spur of the moment visit I didn't even have my phone. From a bend in the path I caught a fox staring at me, no doubt appalled by the candy striped dressing gown and check pyjamas. They may be a menace to my chickens but I would love to see cubs. I returned home and checked the time- ten to six.

Frogging

My sister, Claire stayed on with me for a night after the funeral, so yesterday I took her for a walk on the valley. She shares my superstition about magpies, so much surreptitious saluting took place followed by corresponding satisfaction at seeing a pair of them.
It was the hottest day of the year so far at 15 degrees, but with a really strong blustery wind, excellent clothes drying weather but the ideas I'd had about opening up the bee hives for their first Spring inspection had to be put away for another day.
On the valley, it would have been a good day to fly a kite. It was a lot greener than my last visit and there were little yellow flowers out ( probably celandines but I ought to check). By the railway line we saw a kestrel which flew past and perched for a long time in a tree. I had my binoculars with me but staring into the sun in a head wind, didn't make for good viewing.
We headed of course for the pond, where I was anxious to see if the kingfisher is still resident. If he is he didn't show himself nor did the heron that I occasionally see. The heron was missing out, as the pond was stuffed with frogs. The water was really clear and every few feet, was at least one frog, frequently mating in a shamelessly exhibitionist manner. We were staring at one tangle of frogs, trying to count the legs to work out if there was two or three involved when a dogwalker interrupted us. Claire hastily slipped her camera in her pocket and said that she felt almost like a pervert being caught staring at frog sex. The woman cheerfully remarked that they had named it Sex in the Valley and that coming down to the pond had given rise to a new activity, frogging.
Rosie has gone on an art trip to Berlin leaving me in sole charge of Oliver for a few days. I might introduce him to the joys of frogging later today.

The Valley in February

It was cold, wet and miserable on the valley this morning, every tree and bush had raindrops clinging to it.

I thought that I would make it a quick walk for exercise purposes only, no hope of seeing anything unusual, but then as usual I began to find things to interest me.
First it was the trees:

I don't know enough about trees, I can recognise a few,oak, beech, willow,hawthorn but most are just trees. I decided this morning that I am going to have a Tree of the Week where I look closely at one and then go home and try and identify it. The above tree is my first, it was a nice shape, clearly deciduous, and had little pine cone like things (I think I will have to learn the language as well).

It also had long greeny red shoots on it:

Now, I've been on the web and I think it is an alder although if anyone has any better ideas please set me right. The greeny red things will develop into catkins and hang down I think. Alders grow well on wet or marshy ground and are frequently planted on reclamation land as they fix nitrogen into the soil in a similar way to legumes. The wood was popular as it didn't rot very easily and was used to make the soles of clogs and also the pilings on which Venice stands are made from alder. According to Wikipedia so is the body of the Fender Stratocaster although I can't see that that is anything to do with water resistance.
Moving on down the valley I was interested to look out for any traces of a house which is marked on my 1906 map next to where it says Primrose Valley:

Judging by the size of the shape on the map, it must have been quite a reasonable size yet there is no trace at all today. I think this is the area where it would have been:

It is difficult to imagine that there was ever a house there, The woods look as if they have been there forever but as I learnt this morning that the alder tree is capable of growing almost a metre a year I suppose it is quite possible that they are only fifty or thirty years old. I was also thinking how lonely the house would have been with just a track to it and half a mile or so from any other building but then I realised that this is how lots of houses in the country would have been before the advent of cars meant that all houses needed a good metalled road up to them,
It was at this point that I would have liked to have gone home, I was quite cold and the sleet was sending little icy darts into my face, but then I heard a woodpecker from the other side of the railway line. I'd caught a quick glimpse of the woodpecker last week (greater spotted) but it had flown off across the railway line. I couldn't resist trying to track it down.
By the time I had reached the footbridge and crossed into the grassy area on the other side, I couldn't hear it any more, but this tree (blighted as they say in books) seemed promising:

I went up to investigate , there were no birds in it apart from a blue tit, but on the other side of the tree there were distinctive round holes so I am pretty sure this is the woodpeckers haunt.

So now I have another place to check on as well as the jays' trees and the kingfisher's pond, I will have the woodpecker's tree to keep an eye on. I will also be checking on the alder tree to see if those inflorescences (see I have looked up the correct word since starting this post) develop into catkins like the pictures in the books.

Who Do You Think You Are, David Bailey?

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my photos. I was out this morning, in the damp early morning mildness, and saw the kingfisher. Joy! I took a photo. Here it is:

I know there is a kingfisher in this photo but even opening it in Photoshop and enlarging it made it difficult to tell the difference between bird and bulrush.
I have partially solved the problem, the frugal way by buying a second hand digital camera off ebay. It is a fixed lens camera only suitable for snaps but at 16 megapixels it will be a big improvement on the phone. It cost £40, my dream digital SLR costs nearer £1000 and there were ones I couldn't even dream about costing over £2000.
The other solution of course is to dig out the old Canon AE1 35mm SLR with its 300mm telephoto lens. This does have its drawbacks 1) It will seem like forever waiting to get the film back from processing 2) they would then have to be scanned into the computer 3) I would have to learn how to use it again. Shutter speed? focal length? remind me someone.

Deadlines no more

For the last nine years whilst working at the university, January 31st has been the deadline for filing the Transparency Review Return for which I was responsible. January went by in a blur of long hours, stressful meetings, last minute adjustments. Prior to that, I ran my own chutney business, so January 31st was also a stressful day, as it was filing day for self assessment tax forms. Many a time have I hand delivered the form to the tax office at 5.30pm. So there is a strange feeling of lightness in the air,  coupled with a nagging worry that I have missed something important, as for the first time in seventeen years, the last week in January is just another step on the way to spring.
This morning on the valley, it was mild and springlike, I saw two rabbits in the wood as I hurried on my way to the pond. Like a teenage girl hoping to see her crush hanging out on a street corner, my walks these days all head in the same direction as I hope that today the kingfisher will come out and display himself. Yesterday he flitted several times across the pond before settling on a branch overhanging the pond, as though posing for an illustration in a bird book. I couldn't get a photo, my camera is only on a mobile phone and not good enough for anything further than a few feet away, also by the time I have taken off the security code that I put on in a fleeting attack of  responsibility, any self respecting bird has flown off long since. Here is a picture of the overflow area of the pond though, looking very full since all the snow has melted.

Hoping that my coat was long enough to keep my bottom dry, I sat down gingerly on the grass and  for ten minutes waited for anything that might show itself. Although the kingfisher is my star attraction, the supporting players in the guise of little brown birds that flit in and out of the bulrushes were all out. If they would stay still long enough to get the binoculars to focus on them it would be a help. Out too were a pair of mallards, the duck I saw earlier in the month now being joined by a drake. I do hope there will be ducklings in spring.

 At this point another star player came into view as a red kite soared across the sky. By leaning back so I was lying back against the hillside I could watch its graceful trajectory. It was at this point that I realised how much my life had changed. Never in the last seventeen years, had I thought I would spend any time in this last week of January, lying on my back on the grass watching birds.

Tracks in the Snow

Aha! Oho! A trail in the snow, whose is this trail and where does it go?

 Those words will be instantly recognisable to those with children or grandchildren under five but for those people who only have civilised conversations with other adults they are from the Gruffalo's Child by Julia Donaldson and I have been saying them to myself constantly on my walk round the valley. It wasn't so much the tracks that caught my attention this morning, however as much as the bright orange rabbit pee:

 Keeping my eyes open in the wood, I spotted some branches that had had the bark stripped off revealing a bright orange underside. I'm guessing that as the grass is getting more difficult to access, the rabbits have resorted to eating bark, and it is having the same effect on their digestive system as eating too much beetroot has on humans.

 Walking on through the woods I hoped to see the jays again, without any luck, but approaching the pond from the other side than usual, from the top of a steep slope, I was thrilled to see the kingfisher perching on a bulrush. Obligingly it sat there long enough for me to focus on it with my binoculars and marvel at its beauty but when I risked life and limb slipping down the snowy slope, trying to get close enough to take a photograph, it flew off. I need a photograph to prove its existence to my birdwatching friend, who has claimed  I am hallucinating. The two of us walked to the pond yesterday and saw nothing of interest save a kestrel swooping overhead.
There was a different atmosphere on the valley this morning, as it has of course been invaded by children with sledges. This is as it should be, if there is snow on the ground and an accessible hill, it is a strange child that doesn't want to go sledging. I was also amused to come across on my walk,  the handiwork of some children from yesterday.

It is good to know, that the age old impulse of children to make a den, has not diminished.

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.