Bog Myrtle & Peat

Now that the thaw is starting to set in, it seemed worthwhile to try and finally get up to the Chayne. After all, having been snowed into the house for two days and beginning to get a touch of cabin fever, the seven mile walk up to the farm and back suddenly had the appeal of variety. It’s not much more than two miles from my house to the Chayne as the crow flies, but the nature of the land has meant that the road winds far off to the east, before doubling back on itself and crossing a network of burns on its way uphill. The direct route is largely through blocks of forestry, so walking on foot is a compromise between the road and a number of shortcuts which roughly resemble a straight line.

After an hour and half with a backpack full of wheat, I started to struggle, so it was a pleasure to finally dump the wheat where it was most needed in the two hoppers which the grey partridges are using. One had run out altogether, and the other was down to its final scraps. Footprints in the snow revealed where the partridges had been picking through the remains of the rotten turnip seeds which they’re being fed at the moment. I was starting to phase out their feeding as the spring came in, but it seems like the so called “hungry gap” has been unexpectedly protracted. The snow has started to recede during the past few hours, but the deepest drifts may well take weeks to vanish.

Once up on the hill, I came across some quite impressive snow drifts, including one which had blown eight feet high through a gateway and stretched back to a fine taper almost twenty yards away. With the exception of a few determined skylarks and a raven, there was not much to be seen. The snipe were congregating around the burns which still had visible water gurgling slushily down them, and I followed the tracks of an otter for a short stretch where it had scrambled over the powdery stones and splashed through the peaty ice.

Judging by the state of the road, it will still be a few days until I can get the car up the hill, so my plans to finish this year’s sitka spruce felling project have to go on hold. There is plenty more to do in the meantime, however. As I was walking today, I had the chance to do some sums in relation to my grey partridge breeding project. I only have four pairs of partridges, but each pair can lay more than thirty eggs in a season. All being well, I could be looking at 120 eggs by July, but I am only prepared for a maximum of two clutches of less than a dozen. I can deal with most of the surplus, but it will mean a huge amount of work to prepare housing, pens and accomodation for all these hypothetical birds. There’s no time to relax…