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A Close Run Thing
After an extremely long and difficult weekend fraught with stress, I find myself looking down at the daft-headed labrador at my feet with a sense a real relief. About ten days ago, she started to behave a little strangely. She would run ahead on our walks, but sit suddenly down with a bump as if… Continue reading
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The Art of Conservation?
Just worth including this photograph of a cut heather “sculpture” on the hill above Traquair, near Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders. Half a dozen large cuts have been put into seven or eight acres of mature heather surrounded by sitka spruce trees to create an optical illusion that is much the same as advertising on… Continue reading
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Baker’s Dozen
A certain amount of encouraging eyebrows were raised when the GWCT revealed that a brood of eleven black grouse poults had been reared to more than eight weeks in the North Pennines. Eleven poults is certainly the most I have ever heard of from one greyhen – infact, the biggest clutch I’ve ever seen was… Continue reading
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Heather Beetle Study
It was an interesting trip last week to the two sites in the Peak District where the Heather Trust’s beetle damage studies are currently being run. I’ve seen quite alot of the Peak District over the past year, and getting to know this extraordinary area has been a real pleasure. The heather beetle studies are… Continue reading
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Flat Adder
Very disappointing to find that my old adder friend was run over last week. I had got used to seeing her stretched out in a layby on the track up the Chayne, and was always worried that her fondness for tarmac would be her undoing. More than once during the past summer I stopped the… Continue reading
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Blackening Grouse
During a few hours in Weardale and Teesdale on Thursday afternoon, I saw more black grouse than I have ever seen in my life. In one five acre field, there were forty two birds, and as I watched, they were joined by another brood of six. Brood after brood of promising young poults moved quietly… Continue reading
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Rough Tor
Having been delighted by Exmoor, I must admit that Bodmin Moor was altogether less impressive in its current state. Staying in Cornwall for the weekend, my girlfriend and I decided to head out onto the moors near Davidstow in an attempt to climb the fabled Rough Tor (in which “rough” is pronounced “row” as per… Continue reading
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A Trip to Exmoor
After nine hours in the car, I’d be happy to get out and walk around anywhere. Fortunately, it turns out that when you head down to the West Country, it’s actually extremely nice in its own right, particularly when you end up on the moors. As part of a field trip for the Heather Trust,… Continue reading
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A Greyhen Lost
On Wednesday morning, I found a small tuft of greyhen feathers on the Chayne where a newly overhauled stretch of track has left piles of bare soil heaped up in the rushes. My first reaction was that a greyhen had been dustbathing on the exposed soil, where there was also a litter of pheasant and… Continue reading
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Topper!
It took so long to attach the dual wheels to the tractor that they will never be coming off again. To be perfectly honest, that is no hardship. With dual wheels, “ugly betty” the tractor is absolutely invincible. Fitted with a single bladed rotary topper, the roaring machine has been scalping the rushes on the… Continue reading
About
“Shout on, Morgan. You’ll be nothing tomorrow”
Swn y galon fach yn torri, 1952
Also at: https://andtheyellowale.substack.com
Bog Myrtle & Peat 