So, a couple of excursions in the last few days. Tuesday was the nicest afternoon I've seen in about 3 weeks, so I headed out on the bicycle for ten miles doing the "Tour De Rubbish Tip", out on the cycle path, back in through Hawton.
It was a nice ride, past the big solar energy farm, and past fields now fully resplendent in ripe oilseed rape. Greenfinches are about in larger numbers, goldfinches too. Pigeons are loving each other, cooing lovebirds atop the telegraph poles and lamp-posts. Still no swallows, house or sand martins. And swifts are non existent, according to an article I read in the Times yesterday.
Ran yesterday for 7 or so miles, out to British Gypsum and then through Balderton, the nature reserves are very boggy at the moment so I'm sticking clear - last time I was at Beacon Hill there was a very large lake at the industrial estate entrance, surprised not to see ducks on it!
I can't wait for fine weather so I can head out to Langford Lowfields again. I want to see butterflies. I want to see Dragonflies. I want to be outside.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Ungracious Racer
The sight of a friends running route and time on his facebook page was far too much of a challenge for the occasionally unhealthily competitive author to resist today. He had the fancy app on his mobile phone, I have old wonky trainers...
So I headed out along Hawton Road, seeing my first butterly in weeks, a large white fluttering towards the cloying fields of rape. I was in a determined mood - the only reason I saw it because I was looking up tracking the position of a coal black cloud laden with wet stuff.
As I reached the turn off to Farndon in Hawton village, as usual looking terribly pretty, I reckoned I was going well. A kestrel greeted me coming out of the trees near the Thorpe turn off, another was soaring as I crested the bridge over the A46, laughing no doubt in a keening manner at the lumbering slow humanoid.
On Farndon Road, there were Greenfinches again. A most pleasing sight. They are not numerous, but for a couple of years I hadn't seen any at all.
By now I was feeling the pressure, face set, driving the pavements, paying little note to the swollen River Devon, and turning onto the final stretch...I checked my watch.
I had beaten him. By just over a minute.
Alas I lose. In the pathetic person stakes!
So I headed out along Hawton Road, seeing my first butterly in weeks, a large white fluttering towards the cloying fields of rape. I was in a determined mood - the only reason I saw it because I was looking up tracking the position of a coal black cloud laden with wet stuff.
As I reached the turn off to Farndon in Hawton village, as usual looking terribly pretty, I reckoned I was going well. A kestrel greeted me coming out of the trees near the Thorpe turn off, another was soaring as I crested the bridge over the A46, laughing no doubt in a keening manner at the lumbering slow humanoid.
On Farndon Road, there were Greenfinches again. A most pleasing sight. They are not numerous, but for a couple of years I hadn't seen any at all.
By now I was feeling the pressure, face set, driving the pavements, paying little note to the swollen River Devon, and turning onto the final stretch...I checked my watch.
I had beaten him. By just over a minute.
Alas I lose. In the pathetic person stakes!
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
On Ilkley Moor Again
Didn't really go out walking very much, as the whole of what I suppose you'd call the Aire valley was suffused in a grey cloud so thick you'd expect seaweed clad leprous sailors to emerge from it and stick meathooks in you. First up we perched in the car, eating downhill at a sharp angle, enjoying the sight of happy dogs with wet tummies dragging their slightly less enthusiastic owners about on the boggy ground.
It was rather like eating a Waitrose cooked chicken in a crashing aeroplane.
Then we moved across to nearer the excellent-fish-and-chip-serving Cow and Calf pub, and sat in the car park of the little stone cafe. We forgot the milk, so we had to pay for a paper cup full of it from the cafe, and we watched the jackdaws bright eyed looking around for any scraps.
I thought my stepfather throwing them a crushed belgian chocolate biscuit thing was a bit uncouth, but no, they cackled and stuffed their beaks as full of chunks of biccie as they could, no doubt cackling at their own cleverness.
I couldn't hear them over the wind.
And then, a pretty little Meadow Pipit came over for a look too. I was wondering if we'd see any with their beloved bracken in abeyance, but there he was, striped and striated, tail fringed with white, olive green hints on his brown back. Compared to the delicate beak, the bits of biscuit looked far too big, but it daintily shook them into manageable, all but microscopic particles.
And it paid no heed to the rain pelting the rocks the cooing woodpigeon huddled among
It was rather like eating a Waitrose cooked chicken in a crashing aeroplane.
Then we moved across to nearer the excellent-fish-and-chip-serving Cow and Calf pub, and sat in the car park of the little stone cafe. We forgot the milk, so we had to pay for a paper cup full of it from the cafe, and we watched the jackdaws bright eyed looking around for any scraps.
I thought my stepfather throwing them a crushed belgian chocolate biscuit thing was a bit uncouth, but no, they cackled and stuffed their beaks as full of chunks of biccie as they could, no doubt cackling at their own cleverness.
I couldn't hear them over the wind.
And then, a pretty little Meadow Pipit came over for a look too. I was wondering if we'd see any with their beloved bracken in abeyance, but there he was, striped and striated, tail fringed with white, olive green hints on his brown back. Compared to the delicate beak, the bits of biscuit looked far too big, but it daintily shook them into manageable, all but microscopic particles.
And it paid no heed to the rain pelting the rocks the cooing woodpigeon huddled among
Saturday, 21 April 2012
All Hail Hail
As you can see from the picture, we've had some interesting weather the last few days. I think we've had 15 or 16 days on the bounce with rain at some point. Or so it feels anyway.
The weather gods the last two days have upped their game however, and sent down heavy rain, thunder, chunky hailstones and bright sun, often within the space of twenty minutes.
Needless to say, whenever I've chosen to run, I've been pelted. And nature has kept a low profile, apart from the cormorant who is always sat atop the posts at the Aldi bridge, or the heron that sits on a tall hedge near me, emptying the pond below of goldfish as the water brings them closer!
First ducklings of the year have been seen - a mummy duck on Balderton Lake had 5 little ones in tow, not long out of the egg by the look of them. But sadly today, I saw two ducklings being swept down a strong running Newark dyke by the Aldi bridge, mum nowhere in sight.
Cruel nature eh?
There's more Greenfinches about this year, I'm seeing them in my garden area for the first time in a couple of years! Plenty of Goldfinch too these days, saw a lovely little flock of them in a hedgerow on the lane where British Gypsum is.
But most importantly, I'm in the open air!
The weather gods the last two days have upped their game however, and sent down heavy rain, thunder, chunky hailstones and bright sun, often within the space of twenty minutes.
Needless to say, whenever I've chosen to run, I've been pelted. And nature has kept a low profile, apart from the cormorant who is always sat atop the posts at the Aldi bridge, or the heron that sits on a tall hedge near me, emptying the pond below of goldfish as the water brings them closer!
First ducklings of the year have been seen - a mummy duck on Balderton Lake had 5 little ones in tow, not long out of the egg by the look of them. But sadly today, I saw two ducklings being swept down a strong running Newark dyke by the Aldi bridge, mum nowhere in sight.
Cruel nature eh?
There's more Greenfinches about this year, I'm seeing them in my garden area for the first time in a couple of years! Plenty of Goldfinch too these days, saw a lovely little flock of them in a hedgerow on the lane where British Gypsum is.
But most importantly, I'm in the open air!
Friday, 20 April 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Damp Joy
Ha! It's a grim day, a grim morning, a grim week, a grim month, but one has to keep running through all this. And today I did, grateful I was not in the same condition as a slightly flattened Frog I found on the road near Balderton Lake.
Happier things than dead amphibians were afloat - the first ducklings, 5 of them, I've seen this year were out swimming on the lake, convoying behind their mother, and as I ran by I wondered if mummy ducks feel proud of their offspring.
They always look as if they do to me!
Other things enjoying the rotten weather, well a cormorant was looking chipper hunting on the river by the Aldi bridge, as was a blackbird on the path, splashing widly, joyfully, in a deep puddle on the riverside path.
And me. Yes it was chilly, but the rain just about stayed off me and I felt very very refreshed. Despite the 7 mile run past lonely looking Grebes and hissing Canada Geese. It was worth it to be out there.
Happier things than dead amphibians were afloat - the first ducklings, 5 of them, I've seen this year were out swimming on the lake, convoying behind their mother, and as I ran by I wondered if mummy ducks feel proud of their offspring.
They always look as if they do to me!
Other things enjoying the rotten weather, well a cormorant was looking chipper hunting on the river by the Aldi bridge, as was a blackbird on the path, splashing widly, joyfully, in a deep puddle on the riverside path.
And me. Yes it was chilly, but the rain just about stayed off me and I felt very very refreshed. Despite the 7 mile run past lonely looking Grebes and hissing Canada Geese. It was worth it to be out there.
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