Farewell to this patch

We have been charmed by the Somerset Levels. For 10 years we have explored her tracks and trails and miry ways. This magical, reclaimed land of lake villages and hidden places has woven its spells and shared its secrets with us. It is arrow straight rhynes and hissing reeds. It is lace-towered churches on small hills and great big views. Long legged birds stalk and hide here, safe and secret. Crane, bittern, heron and egret are flourishing.

And we have seen newts and bats and hedgehogs visit our own local, local patch. They are welcome.

But now we are moving on. The house is sold and we are fleeing across the border to Dorset's softly wooded vales. There are new tracks and trails to discover and another local patch to explore. Bilbo has already found hedgerows full of pheasant and partridge and a rabbit warren at the end of the garden. As summer loses her grip on the land, our autumn will be full of new sights and sounds and scents. Farewell to this patch ...

And another local patch

I am sitting at a heavy, oak table on a beamed and shady terrace. There are six oak chairs and an oilskin tablecloth which is spotted lime green and chestnut. The only sound is from the crickets, whirring in the old plum trees. It's called stridulation - that sound they make rubbing legs or wings together - and it conjures up this place. The plums are small, navy blue and dusted with white. Some are have fallen already, forming a raisiny carpet on the prickly ground and little brown butterflies are feasting.

Beyond the wrinkly trees is a rough border of herbs. The lavender and rosemary dance with bright insects: there is a large citrus butterfly with tangerine wing spots; small blue ones; swallowtails and hummingbird hawk-moths. Whip smart lizards lie in the heat, hidden in their cream and brown stripes.

The air is hot and heavy in my throat and eyes. It smells of heat and herbs, dust and pepper. There is patchy, scratchy grass underfoot, pale and littered with dried leaves. The harvest is in and in the distant meadow the bales are sitting fatly, round and golden. Fig trees give a splash of green. Their flat veined leaves are deeply lobed, divided into three teardrop shaped sections, New figs, tiny and pale, cling to the angle where the stem meets the branch.

Coubelous, Caylus, France
July 2019

Local patch 45

Local patch 44

Midsummer's day has passed and, meteorologically speaking, it's all downhill now! These are peaceful days of plenty. Hedgerows are buzzing and thrumming. Soft evenings are spiked with the scent of Dog rose and Honeysuckle. In the fruit garden we gather a quick harvest of early berries and  currants, but there is plenty to share with the birds. The last rhubarb goes into a cheesecake with ginger biscuit base and the house is sweet with jam making.  I love the rows of jewel bright jars, stacked and labelled: summer bottled for another year. On a short, dark day later in the year, we will crack open a jar and let the sunshine spill out, full of lazy promise.

  

Local Patch 43

Last week, it felt like a second chance spring up on the high ground. Hedgerow flowers, that have already flushed, finished and been forgotten down here in the lowlands, are in full force further north. We enjoyed again the primrose and the bluebell.

Back on the Levels, summer is surging forward, relentlessly. Swallows and Martins have nests full of young and the old walnut tree is full of fledgling Great tits. They creep around the bark and practise with their pale, perfect wings.

School life has an innate rhythm too. it is palpable in the dust of the classrooms: one final push. Keep going everyone, nearly there. History speeds up and there is not enough time to fit everything in. There are exams to take and exams to mark; sports days and singing competitions; field trips and reports; prize giving and prize getting; speeches, gowns and clapping. It is bittersweet and a time for looking forward. We say goodbye and good luck and well done. We watch them flex their new, perfect wings. Fly guys, don't look back!

Another local patch

When our children were tiny, we spent two years on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Puddle-suited and welly-booted, they each climbed their first peak as soon as they could put one sturdy foot in front of another. We followed the fell walls, stumbling with them over the tussocky grass and scrambling onto the trig points. They learned about walkers' cairns and fell asleep to the sound of grazing sheep and crying lambs. They knew all the local tractors by colour, shape and name and would spend every Wednesday morning watching them queue at the livestock market opposite our house.

It is a place of wide views and wild weather; a place to get fit in and stay fit for. It feels a little like home and we visit often. At half term our boots were on the fells again. Up in the Howgills, we race up Cautley Spout and on to Calders before reaching the top at Bram Rigg (676m). Ring ouzel, a smart summer thrush, accompanies us, flipping from rock to rock. Like a slim Blackbird, the male has a broad white chest band and yellow bill. It makes its nest on the ground in high and wild places. We are surrounded by upland specialists and summer visitors: Wheatear bounce in the springy turf, Crag martin surf the breezes over the waterfall and there is the ragged cry of Curlew above the tumbling Skylark. Returning via Arant Haw (605m) and Winder (473m), it feels good to get mountain miles into new boots. Off the fell, the gate above the sheep farm clacks shut and sets the sheepdogs barking an alert as we pass. We follow the track into town and emerge onto the main road opposite the Lodge that was once our home. This wild place got under our skin decades ago and it is hard to let go.

Local patch 42

Just after 7 in the morning we are dropped in Aller, the village on the bank behind the house. I clip Bilbo's lead on and we go: through the village to the pub and then left, to the drove road that heads across the moor. Chiff chaff chiff chaff, I set my step to the song of the bird. On these summer runs, he is our pace-maker; it is a good rhythm. We leave the last of the houses and take the lane between the rhynes. Spring is in full swing and we count the greens of the countryside: lime green and pine green; lovat and sage; muted like tweed and bright as citrus. The fields are a patchwork, spreading from the drove, dissected by arrow straight rhynes and punctuated by willow. The landscape of the Levels. Flowers of cow parsley, dead nettle and may blossom are foaming in the hedgerow. May blossom is Hawthorn (crataegus), its scent is strong and fresh and redolent of early summer.

Chiff chaff chiff chaff, my boots pound the road. Mallard ducks take flight from the overgrown rhynes, appearing suddenly from beneath our feet and taking a sharp curving path across the sky, before settling back to the water. Robin and blackbird sing at regular intervals and the tumbling, chattering of starlings on the wires is companionable. A flash of white rump catches my eye and I look carefully to check: it is a bright and chunky bullfinch. Small groups of goldfinch are sparkling with song. There is the high and wild mew of buzzard, the laughing cry of green woodpecker and, on the edges of the soundscape, the cuckoo has returned to the moor.

Chiff chaff chiff chaff, we turn the bend, pull up the hill into Othery, quickly cross the A361 and head down Holloway Road. The cemetery is on our left, bright with remembrance. As tractors pass, we hop onto the verge and stand quietly until they pass. And now we loop back through Middlezoy. There are lambs in the fields, well grown now, they cry sadly and then dash off in a jolly, leaping gang. From the back of the village, we leave the cricket pitch behind and take the badger track across the fields, choosing our exact route according to the cattle that guard the gates.

Chiff chaff chiff chaff, the warblers have kept me company along the way. They have played a soundtrack to our run, encouraging us on, a metronome for our feet. We take the footpath between the horses and jump the style into the village again. The stone lacework of Othery church is before us, rooks are cawing and clattering in their churchyard nests. The rusty green of the horse chestnut leaves are stretching  and shivering their new-born fingers. And the chiff chaffs replay their song, in step all the way.

Local patches, precious spaces and passing it on

A local wildlife blog is a celebration of the ways that nature touches us. In small and everyday details we are woven into our landscape and we have fitter hearts and minds and souls because of it. We forget at our peril.  Everyone has a local patch: garden, footpath, common ground, nature reserve or park. These are precious spaces to be treasured, linked-up and defended. We must explore them with our children, sharing with them a sense of wonder and nurturing inquiring minds. Use language and science and art. Feel grounded, stop and look, breathe deeply.

As soon as our children could stand, we encouraged them to hike. In waterproof suits and proper boots they toddled with us, splashing in puddles, falling in the mud, developing their nature vocabulary. They learned early the etiquette of the bird hide: approach respectfully, sit quietly, don't bang the doors and windows! Once they had grown up, it took me a long time to break the habit of collecting things, feathers and conkers and pebbles, when walking. But now the next generation has arrived and my pockets can be full of treasures to share again. 

Our son and daughter-in-law are both keen birdwatchers and so their baby boy has been brought up looking and listening and wondering. For now, they live thousands of miles away - where the Arabian Desert meets the Persian Gulf. Baby Arthur's early birding experiences are of Flamingos on the creek and Hoopoes in the parks. On weekly trips to the oasis he crawls and slides in the desert dunes. They hide in the shade of the bright thorn trees and look for Shrike, Bee-eater and Roller. He is learning a broad and rich nature vocabulary, and he already knows how to behave in a bird hide!

They will be home in the summer to escape the desert heat and I am looking forward to showing Arthur our cool, damp land. He needs a whole new vocabulary for green. There may even be an opportunity to introduce him our local, local patch - where the Great tits always nest in the tall ivy, there are newts in the pond, hedgehogs on the lawn, and bats hunting in the soft mothy night.

Happy first birthday Arthur: I wish you a blackbird's song from the garden at dusk; and the scent of a bluebell wood after the rain!

Local patch 41

Back to the Quantocks. There is a sharp pull up Slaughterhouse Coombe which gets the muscles screaming and the heart pumping; it is good to be alive! The woods are starred with wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) and scented with ramsons or wild garlic (Allium ursinum). They love these dark, damp soils. I have seen a recipe which smashes the long, strappy ramsons leaves together with parmesan, olive oil and pine nuts to make pesto. We must try it.

We are looking for the Pied flycatcher, a striking summer visitor, which loves these places. But today there is no sign of the distinctive black and white plumage and flittering, flycatching forays. Instead we hear and see a Jay, that brightest and most elusive member of the crow family. Despite feathers of dusty pink-buff with bright turquoise wing flashes, a chequerboard cap and white rump, the shy and secretive bird is difficult to spot and seeing one is always a treat; sometimes they are mistaken for parrots because their feathers are so bright! 

Finally, we step out of the speckled shade and onto the springy heather tops. From here there are tracks and trails in every direction. We join the Macmillan Way West and make a huge arc across the high ground. The wind is keen and cold and fingers its way through zips and down collars until we are steaming gently. Skylarks toss themselves into the breeze, parachuting back down and drenching us with song. Before we turn our boots off the crest and head down through the woods, there is one further treat: a small group of Wheatear surround us on the path, hopping from heather to gorse, hunting hungrily for insects. These are true visitors of summer. They may just have arrived on this high land within sight of Bridgwater Bay. They may stay for the summer; and breed on these gentle heather hills; or they may be passing through heading further West or North. Welcome back - it's good to see you again!

Local patch 40

Suddenly, there is colour everywhere: blossom and catkins, hedges full of primroses. On the waterways there are Gadwall, Shoveller and Tufted ducks all bright with fresh plumage. At Westhay Moor NNR the Great crested grebes are elegant in their summer feathers: cream and orange, black and white. They are beginning to display, weaving complex patterns across the water. Chiffchaffs are shouting from the trees, a Peacock butterfly basks in a sunbeam and, along the gravelly paths, butter-yellow Brimstones dance. 
It is Springtime in Somerset!

Local patch 39

We walked in the gentle Quantock Hills, on the western border of the Somerset Levels. We could see East to Glastonbury Tor and the Mendips and North to Somerset's coast, with the Gower Peninsula and the Welsh hills beyond. It is a place of rolling barrows and wooded, stream-cut combes, criss-crossed with ancient tracks and trails. In the oak-woods, deciduous branch and twig are still waiting for their greening, but there is primrose on the banks and sweet violet pushing through last autumn's leaves. The old heather is bleached or burnt on the hillside, ready to spring into life. Skylarks are tossed like rags in the wind, their song tugging at the memory of every other summer of my life.

It is too cool, yet, to find lizards or snakes, but our passage startled groups of red deer hinds and they bounded away from us, disappearing with ease among the bare trunks, or across the heather tops.

Local patch 38

March comes in like a lion … a very wet and windy lion this year! The rivers and rhynes of the Levels are full to overflowing. The water meadows behind our house are part of the managed flood plain. The sluices are opened regularly to let the water onto the fields and relieve the pressure further up the river system. We wake in the morning to find a glistening, silvery ocean. And before long, the watery birds have stopped to investigate. As dusk falls there is the sound of ducks dabbling in the shallows. They pipe and whistle gently to each other.

In the winter-dark hedgerow, there are the acid stars of wild daffodils and the promise of clumps of primrose before long. Prickly blackthorn (prunus spinosa), always the earliest to flower, has made confetti in the lanes. Her delicate white petals have been tossed and ripped by exuberant Storm Freya.

Pinch me someone ...

In a thrilling evening in Mayfair last night, at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, I was given the Bradt Travel Guide's New Travel Writer of the Year award! Pictured here with Hilary Bradt, I am grateful to them for their amazing competition and the wonderful way that they encourage aspiring writers to this most competitive of fields. My thanks, too, go to the lovely people at Wexas Travel for the promise of the prize trip to Finland. I have dreamed of those Northern lands for many years, drawn to reindeer and huskies and all that beautiful, bleak scenery. There is time, now, to build up muscle tone for snow-shoeing and study the wildlife guides for Scandinavia. Look out for one or two tales from faraway, among my local patch stories …!

Local patch 37

From the sublime to the ridiculous; we have escaped from the Arctic grip of snow and ice into the warmest Valentine's Day for many years. We dug out tee shirts and sunglasses. Some people jumped into the sea. The hedgerows strained to keep pace with the surge of sappy growth, encouraged by the May-like temperatures. Birds are singing and busy looking for insects. They don't know what month it is.

I went to collect eggs in the soft air before dawn. There was pearl on the horizon and, in these in between times, a tawny was hooting from the tall birches at the end of the garden while a blackbird started his dawn song and the robin shouted out from the plum tree above the chicken run. In the rush to get ready for the day ahead: breathe deeply.

Local patch 36

Heavy snow and ice has brought much of central and southern Britain to a surprised halt, with night time temperatures dipping well below zero. Here on the Somerset Levels we have a beautiful dusting. Several centimetres of the white stuff was enough to close our schools and make many roads treacherous. Further West, there were tales of great kindness and generosity as travellers were stranded on Bodmin Moor.

Local patch 35

I love the names of the moons. 
This month we have a super blood wolf moon. It is a super moon because it is at its closest point to the Earth and appears bigger and brighter than normal. And passing through the Earth's shadow, the beautiful, fat moon glows coppery red, hence 'blood' moon. The 'wolf' bit of the name is less clear but probably stems from ancient native American observations. There is a delicious chill in the sound of the howl of the wolf in the night, resonating with tales of faraway and long ago. Of course, there are none here now. The last wolves disappeared from the UK hundreds of years ago. 
But I shall keep an eye on Bill to see if he is drawn to the night sky this week!

Ringing in the new ...

So, we have feasted. We have brought winter evergreens into the house and decorated with twinkling lights, spruce and mistletoe. We have sung carols, listened to ancient truths and prayed our prayers. We have lit tall, ivory altar candles and advent wreaths and we have stretched out in front of the fire to play games, exchange gifts and create shared stories. There have been long muddy walks, hugs, dogs, laughter, tears and new resolve. 

And now, with the freshening of the year, I am sweeping up the pine needles and the wood ash. The house is newly quiet. Wrapping paper (non-metallic) has been sorted and recycled. Christmas letters have been put ready for reply, new addresses and family news safely noted. I tie up this year's cards and pack them away with the decorations - to be brought out next December, at card-writing time! We have chopped the branches off the Christmas trees; they make a dry layer in the chicken run, lifting the ladies' feet out of the mud. The trunks are ready to chop and stack in the log pile. They are good fuel once they are seasoned.

In the new year, I always make a list for my 'Christmas-self next year'. As well as notes about recipes that did (or didn't) work etc, there are always more philosophical wishes too. For Christmas 2019 I want to: buy less, shop local, invest in people, invite friends, keep it simple, have time ...