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.
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.
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!
