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 …!