Tor Falcon: Diary of a Wild Place

May, A Good Year for Dandelions.

This week I have been basking in the sunshine of dandelions. Like my son’s noses, the bare earth has suddenly come out in freckles. Unbelievable that those weightless seeds blown last summer have done more than survive this winter, they seem to have thrived. Content to take root wherever the wind blows them they are beaming from every untended piece of ground. Adding their shaggy brilliance to the world, putting a smile on my face wherever I go.   

May, Hiding in Full View.

I once asked Edward if I could draw a clump of teasels I’d seen on the side of one of his farm tracks. He said of course I could and he even stopped for a chat while I was there the next day. A week later he flattened them. I’ve often wondered if it was my fault, that if I hadn’t pointed them out he might not have noticed them, or at least, not felt the urge to destroy them. The same thing has happened a few times with the forester. I’ve mentioned some tree or plant and almost immediately he’s cut it down.

Unremarked on, these plants are invisible. Happily existing under the radar until someone foolishly gives their game away. It’s as if I’ve shined a spotlight on something unpardonable and these men now feel compelled to action.

Full of guilt, I’ve learnt to say nothing. I’ve learnt to stifle the impulse to share my delight. I curb my enthusiasm until I am alone in front of a piece of paper and then silently I let it out in lines and colour. So, shhh, don’t tell Edward about this pussy willow, daring to hide in full view just yards from his front door.

April, In Praise of Ditches.

The gods of the weather and the months of the year have conspired to make this week perfect for sitting in ditches. It’s been warm and dry, there’s not too much vegetation and importantly there are no mosquitos yet. It’s easy to find yourself a comfortable spot and steal a glance at these private places before nettles grow to terrifying proportions and bar you for the next six months.

You need to pick your ditch though. Not all ditches are equal. From the deep, steep v’s that drain farmland, wheat right up to the edge, to the hedged and even the tree lined. Some have deep water in them all year, some dry up. Some stink. Some are roomy, some aren’t.

This one however, is a Queen among ditches. Once a stream, it still bears some reminders of it’s noble past. Old alders and warty oaks remember it before it’s demotion eighty years ago when the lakes were dug and the water stolen. Unbothered it trickles through a no-mans-land of lakes and more ditches. It is home to the shy and the retiring and it hides an invisible network of paths. It is as wide and as lovely a ditch as you are likely to find.  

And yesterday a blackcap sang in it.  A woodpecker emerged from a hole above my head. The hazel linked arms with the oak. The ivy and the moss waltzed over the water and made edible reflections. Dogs mercury was dressed in pure gold. A guelder-rose swam naked with a shoal of tadpoles and twenty pregnant hinds tap-danced over a honeysuckle bridge. The sun couldn’t stop shining and I watched through a brief window as this enchanted place danced before my eyes. 

April, Light.

Light dazzling through the first chlorophyl of the year. Young nettles on a bank next to a sluice. Water falling from lake to stream. A hazel ablaze. Finally, swallows. Balm to my tired soul. 

April, Violets are drowning in cold air this year.

Violets are drowning in cold air this year. Their sweet stand for spring is no match against the ceaseless north east wind. The primrose on a south facing bank is vibrating, a glazed look in it’s eye. Pussy willow split it’s winter coat a month ago but has still not cast it off. Blackthorn buds are fossilised. Snowdrops long to die and even the brashest daffodils dare not open. Pink Siberian clouds rush through a bright blue sky over our cold heads. And we all wait and wonder if this will ever end.

April Cold.

I’m frozen to the middle of my bones. I’m speechless with cold. My thoughts are entombed in ice. 

March, The Tree of Life.

The ash tree and the pollarded willow between the lake and the stream are preparing for a season of high rise maternity care. Wrapped in ivy and out of otter’s reach, they offer scenic views, privacy and good local amenities to prospective egg layers. 

Already two mallard have moved in. Craning their necks and poking their heads out of the ivy they quack crossly at each other and at their mates below. A moorhen becomes a bad tight rope walker as she  wobbles along a branch to her chosen spot. Last year a grey wagtail, two blackbirds and a tawny owl also took up residence. And although there was alarm and angry shouting every time the owl returned to feed her brood, I don’t think she actually ate any of her neighbours.

This year, I’m not only watching the birds nesting in these trees, worrying about them, willing them success. I’m also going to be watching the ash tree. Looking for signs of ash dieback. Wondering what the fatal chalara fraxinea fungus means to this landscape and to all of us who live here. Not only wondering what the future holds for each clutch of eggs but also worrying for the tree of life itself. 

March, Melbreak.

In amongst the complicated folds and ridges of the Cumbrian Fells sits Melbreak. Separate and dark. An armoured insect, legs pulled up under it. It’s flimsy carapace of peat drips into a lake on it’s eastern side while to the west it trails orchids in the summer.

To Chris, it’s grazing. His livelihood. He was born with it in his blood. To the never ending tourists who cut deep gashes down to it’s bones, it’s a day out. A conquest. To my eighty four year old father-in-law it was an unexpected triumph. To the falcons who nest in it’s needles, it’s the perfect place for a high speed ambush. To the ewe with the herbage map of generations in her blank head, it’s everything. To me, today, it’s a set of shapes within a set of shapes. It’s dark against light, solid in air. I’m trying to condense one hundred million years of geology through my eyes and into the fat chalk in my hand making marks on a small bit of paper in front of me

March, Longing for Spring.

I was young at the beginning of winter. Easily sustained by a lichen on a trunk or an icy turquoise sky. But now, it’s March and I’m ninety nine years older, each miracle is less nutritious. I’m impatient with the slow    drip      drip    of spring. Cold, creeping light, is too cold, too reluctant. Only snowdrops, for weeks. Then aconites, in mud. Bird song, on deaf old ears. Catkins, just hang. I can see the magic weakly but I’m thirsty for more. 

I know these precious drops will become a steady trickle until by June I am soaked to the skin in a torrent of blossom and a rainbow of greens.

It’s just that as it starts to snow again, I wonder if I’ve got the strength to wait.

March, A Cold Morning With Pigeons

A shower of fine hail has muffled the early morning. The field is cross hatched in white. The small oaks stand out in relief along the edge of the wood and pigeons have decoratively arranged themselves in all the tall trees. The only movement is the gentle fall of snow. I watch for a minute or two, noticing how the pigeons have spaced themselves out. There seems to be some ideal distance they like to keep between each other. It’s an orderly scene, identical silhouettes an identical distance apart, tracing the shapes of tall trees.

But I can’t stay and the snow melts. The gas cannons ranged along each side of this valley start up and are joined by the usual din of the day.

Later as I stare out of my studio window I watch the same pigeons   flying in a no-formation formation from left to right…boom… and then back again. Their random flapping reminds me more of butterflies than birds. I look at the shapes of sky between their wings in the hope of finding a pattern. But I can’t find any rhythm in this chaotic pigeon cloud. Just a dash to the rape tops, before…. boom…. and a mad flutter away. Flutter…. boom, flutter….. boom, the daily life of a flock of pigeons in winter.