It was closer to 11
than 10.30am when we, me & Gwyn, set out, Sunday 3
rd
May, under a cool grey, aloof sky. It didn't threaten, but nor did it
show promise, or friendliness, just disinterest, ennui maybe. Along
the road from home, said sky dropped some large drops of rain, , then
nothing, then a slowly rising drizzle, for the next half hour or so,
this built into a full on shower, all the way through Digley Wood.
There were few if any other walkers, so the simple but
beautiful cacophany of Spring bird-song went pretty much undisturbed,
and without challenge.
All manner of “Tits”, and Sparrows,
House & Hedge, Robins, Blackbirds, Nuthatches, Tree-creepers,
Pigeons and allsorts accompanied us to the reservoir.....
High-singing, piping Curlews, slightly more aggresively
acrobatic Lapwings, with their distinctive voices, and the jarring
occasional Pheasant joined in and took a more open-aired prominence,
as we approached the reservoir. They too were then accompanied by the
Larks and Pipits, Fieldfares, and crows.......An occasional Jay
patrolled, looking for nests no doubt......
I noticed the
ragged state of the fence at the top of the steps, up from the old
Digley Road, in the wood, a section had vanished, not that it was all
that brilliant to start with, and if there were any sheep in that
field, they would have no barrier to going for a wander.....I made a
mental note to mention it to Anne if I saw her.
Rounding the
corner onto the reservoir embankment road, Anne randomly appeared, in the truck,
and drove straight past me, though I got a wave, she didn't stop,
even when I shouted, and waved like a loon trying to attract her
attention......
Originally I had thought I would start the
next section of the walk, by starting on the old Digley circuit, from
the Holme end, and then turning off up to Issues & the school,
and then on to Yateholme......but I noticed that I had a follower,
another man on his own, with a dog, about a hundred yards behind,
though thought not much of it. But, as I approached the now
blocked-off car-park, I heard the sound of an approaching quad. The
fields above the car-park are Anne & her family's, with sheep,
and cattle, a large rickety looking, if serviceable barn, with an old
red Massey, or something, along with all manner of accumulated and
mostly farming-related “stuff”. The quad came around the bend
above the car-park, and I flagged it down. I don't know the lad's
name, though I know that I really should, as I've known him to say
hello to, as they say, for years, but I'm pretty sure he's her son. I
asked if they had any sheep on Digley banking, and told him about the
fence.
We parted company, but in the meantime, the dog-walking
pursuer had caught me up, and taken the Digley circuit path, through
the closed car-park, so I casually changed my mind, and continued
along the road to Holme Village.......
I could hear a Cuckoo
in the woods by the old Water-Board cottages by Brownhill Res, and
came to “Holme Castle.” Which is nothing of the sort, but a large
house, latterly Hotel, then a private house again, which has
castellated features....... but is as close to a castle as I am to a
brain surgeon. Since reverting to being a house, it has acquired a
mill-stone as a name plate, declaring “Holme Castle Number One”
but why it's that I have absolutely no idea, it's hardly as if there
might randomly be a “Holme Castle Number Two” (or Three....etc)
anywhere....but it wears it well I suppose, posey nonsense
nevertheless.
Here Gwyn & I turned left to “Uncle
Arthur's” old home “Underhill”. Famous for a while in the 70s,
with various broad-sheets and TV appearances, even a spot on Blue
Peter if memory serves, and the winner of various accolades from
erstwhile Architectural organisations, for it's unconventional
design. “Underhill” was effectively a shot at a contemporary
“Hobbit House” being built more or less underground. Alas the
only time I ever managed to cross the threshold was prior to it's
completion, and so I never saw it first hand in it's full glory,
complete with a central swimming-pool.......I kid you not.
I
recall a rectangular “box” void underneath the place you'd expect
to find a normal internal door-mat, if you had one, which I was told
was going to house the house “safe”, though how true that was in
the end I have no idea, but if it was a man-trap instead, then an
intruder might well have a broken ankle to show for it......I climbed
down the stainless steel ladder into the empty pool, bare concrete,
prior to being tiled, which was under a glass dome, could have been
perspex I suppose, which was explained as being a very good way of
“drawing light in” which didn't make a lot of sense back in those
days, but maybe does a bit more now.
Arthur sadly passed away
not all that long ago, but pre-virus and he had sold “Underhill”
a few years ago, though not for the £ million he'd initially asked
for.......you can't take it with you after all.
Gwyn & I
took the footpath down the side of the property, the lower,
Holmbridge side, and the volume of bird-song began to rise again, to
my pleasure, if Gwyn didn't seem all that “plussed” about it. The
nearest Cuckoo obliged, several times, but visually remained
elusive.
We dropped down along the blue-bell banks through the
woods to the little foot-bridge across the stream, and water-fall, as
so many times before, and as a few brief interludes previously,
stopped for a breather, but more to bathe in the atmosphere, and feel
the beauty.
The heavenly moment, the song of the brook, the
steady rush of the falling silvery curtain of a million, million wet
diamonds.....it couldn't last, though was hardly changed since my
earliest childhood decades ago. The first of many later mountain
bikers bounced down the path opposite, a steepish, very rocky and
rough course, and slightly squeaky brakes into the mix..... and an
ocasional swear word, collectively shattering the tranquility, which
simply slid away down the valley with the stream, and away from my
thoughts........
We made our way steadily, no real reason to
rush after all, up the same path, with its exposed rocky
under-layers, stepping as far out of the way as we sensibly could,
when necessary. for a couple of pairs of walking couple, and another
couple of bikers.
Turning the corner, there's a choice, a
continuation of the directional path, down through the res woods to
the banking between Brownhill and Ramsden Reservoirs, and a right
turn towards the West, and subsequential further decisions..... we
took this, onto the side of the grassy moor known as Netherley. My
(not “our”, Gwyn doesn't yet have a direct say in these things)
unofficial goal was to navigate to Yateholme Res, from where William
had alerted me only yesterday, when I was on a related but
different route, to the presence of an Osprey.
I am fairly
certain in hindsight that we had both had a fleeting glimpse of it,
prior to parting company on the road between Riding-Wood and Ramsden,
but too far away to be totally sure, but it definitely didn't look
like a Buzzard, and was way too big for a Peregrine. It was also too
far away for my 250mm lens..... After I had walked back towards home
at the time, nearly as far as Moss Edge, William texted to say that
he could see the Osprey over Yateholme....bum! Gwyn, and Bonny the
Beagle (Mum & Dad's) who I have been walking since not long after
“lock-down” had to about-turn with me, when I made the decision
to chance a walk up Ramsden Clough, (Monkey Nick), to chance a
view.....I couldn't resist..... We didn't see it, but I
digress.........I never need an excuse to go that way.
Returning to
the narrative of Sunday, we're on the path along and across
Netherley. It's a funny one, as it's mostly obviously actually a
constructed “path”, being raised for the most-part in a stone
structure, above what may well be somewhat and sometimes swampy and
boggy reed-beds, though they were relatively dry when we passed.. An
echo down from past generations, and situations.
I thought I
knew the moor well, but, as most of the times I have crossed it
before, I had no reason to stick to paths, following hounds, I wasn't
familiar with the route, and found it turning away from my
goal......towards the Holme Moss road, I had so
miscalculated........
The path delivered us to the track,
rather than the actual tarmacced road, so we took the left and set
our course for the South, and Yateholme Res.
Here the level of
Mountain bikers intensified. Strange days indeed. But how can I
complain whilst being “out” too....? I counted over forty in the
next half hour alone..... How the lock-down has persuaded so many to
dig their bikes out of the backs of their garages and sheds, is
probably a “good thing”, but I have noticed that about roughly
ten percent of them didn't dig out their courtesty at the same time.
They, the ten percent, can't manage a “hello” or “Hi” or
something to save their lives. It really saddens me when people are
defiicient in “common courtesy”. Perhaps they are just shy, but I
see it as simply “rude”.
The track has deteriorated too,
as well as manners, quite significantly since I used to use it
regularly while riding. The old bits you used to be able to “give
your horse it's head” and have a proper full-on gallop, aren't even
safe or suitable these days. Time doesn't always heal some things,
but entropy always increases.
More walkers, more Cuckoos, that
must be seven at least I've heard on this one walk
alone.....invisible buggers.....! At one point I could hear three in
different parts of the woods, all competing, or flirting, I have no
idea which, with each other.......
Then the throaty sound of
an engine, or two as it turned out, approached from the front. Two
enormous road-bikes, not sure what they both were, but the first was
definitely a BMW. The rider ignored me and Gwyn. At least the second
one nodded to acknowledge my standing to one side for them. About
five minutes later, they must have reached the main road, and the
subsequent roar of their engines as they opened up to race to the
summit of the Moss was enough to drown out every scintilla of
bird-song completely, even from such a distance....... My soul
sank.
In the moments before, we had “pulled-over”, as it
were, to let some hard-walking, speedier types to march past
“safely”..... (The “marchers” dismay me, as I am one who
likes to look, smell, listen, and live the moment, and place......but
each to their own.) When they passed we rounded the corneer onto the
wooden planked section, over the bridge. I could see how much
distance our break had alllowed the speed-walkers to make up.....over
a hundred yards, at least....
Coming to another gate nearby,
the avian music picked up again, accompanied by numerous pheasants,
harsh and random, and an occasional, more distant, cackling
Grouse.....Curlews, a distant owl, baa-ing sheep, neaer to the
village somewhere out of view, and then, something hard to
describe....
I saw two birds further up the hill, on the more
open bit of the banking, grassy, not heathered, but white-grass, and
bracken. I couldn't tell what they were, but at the time thought
“Cuckoos”....but given where they were, and how they flew, very
low, and straight, I could rule several other contenders out
whatever. I didn't think they were Cuckoos, as, scant though my
experience of them might be, they didn't feel “right”, I'd like
to think they were Nightjars.....and aim to go back to see again as
soon as I get chance, but it's a long walk from here!
I
waited, and waited, but the characteristic repetitive, almost
digital, trill was not forthcoming, instead, from seeper in the
woods, several sounds that I can only describe as like “someone
blowing (not 'playing') an individual organ pipe”....I know that
probably doesn't conjure up the right thought, but if you strain to
imagine it, then add the sound of someone blowing actross a glass
bottle with liquid in it.....you might half get the mental
structure/sound...!I haqve never heard it before, but it wasn't a
Pheasant, of that I am dead certain, even if it was in a similar
key/tone. It was so distinct, and the pheasants were giving their own
versions on and off at the same time, so it stood out.....It sounded
sort of ethereal, but natural, not animal, or humans messing
around.
A mystery.
It didn't happen more than a few
times, and my vain efforts to attempt to capture it on my phone's
“Voice Recorder”amounted to nothing. Eventually I gave up and set
off again....
More rumblings, loads of Mountain bikes, more
walkers, social-distance aware, and then a couple who clearly weren't
remotely bothered about either jmy personal health security or
theirs. I couldn't step further back than the dry-stone wall, but
under the circumstances found myself holding my breath just in
case.......mad world. Then, there was peace.
A non-speaking
family, dumpy children, one of each, both very well-fed, roughly
pre-teen, and a grumpy dark-curly-haired, and bearded, short but
quite round man, maybe forty or so, appeared. I was apparently
totally invisible to them, The younger ones didn't even look at me,
and the man ignored my “Hello” altogether, though I deliberately
caught his eye and slightly increased my persoanl volume, as I could
see he was going to be not someone I would want to get stuck in a
lift with, as they say....and wanted to make a point.
The
thing that really struck me about the whole scene was that the
frizzy, short round man, rumbling along on a bike that didn't like
him, and probably vice versa, had a smartish looking Cocker
Spaniel.....on a lead. I kid you not. While he was bouncing around,
on a bike he was clearly unaccustomed to, on a rough, fairly decently
sloped old track.
Every now and then he very harshly tugged at
the far too short lead, causing the dog to tumble backwards, or, more
than once to fall on it's side, or roly-poly, while he bounced along
on the bike..... I watched as the front wheel nearly crunched the
dog's chest, but just missed. I watched as the wheel nearly hit the
dog's neck, it's back legs....you get the picture. Make that picture
worse.
I could barely watch, but like the accident on the
other carriage-way that you know you shouldn't look at, your
curiosity gets the better of you...... The lead-jerks were
accompanied at times by a “bark” from the man, not the poor dog,
and a lot of swearing, again, from the man.
The two chubby
kids, and bouncing father passed by, thankfully without any dogs
dying,
At a modest distance behind, at a much slower, careful
and cautious pace, followed a mousy, slender, very drawn looking, and
grey woman, also on a bike that she was clearly unfamiliar with......
Tiny and hollow eyed, tired, pale, frizzy “strawberry blonde”
hair. But at least she smiled and did say “Hello”.....Her eyes
told me everything I didn't want to know. She looked so sad.
Gwyn
and I sat again, and I got my phone out to look up “Nightjars”
and I convinced myself that they definitely were not what I'd heard,
but I was now sure that they were almost certainly what I'd seen! I
was surprised by how happy this made me, I think sometimes that I
don't actually know myself..... I love the natural world, but my
curiosity is driving me these days more than ever before, and it was
always healthy......
Another Cuckoo echoed in the wood below
me. I heard my first a couple of weeks ago, and its May 3rd
as I write this. It's not important, really but I do remember
newspapers printing letters from various like-wise weirdos claiming
their own “first cuckoos” back in the halcyon days of
yester......
I stood, and the very tired Gwyn did too, and so
on we went. There were four Buzzards, slowly and very high up,
circling, crying their instantly recognisable calls, and coasting the
thermals from the slopes of Twizzlehead, and then they drifted away
over the tops and out of sight. Frustrating, but lovely to
see.....
The whistles, cheeps, trill, of the mass birdong came
back to prominence in my awareness again, and the lovely “safe”
feeling of peace and what I think of as a “Pagan” love flowed in
my thoughts, and veins again. Peace. Understanding, and experience.
A few breaks in the clouds started to come through, a touch
of the clear blue we've been so spoiled with here and there. It's
hard to carry negative when bathing in beauty.
A solitary man,
in (very) orange lycra, immaculate, probably brand-new, and wearing a
black shiny cycling helmet, bright red face, glistening with his own
heat moisture.....puffed, sweated, and panted up the gentle slope as
we were descending. I sympathised a little.... momentarily.
Again,
he didn't reply to my genuine convivial greeting, and I wasn't sure I
had actually expected him to, if I'm honest, as oxygen is less than
twenty one percent these days, apparently, and he needed every bit he
could get.
There were two Cuckoos further up Ramsden
Clough,(Monkey Nick) as we approached Riding Wood Res, calling and
replying to each other. Nice, I thought.
I heard the steady
random rumble of a bike, the orange man had returned. I noticed he
was wearing two Go-Pro's (other brands are available, but I have no
idea what) both front and back of his shiny brand new
helmet.......excuse apostrophes, I think I'm right as it's an
“unusual” word thing. Maybe there's an exception....
I
didn't give him the generally accepted “One-fingered hand-signal”
I had internally thought about. Just as well, as he stopped on te the
road across the res wall a hundred yards in front of me.
Orange
Man then took a long slug from a matching plastic orange
water-bottle, and started on his phone. It's not like I was
concentrating on him, my senses were still full of light, beauty,
huge three-dimensional woodland scenes, bird-song, and the lovely
piney smell of the woods, and the slightly irritating, to my sinuses
right now, pollen/dust that worries me so much in and of our current
times.......but he was getting my attention, as they were all
efectively stable....I must be a bit trivial in my attention to
detail at times......jsut not when it matters, maybe.
So, he's
in one of the most beautiful parts of the district, and he is
fiddling with his phone. I don't know if he couldn't get a signal, or
had just read a heart-breaking message, or something banal, fingers
crossed for something good.... After a few minutes of standing and
looking like an orange obscenity, banal or not, his phone went back
into his pocket.
Gwyn had slowed down a bit by the time I'm
describing. She's knocking on the door of twelve, and has arthritic
moments and gets a bit foot-sore at times, and it's a rough track at
that point, but she is getting some slighty challenging walks, with,
when it's needed, some Rimadyl help, but she's happy. She was
“loitering” and so I waited a bit. You might say we were dawdling
a bit …..
The Orange Man was
clearly going nowhere though, so I took the opportunity to comment on
just how f-ing beautiful it all truly was.
To my slight relief,
he agreed, maybe his oxygen levels had caught up a bit, I don't know.
He couldn't manage to use any of it the lst time I'd said “Hello..”
A random Sand-Piper obliged by doing a quick fly-past on the
res wall. We both saw it, and I said “Sand-Piper”. He mentioned
“Yellow Wagtails” which lead into a small correction, but I
thought about dodging it, then decided to “do the right
thing”........More Cuckoos obliged us both, further up the
valley.......Was one of “those moments”.
Then the
pheasants called their replies, so harsh, and warning. A pair of
white birds, I have no idea what, not doves, or gulls, flew into the
woods, and vanished.
We passed the time, not much, just a bit,
and I left him there, as his red face started to return to a more
human sort-of colour......
Chaffinches, Nuthatches, Sparrows,
Robins, various Tits and so on, accompanied us onwards, as so often.
We came to the old trough, then the Yateholme car-park, and the man
who carries his nearly-but-not-quite-dead-cat everywhere, to various
places aound the area....sits with it, in the open air, then takes it
home to whatever hell they share. The man and his cat were at the
picnic table by the car park, he fiddled with his phone, while the
cat tried hard not to die. As we've crossed paths, in very similar
circumstances, I acknowledged him, and got a response, limited, but
it never relly ever turned into a conversation, so I wasn't expecting
much, if anything. His own personal hell.
Then, what I am
sure was a Peregrine shot past and upwards, fantastic! I know there's
a pair of them close by, but can't find them when I try, hey ho.
We wandered closer to
home, and occasionally checked over the wall, as I've seen all sorts
down there over the years I've been here, but nothing but little tiny
flits of feathered things at high speed, and sunny lit shadows of
forgotten and hidden places, No Roe, or foxes, or hippies, or
anything really.
We approached the water-works, and two wrens
were going at it, like really, not “hand-bags at dawn”, but a
proper full-on scrap! What a racket two tiny little birds can make in
full combat mode....... Another moment when you bring the camera up
to bear as quick as possible, and then they're gone......it wasn't a
gentleman's scrap. It was proper “full-on”......
No sign
of the Black-Caps I saw last week, but missed with the camera, which
is being a pain at the current time, that's another story. Never
mind, they might still be there in the next few weeks, after all,
they've come all this way to migrate here, to breed, and the
weather's good......
They're not terribly dramatic in form,
just Tits, with a distinct and literal “Black cap”.
But
hey, you've got to follow the things that you're interested in.
Down
the road, past St David's Church, and homewards, slowly, steadily.
Gwyn is now dictating the pace, as she really is foot-sore.
Home
for bacon and a strong tea.
Perfect Sunday walk. Nicer with
company, but these are the days we're in.
