The Hunt

I've been out on a hunting trip. Shooting with a camera, you understand, not using sophisticated weaponry against defenceless creatures. But perhaps it satisfies some deep-seated urge to hunt, lurking yet in the human DNA from stone-age times.

This handsome plant is Purple Loosestrife which is a native wild flower in the UK. It occurs naturally in wet places and is here seen growing at the edge of a reedbed in a local nature reserve. The poet John Clare called it "Long Purples", a name which Shakespeare used for the Early Purple Orchid - that's poets for you. In the language of flowers it's supposed to represent persistence and it's certainly persistent if you grow it in the garden, being able to grow from any small pieces of root left in the soil and also enthusiastically self-seeding. In North America it's a troublesome invasive.

The Chiffchaff is persistent too, endlessly repeating its two-note song from a high branch. Some of them now survive our British winters and no longer bother to migrate. Presumably the female of the species is charmed by his minimalist serenade; she can often be found lower down in the bushes, listening intently.

 

There were several Hoverflies on the wing, all looking to a greater or lesser extent like wasps or bees. "Batesian mimicry" is the proper term for it - looking hard and dangerous while being harmless, as practiced by teenage boys everywhere. They are the gardener's friend; the adults are tireless pollinators and the larvae feed on aphids.

I'd hoped to see dragonflies and damselflies, but it was probably a bit cold and too breezy. But this small patch of reeds was in the sun and sheltered from the wind, and here I found a few damselflies.

I think these are Azure Damselflies.

Another little Hoverfly, doing what Hoverflies do best - hovering! They are surprisingly easy to photograph like this.

Soon these Hemp Agrimony flowers will be attracting all sorts of insects, including butterflies. That's always assuming that we eventually get some warmer weather.

It's just as well there's no family back at the cave waiting for the hunter to return from his foray in the wilderness. Not much meat to be had from a Chiffchaff and a couple of hoverflies and damselflies!

*******

Here's a wee tale about hunting. Robin Williamson was once a member of the Incredible String Band and has since had a musical career as weird and varied as anyone I can think of. Some work I love and some completely passes me by. At one time he decided to learn the harp in the style of the bards of old Ireland. Here he is playing that harp and recounting a very old story in his own inimitable way. 

Take care.

Here We Go Again!

Two ageing men are slowly making their way along a muddy footpath through a wood. We haven't seen them for a while. But at last good weather and reasonable health have aligned themselves making a short walk in the country a possibility. Or perhaps a necessity.

And what amazing tourist attraction have we chosen to visit after all this time? Nothing less than a few neglected and forgotten meadows that lie nestled between a busy village and some large arable fields, not far from Cambridge.

Having missed out on the delights of snowdrops, cowslips, wood anemones and bluebells this year, we can at least go to pay our respects to the wild orchids that flower on Fulbourn Fen; they always appear somewhat later in the year than those other beauties.

Even though I've seen wild orchids most years, I'm still compelled to kneel down to view these little flowers close-up. This year I've even remembered to bring along a lens designed to get us even closer. Would you like to see an angel?

Did those medieval craftsmen, who fashioned the wooden angels that soar among the roof-bosses and hammerbeams of our oldest churches, have these tiny flowers in mind as they created their art?

I've often heard that in heraldry the fleur-de-lys design is based on the wild iris (or yellow flag) flowers.

And the Tudor rose always puts me in mind of these humble blooms of the bushes and hedgerows.

This narrow and rather uneven boardwalk, that crosses one of the wetter parts of the fen, is one of my favourite stretches of path, though it can be tricky to pass anyone coming the other way. The only thing to do is to step off the path and hope that you don't sink down too far!

We'll carry on a bit further to where (I hope) there are some large logs which will make a useful seat where we can sit in the sun for a while before wandering back.

There's not an enormous amount of walking to be done here, but that doesn't matter at all - all is peace and tranquility and it's just a wonderful place to linger and loiter, having lazed on those left-behind logs. 

So it was that Les lingered and loitered, while I crouched and composed, as we threaded our way back through the orchid meadows.

So on we plodded down the muddy track, as much like the two little boys that we once were, as the two older men that we have inexplicably become. The only real difference being that now we step carefully around the puddles instead of splashing straight through. At least we've learned something!

Take care.

Many thanks to all those of you who've sent encouraging messages and kept me entertained with your blogs and photos. It has really helped.

Good Days

I may not be able to get out on the long walks that I enjoy, but I can still totter down to my local community woodland to see the snowdrops - at least on my good days!

There's not much I can tell you about snowdrops that I haven't covered in previous years. Just enjoy!

I came across this old photograph the other day while looking for something else entirely...

This is the office and sales room of J H Cooper & Sons in Cambridge. All swept aside now in the name of progress, but for over a 100 years the place where the canny people of the town went to buy their furniture. Mention that you needed a bed or an armchair in conversation and someone would always say, "Well, if you ask me, you can't beat Coopers". That seemed to be the only advertising they had.

Armed with that advice you'd make your way to Newmarket Road. "Yes, sir, we can supply a two seat settee instead of the larger model". "Might I suggest a slightly darker shade, sir, you'll find it won't show any marks". "We can usually have it ready in about four weeks, but some of the men will be on holiday at this time of year, so shall we say six weeks?" It arrived in three weeks.

I'm sitting on one of Mr Cooper's armchairs right now!

In order to add "unbeatable value" to this blogpost we'll finish with a little music.

Back in the 1990s I spent my holidays as a walks leader, taking groups through some of the best scenery that England and Wales has to offer. One of the places I went most frequently was the Brecon Beacons National Park (now officially Bannau Brycheiniog) in S Wales. You only occasionally heard Welsh spoken in the town of Brecon, except on market days when all the farmers and their wives drove in from the hills. Here's a piece of descriptive acoustic guitar music, from the great John James, about this resilient group of people....

Reminds me of a sunny day when I stood on the slopes of Fan Nedd watching the sheep being gathered on the other side of the valley.

Take care.

A Date With Heather

The last week in August seems to be about the right time to meet up with heather in East Anglia, though it's by no means as widespread as in other parts on Britain. Here it's confined to a strip of sandy land in North Norfolk and the Suffolk Sandlings. So I made a note in my diary to visit Westleton Heath in Suffolk. Here are a selection of photos with the heathers set off by  green bracken, yellow gorse and the silver trunks of the birch trees.

Take care.

Barton's Unpoetic Hills

Part of the joy of reading English maps is the place-names - their quirkiness, their beauty and sometimes their sheer silliness all contribute to the poetry of place. But here we are today, right outside a church, in Church Road. We're here to start a walk in the village of Barton-le-Clay. The hills just south of here are called the Barton Hills and the springs which issue from the base of the slope are called Barton Springs. 

It's all rather a shame because, despite the prosaic name, this little part of the village is rather quaint and the walk today is as fine as anything ever featured on this blog. So we'll commence putting one foot in front of the other in a vaguely upwards direction.

Soon we've gained enough height to look out upon a wooded hill with the altogether more satisfactory name of Sharpenhoe Clappers. A glance at the map reveals Wayting Hill, Fairy Holes, The Meg, and Moleskin Hill along this north-eastern edge of the Chilterns. Barton Hills has clearly missed out in this naming-game.

From up here the village looks as though it's lost in a primeval forest, rather than standing on a busy road in agricultural Bedfordshire. 

The grassy slopes are already taking on an artistic aspect. The walk is steadily uphill but with many pastoral views, pretty wildflowers, butterflies and soaring birds of prey to interrupt progress on such a clear sunny morning. 

A couple of poppies were blooming at the edge of an arable field.

We're walking up one side of a complex valley that cuts into the chalk hills, then heading around the top of that valley, with great views all the way.

You'd expect an English landscape like this to have names for every bump and hollow, but if it ever had them then they are lost in the mists of time. At this point I wasn't absolutely sure of which route we'd take to get back to the village. There are two or three paths marked clearly on the Ordnance Survey's 1:25,000 map, but there are also rumours of other tracks if I can find them.

We managed to locate a rather sketchy track penetrating the trees and bushes, which slowly became more and more recognisable as a viable path for the progress of aging pedestrians. The wood we were passing through does at least have a name - Leet Wood, which probably just means "the wood that has a stream in it".

A yellow Brimstone butterfly paused long enough for a photo. The ones you see earlier in the year seldom settle much at all. We found the little watercourse we were promised too, and followed it for a short distance upstream.

And this unimpressive place is the source of a chalk stream, one of the less common wildlife habitats in England, and indeed the world. Several of these insignificant trickles will eventually unite to form the River Ivel. The water here has percolated through the porous chalk rock and is particularly pure. The old maps that I'd been trawling through, looking for forgotten place-names, revealed that a century or so ago there were watercress beds in this out-of-the-way place.

Without too much trouble I found the next path I was looking for, which contours its way around the hillsides in almost "Alpine" fashion, threading through wildflower-strewn meadows.

Here's Yellow Wort, a specialist of these chalky hills, with a Harebell sneaking into the upper-right corner of my shot.

And a little butterfly that even goes by the name of Chalkhill Blue.

The striking purple blooms of Clustered Bellflower.

And here we look back on the path we have travelled as we approach the village once more. Of course I had to try my luck at the church, but it was firmly locked, as it always has been whenever I've passed this way. Never mind, we're off to get a pub lunch - and their door will definitely be open!

Take care.