Last week, I went on an expedition to the Northumberland National Park, where I spent four days living in a bothy and discovering the ecology of the Cheviot Hills. During that time I had several wildlife firsts, including some real rarities!
Stay tuned for the full posts, which I’m hoping to publish very soon. In the meantime, enjoy this little bank vole who paid us a visit each morning.
Due to a lecture cancellation, Zahrah and I seized the day and paid Watchtree Nature Reserve a second visit. As the sun was actually shining, we made haste before the English climate returned to its usual cheeriness.
As we’d found several roe deer skulls at the reserve last time, we headed straight to Pow Wood and began to forage. My first find was a cluster of puffballs (Lycoperdon sp.). I find these little guys are extremely difficult to identify, but they’re always fun to see and remind me of terrestrial sea urchin shells.
Further into the wood I was extraordinarily excited to identify more fungi. This ID lark is slowly getting easier! I found a patch of jelly ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) on some dead wood, and wrestled for some time with said dead wood to get close enough for my macro lens to work its magic.
Shortly afterwards, I found several violent red blooms amongst the green foliage. The only scarlet elf cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca) I’d seen before was the size of my little fingernail, so to see some two inches wide was fabulous.
Finally, my eye caught on a bright patch of yellow as we untangled our clothes and hair from the low-hanging branches of the pine trees and, completely forgetting my wildlife voice, I shrieked “witches’ butter!”. In my defence, Tremella mesenterica is a really intriguing fungus and it’s the first I’ve seen up close.
In addition to our success with fungi, we also did some pretty good tracking. Putting the tricks we’d learned from Alex to the test, we found some deer tracks in the mud. As we found roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) skulls in Pow Wood on our last visit, we deduced that the same species had left these prints. Our suspicions were confirmed when we saw a flash of white and watched as three female roe deer darted into the forest, white bob tails stark against the brown and green of the trees.
Incidentally, I didn’t realise that I was on a walk with Hawkeye. In just a few hours, Zahrah found two roe deer skulls, what we suspect was a sheep skull, and a headless skeleton with beautifully pristine white vertebrae. I guess I’d been too distracted by the fungi. We scooped up the bones into a plastic bag, ready to douse them in hydrogen peroxide when we got back home.
Despite my ineptitude at finding skulls, I did find a collection of pellets at the foot of a tree along with a discarded white egg shell. The combination of these two signs suggested that the tree was home to a nest. After some research, I discovered that barn owls (Tyto alba) are known for their stark white eggs and dark, charcoal grey pellets, so perhaps this was our bird.
Back at the house, I dissected the pellets and in just three I recovered the remains of six rodent skulls, seven mandibles (lower jaws), several loose rodent incisors and a variety of leg bones. I attempted to identify who the skulls belonged to, but sadly they all looked the same. Still, it was fascinating to see how many kills the owl had made; there were at least two skulls in each pellet. This indicates that the bird was hunting regularly, as a barn owl usually regurgitates 1-2 pellets each night (Barn Owl Trust).
In addition, the egg shell I found had no yolk, suggesting the chick hatched naturally and wasn’t predated. If this were the case, the edges of the shell would have been pushed in and parts of the membrane would still be visible.
In short, it was a very successful day’s foraging! It’s amazing how much you can see when you know what to look for.
It was time once again for a wander in the wild. Kacper had told us about a kingfisher he’d seen on the River Caldew, so Zahrah and I met him in town and we set off. I’ve had two kingfisher sightings both in Cumbria, one with my camera one without. I managed to get the speedy bird in frame for one of my shots, but I wanted to slightly improve on an indistinct electric blue blur this time.
It was so refreshing seeing the first signs of spring. Little pops of colour speckled the green grass as snowdrops and crocuses stretched out of the cold, hard ground – dainty little warriors taking on the end of winter.
We were met at the river by a smoky grey guardian – a feathered old man that stood hunkered up at the top of a tree. The heron surveyed his river with grumpy indifference. Zahrah is under the impression that these birds are beautiful. While I can’t quite agree on that, they are a spectacular looking species that always draw my attention, whether they’re sat slouched on a branch or flapping through the air with spindly dangling legs.
After leaving the heron behind I spotted the elusive kingfisher, so we followed it along the river bank as best we could. In the meantime, Zahrah had a play with medium format film, and attracted a couple of inquisitive mute swans.
Despite the slow emergence of spring, it still got bitterly cold and before long the light began to fade. We were just about to head for home when another flash of blue shot across the water. Hurrying across the bridge, we staked out the riverbank and managed to spot the kingfisher resting amongst the scrub. It’s still not the best kingfisher photo ever taken, but it’s a vast improvement on my last – you can even see it’s an animal this time!
I was lucky to find myself in beautiful, beautiful Edinburgh again this weekend, a city I would happily spend every weekend in. As I emerged from Edinburgh Waverley onto Princes Street I was filled with the usual excitement that comes with arriving into Scotland’s capital. Immediately we headed to the City Cafe just off the Royal Mile, our new favourite food haunt. I gorged on scrumptious ribs and sweet potato fries, which refuelled me nicely after the train journey.
Deep down I felt embarrassed looking like the most obvious tourist in the world as I clutched my camera and shivered in what I thought was cold weather. I’ve been to Edinburgh many times, but it still feels new on every visit. There’s always a shop I hadn’t been in or a beautiful building I haven’t gazed up at. I’ll never take this city for granted, so will never tire of photographing it.
As usual the streets were buzzing with noise; bustling shoppers and laughter spilling from the nearby pubs, all accompanied by the steady hum of bagpipes. I’ve asked multiple Scots if they ever get bored of hearing the bagpipes and they’ve all said no. If I were a native I don’t think I would either – the sound reminds me of old holidays and unforgettable days out.
All too soon it was morning again and time to get the train home. My weekend visit was only fleeting, though I’m sure a month-long stay would have felt just as brief. Here’s to the next excuse I get to pay a visit!
It had been way too long since Zahrah and I last went on an adventure, so on a grey, cloudy Friday morning we headed out to Kingmoor South and North nature reserves for a wander. The aim was to train our senses and become expert animal trackers. We had our hopes on finding owl pellets and maybe even the fabled “Beast of Cumbria” – I share George Monbiot’s rather pessimistic opinion on a black panther stalking sheep in the Lakes but that’s a whole other blog post.
Sadly our adventure was pellet-less, but what we did find was a lot of fungi. I’ve been really interested in macro photography recently, and have subsequently been spending a lot more time crawling on the floor finding tiny things to photograph. I never realised quite how extraordinary fungi could be – so many shapes, sizes and colours. Like every naturalist I’d love to be a wild forager and have a nibble on the safe varieties, but after trying to name the ones I’d found I discovered it was dangerous territory. Take Morel (Morchella esculenta) for example, an egg-shaped cup fungus that apparently tastes wonderful. Then take its almost-twin, False Morel (Gyromitra esculenta), which can be fatal and even after careful preparation is believed to cause cancer. Nature is a cruel mistress indeed!
So we decided against finding a snack and stuck to taking photos of the fungi we found. Zahrah graciously held a branch up while I crawled underneath to photograph a group of Jelly Ears. I was mid shot when I heard “aw look at this little spider” over my head and regretted every decision I’d made getting to the Jelly Ears. The little critter was a harvestman (Opilione), and luckily he was only small so I was even brave enough to take a shot of him before he scuttled away.
We ate our lunch on a bench nestled amongst the vast oak trees, the forest floor covered in a crunchy bed of orange and brown. It was eerily quiet, even for a forest landscape. I can’t wait for the spring when the air will be alive with birdsong again. Winter has its own magic, but it can’t be denied that spring is when nature truly shines.
When I looked out the balcony window this morning everything was blue. It turns out that Iceland is actually magical. With recharged camera batteries we headed out to explore.
The plan was to go straight to the shops, but down a side street I glimpsed a mountain and the sea. It was decided instantly that we’d put shopping on hold and go explore.
The natural light of Reykjavik is beautiful. Even at 11am there were still the diluted pinks and blues of early morning. We walked over the rocks and photographed the mirror-still water. Curse Iceland for making a cliche the only appropriate way to describe it, but the dirty old ocean looked like milk as it rippled against the shore. It was stunning, especially with Sólfarið (The Sun Voyager, below) standing proud against the city backdrop.
By this point we were getting peckish so we found a cute little creperie along the main street. Doused in Nutella, bananas and peanut butter, it filled the gap nicely.
Rejuvinated, we hit the shops. I bought gifts for family and friends then realised just how much money I’d spent. Iceland is expensive, as I’d been told many times over, but somehow being in such a beautiful part of the world made it all okay.
One thing I loved about Reykjavik was the street art. Nothing like the (mostly) ugly, scribbled graffiti that adorn the walls of London, Reykjavik buildings were covered in every colour imaginable. Giant painted eagles swooped overhead, while elsewhere a huge image of Frankenstein’s monster stood tall. It was a street photographer’s dream, and I couldn’t refuse the opportunity to capture my favourites.
We’d glimpsed Hallgrímskirkja, the tallest church in Reykjavik that dominates its skyline, so decided to get a closer look. The colossal structure looked more like a spaceship than a place of worship, standing 73m tall. The sun was beginning to set so we stayed for some photos. Once the light had faded it began to get chilly so we headed back into town and, after stopping off at the Noodle Station for dinner, chilled out in the hotel room.
Later on we went on one of our booked trips, to hopefully go and see the Northern Lights. We got all wrapped up and set off on the bus. For a while it was a struggle to find any breaks in the cloud, but we eventually got off in the middle of nowhere and set up tripods.
While we were waiting we got chatting to this lovely nurse from New York. She was interested in photography too, and we ended up talking about the migrating waxwings.
We waited eagerly for several hours but were eventually forced to abandon ship and get back on the bus. Naturally we were both pretty disappointed, but the Northern Lights are infamously sneaky and we can go again tomorrow night, so hopefully we still have a chance.
Taxi to the station, train to Glasgow, shuttlebus to Glasgow airport, plane to Keflavik and shuttlebus to Laugavegur, Reyjavik.
The journey to Keflavik airport was far quicker than I imagined – less than three hours from Glasgow. As soon as we stepped off the plane we were hit by a gust of Icelandic wind, but despite the cloud cover I was far from cold. Ironically, I was warmer here than in Carlisle.
I noticed immediately that I could take advantage of the beautiful light here. Although the sun rarely shone directly and there were few hours of daylight, the sky always seemed to have a pastel filter over it – sometimes pink, sometimes blue. It was beautifully wintery and I couldn’t wait to go and explore.
After a walk downtown and a traditional dinner of Plokkfiskur, otherwise known as “fish mash” (something I would definitely have again), we headed back to the hotel ready for our first busy day.
Yesterday my lovely boyfriend cooked me sausages and the most incredible fried bread for breakfast because the horrid lurgy that had been lingering menacingly had finally reared its ugly head. For the majority of the day we watched Sherlock and ate the cake we were up until 2am making the previous night, while I wheezed and sniffed.
By evening I was up for a walk, so we decided to head out to Talkin Tarn Country Park in Brampton, Cumbria. It was a spot I’d heard good things about but never been to, and it was truly beautiful. As the day faded and the sun sunk into shadows, the rich blue evening sky illuminated the water, ruffled occasionally by the passing rower. A wind nipped my fingers and I pulled on my gloves with slightly exaggerated enthusiasm; I couldn’t wait for winter to make its appearance so I could dig out my finest wooly scarves and bobble hats. For now though, all I needed was my trusty Berghaus jacket to keep me warm as we made our way round the lake.
The sunset crept up on us. One moment the sky was blue, the next it was a vivid red, like a furious blush across the horizon. The water, now still and smooth as glass, took on a beautiful pink hue as the clouds rolled over it. Ducks, geese and swans alike settled to roost. One Canada goose honked into the silence, finishing his argument before succumbing to sleep.
We wandered on and perched inside a bird hide for a while, craning out the window for creative angles of the paint-splashed lake. In minutes the colours had drained and all that remained were grey water and an ever-darkening sky. We made our way back around the lake to the car, feeling very grateful to have witnessed such a visually stunning end of the day.
Two weeks ago, Birdfair was held at Rutland Water Nature Reserve from Friday to Sunday. As we were on holiday in Scotland, we could only make the third and final day, but I am so glad we managed to experience this fantastic event.
Upon arrival we were greeted by an explosion of colour and noise. I bought a map and discovered I was in one of eight marquees lined on both sides with stalls and things to buy. A lot of them were selling wildlife holidays, so I couldn’t help but enter a few competitions, as well as buy some wildlife art.
One talk we attended was ‘Building a Naturalist’ by Nick Baker, a naturalist I’ve admired for many years. His topic of discussion was getting more children interested in the natural world. In a way, he was preaching to the converted by delivering his speech to an audience of wildlife enthusiasts, but it appears as if the responsibility of making nature a focus for children lies with us, the people who understand its importance.
What I love about Baker is his heart-warming enthusiasm for wildlife. He described his first white plume moth (Pterophorus pentadactyla) sighting as “like looking at fairies at the bottom of the garden”. He learnt a great deal about newts by collecting them and watching them in tanks – he made a point of saying that this was long before the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 when the handling of British newts became illegal – and read up on them to broaden his knowledge.
“Experience is everything,” he explained, and I agree entirely. The only way to understand the natural world is to be out in it. As much as it pains me to say, reading books will only get a naturalist so far; by spending hours searching the coast or wandering through the forest, they can become a part of the world they’re passionate about.
Baker shared some alarming statistics. In a study of 8-15 year-olds, 53% had never seen a flock of starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in the UK. Baker described this as “extinction of experience”. Our mentors are becoming an endangered species; with less interest in nature, where are the passionate naturalists who will teach and inspire the next generation? Baker’s mentor was his dad, without whom he may not have had the experiences that brought about his interest in wildlife. For me, my mentor was my mum, and for her it was my grandad. There must be a link between each generation to keep the passion alive.
There will come a time when I get to show my children how incredible the natural world is. I will buy them all the books I can afford and take them on walks through woodland and meadows. We will sit silently in hides and lay on our fronts watching aquatic life in ponds. All this brings such joy to my life, and to the lives of many others. Unfortunately, we are the rare few. It means a great deal to me to watch and study wildlife, but I am no longer the youngest generation. Children are walking sponges and will soak up everything around them; it’s up to us nature folk to ignite their imaginations with trees and birds, as well as TVs and computers.
“It’s innate in all of us. We are born curious… all it takes is a spark of curiosity.” Nick Baker
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