north wessex downs
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Nature Notes
The High Places. I head for the hills early, while there is still the mist in the valley below. Wheatears bounce from the lookout points of anthill to anthill. On this migratory highway, the round dome of the hill must seem like one giant anthill tump. A hopping place, a stopping place, a historic atchin […]
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Nature Notes
Fireball Harvest. In the relative cool of the evening, I go out for a walk to see the planets align. A few white moths flutter, bats hawk above my head and tawny owlets call their French name softly, persistently, from the wood; chouette, chouette. At the top of Trenchfields, above Milking Parlour, the broad, blue-black […]
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Nature Notes
Hot Summer Badgers. Unusually for us, this is our first visit of the year to the badger sett. Something happened here (and at the other badger setts locally); an indeterminate transgression from outside; a violation, perhaps a crime, that can’t be pinned down or proven – but that meant for a while, there were few […]
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Nature Notes
Bedstraws and Bee Orchids. I am at my desk when a familiar, fresh and lovely scent – nostalgic almost – assails me. Petrichor! The smell of rain on dry, dusty ground, from the Greek petra for stone and ichor, the golden liquid that runs through the veins of the Immortals. The last, fat raindrops from […]
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Nature Notes
Deep Summer The ground hardens like lime mortar and holds the flints fast at whatever angle they were last tumbled into. Some stick up like ancient weapons, stropped edges like axe heads, freshly knapped by the clink of horses hoofs, but never our boots or tractor tyres. It is the time for the slicing of […]
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Nature Notes
An Apparition: Starlings & the Peregrine. On a bright afternoon, we go birding in the Land Rover, not anticipating much. The last embers of redwing and fieldfare flocks glow – and babble like a stream through the trees. Near the dewpond, it becomes apparent there is a huge flock of birds, just over the ridge […]
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Nature Notes
The Dewpond on the Height. “Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs, Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim … We have no waters to delight Our broad and brookless vales— Only the dewpond on the height Unfed, that never fails” — Rudyard Kipling Just off the beaten track of Wigmoreash Drove, not far from the beech hangar, […]
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Nature Notes
A Confusion of Raptors. I am listening hard in the wind that comes off the downs; trying to silence the rustle of my ill-chosen coat with shallow breathing, directing cupped hands held behind my ears to the sky. Five woodlark are singing over Windmill Field. Still here, pouring their melancholy, heartbreaker alleluias over the earth. […]
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Nature Notes
The Beautiful, Toxic Landscape. Spider webs net the dew, distilling it to clear drops. I could walk the width of this field and scoop up a whole glassful of water. The stubble begins to steam gently as the sun warms it, mist rising in curls and ringlets like the feathery plumes ghosting up from my […]
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Nature Notes
Under an Ashen Sky, a Bonfire. Three consecutive evenings of badly planned fox-watching expeditions with the family were nevertheless evenings well spent. Late spring evenings are very, very seductive and hard to resist: even when I know there is not enough time and heavy rain is imminent. On top of the hill, it was evident the […]