Walbury Hill
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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
Blown Snow. In the hours and days before the snow, we barrow water round to the horses as tap, trough and water buckets freeze. The temperature falls to -9 at night. A prelude of snow falls hard and fast, turning the tarmac white in the time it takes to open Mum’s gate. We go out […]
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Nature Notes
A Raven in Snow. Our house is an island in the mud. Our plank drawbridge to the lane falls short. And then, at last, it snows. We wake to a white and would-be silent world, were it not for the wind ghosting eerily through the house in its unsettling northiness. We rush out to feed […]
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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
Chalk Hills & Woodlarks My son’s first cycle race recently, was up our 974ft Walbury Hill. More than 130 cyclists took on the time trial up our usually lonely down, powering up the incline between hill fort, scarp and its ‘moon field’ below. We were given sticks of coloured chalk to write competitors’ names on […]
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Nature Notes
Mountain Blackbirds. I am feeding the farmland birds (on a grand scale) for the last time this season, driving round the depleted wild bird cover plots in the 4WD Gator, spinning out seed like gold dust from the hopper behind me. The songbirds are all nesting or moved on now, but they are all set […]