Cormorants

This morning when I was taking the dogs for a walk, I saw three cormorants on the River Eden.  They had obviously been fishing (no doubt to the disgust of both the riparian owners and local fishermen) as two of them were drying their wings. With that “spread-wing posture”, they looked like a couple of Macbeth’s witches in ragged black cloaks! Apparently the structure of cormorant feathers decreases buoyancy enabling them to pursue fish underwater for considerable distances. And, although only the outer portion of their feathers is wettable, their plumage does retain water, hence the scary, washing line effect

Nature's Bounty!

Following the recent storms, the last few mornings have seen us taking very soggy doggy walks in Rickerby Park. The River Eden regularly floods the park and usually, the debris left is made up of small logs, dead green matter and plastic waste, such as feed sacks from agricultural land up stream. But this week some absolutely huge tree trunks have been beached way above the normal bank line of the river. Some of them must weigh hundreds, if not thousands of pounds and yet the flood water has effortlessly moved them as if they were matchsticks. Nature is awesome

Hoping for a Christmas weather miracle

Maybe because we get a lot of it, the weather definitely defines us up here in northern England.  Living on the western side of the country, close to mountains, the sea and a wide river estuary, there are a lot of opportunities for weather to dominate our lives. Inevitably, there is a lot of relief rainfall which can cause our rivers to rise and fall dramatically in a matter of hours but we are also affected by warm westerly fronts which collide frequently and  dramatically with colder weather from the east.  Here’s hoping for a fine weather miracle over Christmas!

Season of mists

My cycle to work the other morning really epitomised Keats’ “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.  The mist hanging over the river, lingered for much of the morning, an ethereal mystery hiding the ageless secrets of the water as it flowed to the sea.  It was a morning for magic, for sighting water nymphs and sprites wearing fragile garments woven from autumn leaves and spider silk. The glossy rose-hips, swollen from the rain and summer sunshine, glowed like rubies on their tangled briars.  Sadly, I was unable to loiter and remain in that enchanted woodland lit by an ephemeral sun.  

 

Winter Roosting

This evening, I took Molly for her walk just as light was fading.  Suddenly, the sky overhead was filled with a raucous, cacophonous, swirling mass of crows preparing for their nightly roost.  For several minutes I stood, watching order arise out of chaos as birds flew in from all points of the compass, drawn to the trees lining the River Eden. I can’t say that I’ve ever really listened to the chattering of the highly social birds before, but tonight, it felt as if I’d stumbled into a dormitory of highly excited children on their first night away from home

Rivers are my life

Somehow, rivers define me; I’m at one with them.  Life giving, abundant, curvaceous, dangerous, benign but with hidden depths….I share so many characteristics it should be no surprise that I’m drawn ineffably to them.  I too have my share of restless energy like an infant river, tumbling carelessly across the rocks of a narrow valley but similarly I can be stately and sedate when the occasion demands it.  So perhaps it was inevitable when cycling to work along the swollen River Eden, that I couldn't help but be transported back to other rivers I've known in different times and places