Tag: nature

Bussaco

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‘Bussaco Forest cannot be described, the best is to get lost in it.’  Jose Saramago

Having been told about the Bussaco National Forest by my cousin who had visited recently we were keen to discover it for ourselves during this holiday. An hour and a half’s drive from base by good main roads and testing twisters through mountainous foothills led us to this unique walled in world, one of the botanical wonders of the Iberian peninsula.

We entered from the spa town of Luso via the Serpa gate, one of 11 gateways that punctuate the 5 K (3.1 mile) boundary wall. Only mildly alarmed when the keeper in her lodge warned us that walking any distance into the forest from the centre was entirely at our own risk due to the heightened possibility of wildfire outbreaks.

It would have been no great hardship to have spent our time in and around the park’s historic centre, which consists of a former royal palace cum luxury hotel (below), monastery, now a museum (above), formal gardens, café and visitor centre. 

Although Bussaco was originally an early 7th Century Benedictine foundation the one we see today was established by the more austere Barefoot Carmelite order when they took stewardship of the buildings and park in the early C17th.

The brothers zealously set about gradually replicating the Holy Land’s Mount Carmel at Bussaco as a kind of desert, blending nature with God’s spiritual estate.

Many of their structures have exteriors distinguished by tessellated designs fashioned from quartz and adhesive tar while the interior of their monastery have coverings of native grown cork freely utilised to insulate walls ceilings and doors against winter cold.

The brothers ordered existence was rudely disrupted in September 1810 when the Duke of Wellington, commanding a combined mass of 50,000 Anglo Portuguese troops, based his command post in the monastery, using the monks cells for offices.

The British general’s army defeated Marshall Massena’s French forces here at Bussaco, halting their advance on Lisbon, a turning point in the country’s campaign of liberation from Napoleonic invasion.

The adjacent royal palace was built between 1888-1905 on part of the demolished monastery. Since 1910 and the fall of the monarchy it has been a luxury hotel, one of the finest in the land. Its initial architect, the Italian Luigi Mantini, also designed sets for grand opera, and it shows. What a brilliantly grand statement of opulence it makes to the world.

The obliging hotel receptionist let us take a look around the sumptuous ground floor. Large scale blue and white azulejos (tiles) decorate walls and stairs, some displaying the battle of Bussaco and others scenes from Portugal’s ‘Age of Discovery’ in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. At that time Portugal established its maritime trading outposts, stretching from Brazil to southern Africa, Goa in India to Macau off the coast of China.

The formal gardens provide a graceful unifying setting for the two contrasting buildings, although box blight and a certain faded glory added to a suitable sense of gentle decay.

The arboretum remains the true natural glory of the place. Some 400 native trees and shrubs grow alongside 300 specimens brought back home as the result of colonisation and exploration. Mexican Cypress, American redwoods, Chilean pines, many oaks, laurel, holly and ferns to hundreds of Camellia species are set around walks, steps, ponds, fountains, statues and other formal features – we saw just a fraction.

Leaving the formal gardens  for an upper woodland walk, we found ourselves on the Via Crucis- a lane of dappled shade linking enclosed stations of the cross – eventually leading to a purpose built hermit’s house with enclosed yard, now an empty shell, one of three around the domain.

The stations house life size red clay tableaux, vividly recreating scenes from the passion of Christ. Hermit retreats and devotional stations were originally set up by the Carmelite monks shortly after they  took over the estate in 1628.  A number seemed to have suffered damage, adding an unintentional modern feel of abstract dislocation to the dramatic scenes of heightened emotion.

Later learned this damage was caused by a particularly violent storm that struck the area in January 2013, severely affecting both buildings and trees and recovery has been hampered by lack of funds and resources. The state took over Bussaco when Portugal’s monasteries were dissolved in 1834, and today managerial responsibility lies with a charitable foundation, which has had to fundraise widely to painstakingly restore the place.

Our stroll took us to another entrance way – not accessible to traffic – the Coimbra gate which yielded surprise vistas beyond the canopy, across the wide plain, to the Atlantic coast.

Lingered by the great doors, now ajar, and the currently unoccupied lodge house (sometime holiday accommodation) with its pink washed walls. Wondered at the wall sign, a papal bull of 1623 forbidding, on pain of excommunication, the felling of trees within the walls or the entry of women!

Historical misogyny apart, I warmed to this early attempt at nature conservation. An atmospheric spot inviting reflection and ease, one where time seemed to have stood still. Stepping out on to the terrace in the full glare of the sun, the bone dry brown grass  crunched loudly underfoot, providing a reminder of the gatekeeper’s words on arrival.

Popular with the Portuguese themselves for its cultural and botanical importance, though less well known to foreign visitors, the Mata Nacional do Bussaco lives up to its reputation, inviting a return to sample further corners, in another season.

Vouga voyage

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Recently returned from a week’s holiday in the valley of the River Vouga, mid-way between its outlet at Aveiro on the coast and the city of Viseu near its source in the Serra Lapa.

Like the other major rivers of Portugal The Vouga runs its 148 KM course from east in the mountains to the Atlantic in the west. It was once a major transport route for countryside produce; from wines, granite, metals and timber to fruit and other agricultural produce. (In the 17th Century most of their oranges were exported to England) By 1913, a train line had replaced the inland river boats, which in turn gave way to EU funded new roads that twist and turn above the Vouga’s sinuous green waterways. We enjoyed three separate outings sampling distinctive phases of the river’s flow and topography.

Took a fun day out to swell the ranks of other tourists milling around ‘The Venice of Portugal’, as the city centre of old Aveiro is dubbed. A major port in late medieval times it later became famous for commercial salt abstraction, fishing and seaweed harvesting.

Ria Aviero ecosystem image credit: CESAM

The extensive lagoon and dune ecosystem of the Ria de Aviero, as this estuarial stage of the Vouga is known, now enjoys international status as a major bird sanctuary, home to some 20,000 overwintering wildfowl, the most photogenic of which being pink flamingos.

Trips around the centre’s canal system are a must and the colourfully decorated flat bottomed barges – Molicheiros – that once carried seaweed, salt and general goods now carry human cargo on 45 – 60’ guided excursions.

Unsurprisingly, the last fishing lofts lining the canals have finally closed and are being developed into luxury waterside apartments.

Back on land we visited an Art Nouveau house, now a museum with fine decorative detail, one of many tasteful villas that reflect an early C20th era of increased wealth and pride amongst its leading merchants.

The other end of the Vouga could not be more different. Foreign tourists like us were in short supply here in the mountains, probably because of the limited visitor attractions to lure people up from the popular coastal strip and dangerously high summer temperatures. The Upper Beira  region suffered badly last September from wildfires, causing evacuations and widespread disruption, and we sensed a nervousness even now, lest they return.

We stopped off at the Ribeirado dam and looked along the 14km long reservoir it created. It was built earlier this century to supply hydroelectric power, ease flooding and increase scarce water reserves. The road runs along the broad arc of the high dam wall, the power station and its infrastructure far below, where the river re-emerges. With the sheer valley walls either side the whole presents as a peerless study in concrete.

The brightest objects encountered in this uniformly grey spot were the red, blue and yellow recycling bins in the car park. Ominously, the control tower in the reservoir emitted flashing light and warning noises every few minutes. If this location were to feature in a future James Bond film or dystopian TV drama it would not surprise us. A perfect setting of its kind.

Another day we walked the middle reaches of the river. Was keen to access an upper trackway I’d clocked above the road while driving to our holiday accommodation nearby.

As suspected this was once a single track railway. Built just before WW1 it closed in 1980 and its repurposed state, the former Vale Das Voltas line offers superb viewpoints of the valley.

Our parking place by the road revealed a picnic table made from a single slab of local granite set under the awning of a mature horse chestnut tree. Masses of richly purpled convolvulus – bindweed – curled around the wood  rails.

The track is understandably popular with cyclists, yet we only encountered four other pedestrians on our amble to and from the route’s spectacular highlight, the Santiago rail bridge at Pessegueiro do Vouga. It’s one of the highest stone masonry bridges in Portugal, with eleven arches and 165m high deck, gracefully spanning river and wooded slopes.

Our walk revealed a stark reminder of last year’s big burn. Blackened trunks and boughs in abundance. A contentious issue in these parts is the preponderance of silvery leaved eucalyptus trees, commercially planted to supply nearby works with biomass and extracted oils. That process is also understood to cause environmental air pollution.

This alien tree, of Australian origin, successfully sustains itself on steep slopes with minimum moisture and burns easily. Eucalyptus rapidly colonises cleared land post fire and is hard, if not impossible, to eradicate.

Our walk ended ‘off line’. Carefully crossing the white walled switchback of a highway, we descended to the quiet stillness of river bank and cooling shade of willow and alder that thrive here on its stony floodplain.

This middle stretch of the Vouga is officially designated a ‘Site of Community Interest’. That means minor blockages like weirs that present obstacles for migrating species of trout, eel, shad, barbel, lamprey or mullet are being gradually removed and in some places fish passes are being installed. Otters, birds of prey and many other species of birds and insects are also able to thrive here where human habitation is scarcer.

Delighted in encountering dragonflies and butterflies I waded barefoot in and allowed the hundreds of trout fry mingling in the sunlit shallows to continue feeding and flitting around my feet. A cooling calm end to our lovely lone amble under the afternoon sun.

Bountiful Berwickshire

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We’re recently back from a celebratory weekend away, organised in secret as a gift to share with the significant other. Found a place near enough to drive to easily but far enough away to make for a proper countryside adventure. Some highlights then, as follows.

We arrived in Berwickshire, in the wide valley of the River Tweed and its tributary the Whiteadder, for our stay in the village pub at Allanton. All around the area huge combines, tractors and trailers were cutting, winnowing, baling and carrying off barley and specialist wheat. They continued late into the night, headlights glowing, growling over wide rolling fields with the lanes alive to traffic up to midnight. A fascinating contrast for us who live in the grassy uplands of west Northumberland where log lorries and tipper trucks loaded with gravel for forest roads are the big beasts of rural transport.

We sat out in the pub’s pleasant back garden with a refreshing pint before supper gazing over a scene of blond stubble and waving grain, shadows stretching to far woodlands, the land glowing warm under a setting sun. The Allanton Inn really is at the heart of its rural community. A family run business, part of an ecosystem of small independent local producers and suppliers, proud of their good food offer – from honey and ice cream to meat and eggs – as we were to partake of it. The perfect relaxed hostelry from which to explore this side of the border.

This is a land of big estates and large farms, the metal and concrete barns mostly modern and huge enough to properly house mountains of grain and straw. The population is much sparser now than it would have been in the pre-machine agrarian age. It’s extraordinary to note that within the radius of a couple of miles some of the great figures of the Scots enlightenment were born and grew up. These include the moral philosopher David Hume, geologist James Hutton and botanist and populariser of the tea plant, Robert Fortune.

Most touchingly of all is the story of the least known of these worthies and the revolutionary device he freely gifted to agriculture, one that would help fashion the arable landscape around us today. In the 1770’s local engineer James Small used a smithy on the  former Blackadder estate at Allanton, using mathematics to experiment on different mouldboards, curvatures and patterns to produce his improvement on the ‘Rotherham’ cast iron swing plough. Previously many men were needed to work teams of oxen to pull a flat wooden plough while Small’s only required a pair of shire horses and a single ploughman to operate. Small even demonstrated his invention to ‘Farmer’ George III and his ‘Scots Plough’ was rapidly copied and developed by others as he not wish to profit from his invention by taking out a patent and sadly died in 1793 of overwork and poverty. Modern day embroiders have honoured his memory as James and the plough feature as one of the wonderful metre square panels in the Great Tapestry of Scotland, on permanent display in Galashiels.

Situated on the eastern edges of the Lammermuir hills, below the lofty summit of Cockburn Law and overlooking a steep valley sits Edin’s Hall Broch. It was the high point of a circular five mile walk we took over fields, through woods, along tracks and heathland paths.

We made two separate crossings of the infant River Whiteadder by ford and footbridge. Summer picturesque as the scene was, one could imagine the place when the waters were in spate. The road sign at Abbey St Bathans reminds drivers of the risks.

Brochs – ancient fortified tower houses – are usually found in the highlands and far north of Scotland so the one here is something of a geographical oddity. Our slow climb to reach it enhanced by seeing male wall brown and small copper butterflies basking in the sun and fluttering ahead as we climbed through swathes of tall bracken.

Dated to the 1st century AD what really lends Edin’s Hall broch a sense of wonder is that so much stone remains to define its walls, wide enough to incorporate chambers and stairs. The centre point gives a 360 degree experience of what was once a whole community’s secure home and stores, standing at least two levels high and probably roofed with timber. Hard by  the broch are remains of later hut circles, ditches and ramparts. Awed as we were we couldn’t help wondering though where its inhabitants would have sourced their water supply, with not a spring in sight.

Picking up a metalled lane diving down into the wooded valley bottom we came upon this weathered sign at a hairpin bend. The only thing near a toot we heard on the descent was from the occasional whirr of spokes or tinkling bells as racing cyclists shot by with friendly waves. Like them we appreciated a rest break at the friendly informal tearooms in the old stables of the original village woodyard by the river. We can testify that the home baked fruit scones are superb.

Every few years sees us on a return visit to Berwick. A preamble along the massive Elizabethan ramparts leads literally ‘off the wall’ into the multi-storied Granary gallery, a former Georgian warehouse on the quay overlooking the three great bridges, monuments of different centuries, that carry road and rail links across the great border river.

The retrospective exhibition we’d come to see at the Granary was of the respected artist, teacher and plantsman Cedric Morris (1889-1982). We found it something of a mixed bag. His flower painting, especially of Irises, remain glorious testimony to his knowledge and ecological awareness. The best known self-portrait and studies of Parisian café life in the 1920’s insightful and sensual. 

The art that really moved us though was on the seafront across the border at Eyemouth. In October of 1881 a terrible storm wreaked havoc on the Berwickshire coast, and 189  local fishermen were drowned, leaving behind 78 widows and 182 children. The town’s fortunes went into long term decline in the wake of this, Scotland worst recorded fishing disaster.

‘Widows and Bairns’ represents real people, arranged in groups above the name of their boats. Sculpted by Jill Watson and cast by Powderhall Bronze it opened in 2016. We watched visiting families stop and talk about the story. The best kind of public art, rooted in people’s history, powered in this instance by tragic drama to command our attention and stimulate conversation.

In the 21st century, the community here has been embracing eco based industries and sustainable tourism and this attractive harbourside town – like Berwick across the border – seems on the cusp of change for the better. The broader Eyemouth story is well told in the delightful volunteer run museum housed in a former church.

We also enjoyed taking a leisurely stroll along the narrow harbour around the mouth of the river Eye with its working fishing boats, quayside  processing plants and local produce stalls. (kipper rolls anyone?) These merge with an array of smart locally based retail businesses (excellent Italian ice creams), the sandy town beach and restored stone jetty with its bright red handrails and fine prospect.

A little further up the rocky coast lies St Abb’s Head, named for a Northumbrian princess who founded a monastery here, now long lost, following her safe delivery from shipwreck. Fittingly a lighthouse, dating from the 1860’s and built by the Stevenson family (who else?), still casts its powerful light from the head. Unusually, it is tucked into the cliff below the lighthouse keepers cottages (now holiday accommodation) as the higher ground above and beyond has always been prone to mist and rain, obscuring vision at sea. Hence the red painted fog horn, seen below.

If we’d been here in late Spring we’d have witnessed the vast flocks of gannets, razorbills, gannets, kittiwakes and other seabirds that crowd the nursery rockfaces and for which the bird reserve is nationally renowned. Their guano, whitening the masses of red blue sandstone rocks, is striking but the birds and their fledglings were no longer in evidence this bright breezy morning in August. Instead masses of house martins dominated the clear blue skies above small bobbing boats filled with visitors tasking in the awesome sea level view of this spectacular headland.

Our return leg, mostly along the single track lighthouse access road, revealed a stunning surprise vista of more cliffs running northwards. Once out of the severe wind tunnel blast between those cliffs and St Abb’s head, the path drew us away into the calm serenity of a narrow fresh water loch in a ravine fringed with reed and sheltered by woods. The National Trust for Scotland run the excellent visitor centre in an old farm complex where we parked to start and finish our wonderfully rewarding  four mile trek.

Recently shorn cheviot sheep at St Abb’s head

Marvellous Moths

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Humming bird hawk moth. Image credit: Butterfly Conservation /Graham Mounteney

Mention the word ‘moths’ to people and I suspect the majority are likely to think about those nasty critters whose larvae consume clothes or chew carpets. I confess to being a bit indifferent to moths in general until I saw a humming bird hawk moth in my town garden years back. That remarkable encounter made me sit up and take note yet it wasn’t until I moved back to the country that I eventually got actively involved this spring in entering the world of the amateur lepidopterists.

There are some 50 species of butterflies and 2,600 species of moth in the UK. Roughly 900 of those are macro moths and the rest a bewildering range of micro moths, many virtually indistinguishable one from t’other to the non-expert eye.

Light Emerald Moth

Where to start when trapping and identifying specimens? Online research around the options makes for a good start. Thinking through what best suits your situation when matched with what’s affordable and you’re ready to proceed. There are three main types of moth trap, named after the experts who devised them. The Heath trap consists of a collapsible rectangular metal box with a funnel and fluorescent UV bulb. The larger Skinner trap has a slot entrance below the light. The Robinson is a large round, non-collapsible trap, most likely to catch and retain the largest number of moths. It’s also the most expensive to buy. I opted for the Heath model.

I nearly got a version powered by an extension run from the house mains. On reflection thought that a daft idea as the more places to set the trap of an evening around the garden (or beyond) would be a much better proposition. So I also bought a battery and charger. It’s proved a great investment, not only giving me pleasure as well as visiting friends and family, young and old alike.

My first and most numerous species caught, back in April, was ‘Hebrew Character’; so called from the dark marks on its forewings that look like letters in Hebrew script. They’ve now been replaced as most numerous by a scrum of large yellow underwings, clustering in a gang around the egg boxes I’ve furnished the floor of the steel box with.

Although Latin nomenclature is essential in classification worldwide it is surely the common names, reflecting archetypical characteristics, that catch the imagination and lodge in one’s mind. Here are a few favourites:

Burnished brass. Small, widely distributed, lover of damp places, feeds on low lying plants like red valerian, honeysuckle and buddleia…all of which we have in the garden. The wonderful metallic sheen on the forewings is a entrancing sight.

Wainscot. Named for resemblance of wings to the ribbed wood raised panels of interior walls, introduced in Tudor times. The caterpillars of this common moth feed on grasses and our meadow and surrounding pastureland provides ample acreage.

The Herald. Scalloped broad forewings and splashes of orange colouring give this medium size moth a distinct dynamic appearance hinting at speed with a purpose. It overwinters in barns and outbuildings and we have both. The caterpillars feed on willow trees and again no shortage of them hereabouts. Small resident birds like tits and robins we see working wands of willow in the spring are probably feeding on the larvae of the many species of moths and other insects that live there.

Riband wave. I love the poetry of the name reflecting the subtle patterning of its wings displayed when at rest, drawing on the imagery of a sandy seashore.

The Antler. The pale markings on the forewings resemble deer antlers. This medium size moth is at home here in upland moorland country, its caterpillars feeding on acid grasslands. The antler also flies in the daytime, feeding on thistles and ragworts.

Poplar Hawkmoth. Sure to wow any observer when first sighted. Varieties of hawkmoth, like their avian namesakes, spread their wings and the large size and studied stillness never fails to impress. Most of my specimens (or the same ones recaptured) feature when the trap is left near the mature poplar tree in the east end copse.

As spring turned to summer the moth count increased in variety and number. Warm, still, humid nights with good cloud cover tended to produce the greatest number of captives. I discovered that when the trap was set in amongst shrubbery and trees it upped the number and variety even more. Some species flew off immediately on opening the container in the morning but the vast majority remained static, happy to linger, having to be emptied out at the same collecting spot once recorded.

One morning one of the parent swallows nesting in the eaves above the porch where I’d parked the open trap, flew down and snapped up an unfortunate escapee as it fluttered skywards. Daytime insect feeding birds apart, bats are the main nocturnal predators, and these we see regularly so the numbers of insects must be high enough to sustain populations, which is good. Nationally, the situation is not so good. There’s been a worrying decrease in UK macro moth numbers in recent decades, much of that due to human activity, and that has had a knock on effect in the wider ecosystem.

So far I’ve identified around 50 species in this Northumberland garden. Use of the phone camera has proved invaluable as it utilises AI to help identify a subject by family or common name; a real boon to beginners like me. Bernard Skinner (he of the trap) produced ‘Moths of the British Isles’ handbook, a definitive colour identification guide, back in 1984. My updated ex-library copy is still invaluable too, with 1,600 of the UK’s moth specimens recorded, with very useful notes. There are lots of good guidebooks out there so well worth investing in one. Triangulate by visiting excellent online sites too, like Butterfly Conservation charity https://butterfly-conservation.org/ or joining a Facebook moth trapping group.

Buff tip and bark chips

A fascinating element of moth survival technique is camouflage. Some species I’ve come across when trapping are past masters at the art. The Buff tip for example. At rest its wings are held almost vertically against the body with two buff area in front of the thorax (body) at the tip of the forewings. Looks like a twig or chipping. Colouration varies but its favoured tree is birch, into whose bark it merges. On the wing from May to July, it’s one to marvel at.

A problem gardeners like us who have an orchard is probably more alarming than deadly. The apple ermine moth lays its caterpillars on apple trees. The ghostly tent like web that surrounds the larvae give protection from bird predation but the caterpillars devour the leaves and can denude the tree and restrict budding. I’ve had to carefully peel off and destroy the tent caterpillars found in our trees each spring.

Apple ermine moth and web

When I came across the handsome white ermine moths in the trap I mistook it for its cousin causing the problem so was relieved to discover the difference when looking it up. Appearances are more obvious when you see them together.

White ermine moth

The white ermine’s caterpillars live in webbed tents feeding on nettle, dock and other common vegetation. Apparently this medium size moth has few predators because it is highly poisonous. (But not to humans if touched). Like some other moth species they have another defence mechanism against predators; dropping, seemingly lifeless from their perch, into undergrowth beneath.

I’ll look forward to what the autumn brings to the moth mix. As one observer remarked, ‘trapping is like a lucky dip for adults’. For me it’s yet another strand to an understanding of the wonders that surround us in the world wide web of nature and the farmed environment.

Apart from Plants

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But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye. (Kipling)

My wife’s the gardener and I’m staff. It’s an old joke and together we love and care for our horticultural patch all year round. The never ending work generates pleasure and many rewards in its wake. Small corners of our spread add up to a whole box of garden  delights, especially now in mid-summer when everything is so lush. Ornamental additions enjoy a special status, being either useful or decorative and are rooted in time and place.

Garden seat. There are a few different sorts set around the place which get used regularly. This old metal one I moved to the ponds earlier this year has not been used, as you can plainly see. Nevertheless the incidental invasion of monkeyflower and woundwort in a benignly neglected corner draws and cheers the eye.

Julius Ceaser We go back a long way, from when I bought my last house in Lancaster a quarter century ago. His handsome bust, made of something akin to coade stone, is a class act and he remains eternally contemplative and unfazed. The emperor cheered my tiny terraced house yard garden in Lancaster and here a few miles north of the Roman wall he lives discreetly amongst fern and hosta under a potted apple tree by our own stone wall.

Stave Basket. A gift for the gardener a few years back to remind us of times together in my home county of Devon. The maker has his workshop and 10 acres of ancient coppice woodland which he works with heavy horses on the other side of Dartmoor from where I grew up. Traditional Devon stave baskets come in different sizes for different tasks. This one has ash for handles and fixing of fir splints. We gather apples and other fruit with it, or in this case a mixed cut of elderflowers for the annual making of cordial.

Wooden Henge Another pressie for the gardener. This I got from a friend whose garden was playfully adorned with wood and metal salvaged pieces. I asked him to keep an eye out for something grey and weathered which I knew would appeal and he turned up one day with this jointed piece of oak beam from a ruin. It now stands embedded in the lawn bank border by stone steps. It’s favoured by opportunist robins keeping an eye on gardening activity in hopes of a juicy worm or two surfacing.

Watering Can I was thrilled to inherit a vintage BSA air rifle a few years back and have subsequently relived those far off days with my brother shooting tin can targets with his identical gun. Visitors these days  – especially the younger males – like to try their chances hitting the old watering can,  which resides on the field gate post. It gives a satisfying resonating ‘thung’ when hit and doesn’t topple over.

Green Man. Like Julius, he sits tight in a mass of greenery and represents the spirit of nature and seasonal renewal in our happy half acre. Delighted to come across him when last on holiday in the county of my birth, in an artisan workshop cum gift shop at Polperro.

Heart’s Wave We were blessed with a lovely range of thoughtful generous wedding presents in 2021. This distinctive gift was extra special because the young forester, son of one of our farming neighbours, tasked with clearing dead timber at work cut this section for us as he could see the heart and/or wave in the stump and thought we might like it. Like it? We love it and it’s out there every day, weathering nicely….A little like the pair of us, I hope

Log Chutes and Rock

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Oh! wail for the forest – the proud stately forest/No more its dark depths shall the hunter explore; /For the bright golden grain/ Shall wave free o’er the plain/ Oh! wail for the forest – its glories are o’re! (Catherine Parr Traill, Peterborough Gazetteer, 1845)

Some trees, like black walnut and western hemlock, dominate their spaces killing off competition from other arboreal species. Others, like the pines and conifers do it by height. It was the abundance of majestic white pine that first drew loggers here in force in the early 19th Century. Nearly all of the ancient big forest trees were felled then; initially to service Britain’s needs during the continental trade blockades of the Napoleonic wars and later more conveniently for the rapidly expanding American industrial market.

Our hosts hadn’t visited the heritage log chute before, and as we were keen to see it, a trip north towards the Algonquin National Park was eagerly anticipated. And we weren’t disappointed. The Kennisis river log chute, emerging from a dam on the Hawk lake, is the only one of its kind left, out of thousands that were once in action around the highlands. Built of secondary  timber and used to carry logs over rough river landscapes to sawmills, log chutes were first developed in 1829 to circumnavigate falls in neighbouring Quebec.

Built by the logging companies, they were always attached to a dam on a lake where the logs were massed after felling, ready to be shot downstream on the Spring meltwaters. This one dates from the 1920’s and was restored as a national monument in the 1970’s.

Great skill and daring were needed by those nimble footed workers afloat on the packed trunks wielding pikes resembling weapons of the medieval battlefields to deftly  manoeuvre and feed the mass of felled timber into the mouth of the chute.  

 A vast swathe of hard metamorphic rocks stretches from the great lakes and the border with the US all the way north to the Arctic, the ‘Canadian Shield’ as it is known. Cuttings, where the highways pass, bear witness to the deep drilling needed to split the bedrock. This land is littered with erratics, blocks of igneous rock generated by the vast grinding glaciers of the ice age. The soils over this dense mass of impervious bedrock are thinly spread, only enriched by annual leaf fall and wood decay. It holds water in countless depressions, small and shallow as well as big and deep. Deciduous trees dominate this landscape – spruce, beech, oak, maple and birch among them, as well as pines and firs.

The dense mixed woodlands are home to many animals. Chipmunks dashing about the place in a number of spots on our trave. We were told that in the old days, before rubbish at the municipal centre was separated into various types for recycling, brown bears would be in residence openly rifling through the piles of waste for food, oblivious to man.

Hikers using the extensive network of designated all seasons trails are officially warned to ‘wear blaze orange in the fall as hunting is a part of the Highlands heritage….Remember you use the trails at your own risk”.

Hare Raising

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A brief summary of the past month’s wild animal activity in our out-by rural garden. The big advantage of having no dogs or cats on the premises increases chances of encountering wild animals and the privilege it brings of seeing them up close.

New born leveret: Image by wildwelfare.org.uk

Star event has been the up close sighting over three evenings of baby hares – leverets – hanging out in forget-me-nots that have colonised gravel paths between house and hedge. Our viewpoint from the pantry window  being just a few yards away. I’ve not the equipment to capture images in near darkness, but the youngsters intimate interaction is engraved in the memory. Best night ‘s observation was the second. Four of the brood bundled together grooming  each other’s fur while a fifth, just a foot away, lay facing out into the gathering dark. Was it keeping watch for their dam or on guard duty for predators? Whatever the reason the outrider eventually came back to its brethren and joined in the ongoing grooming process.

Occasional spotted individual growing leverets since during  the day, shooting in and out of close packed flower beds and full leafed copses. The mainstay of family life is their mother, the Jill, who we first saw regularly at Winter’s end. She seemed to have adopted our ever growing garden rubbish tip, t’other side of the fence, as her nursery. Miniature versions of the parents, leverets are born above ground in a shallow depression, or form, and each weighs in around 100 gms (3.5 oz) Unlike rabbits they are fully formed when born, with eyes and ears open. The Jill feeds her litter twice a day but goes foraging, keeping her distance to deter predators like foxes, stoats and weasels from tracking their location. The leverets in turn remain motionless throughout and their colouration helps them blend into the background. They venture out as they grow – as we witnessed – and are fully grown at six months.

When it comes to seeking out the hidden birthplaces of creatures around the garden we were intrigued to see which of the many wrens nests would be the Jenny’s chosen location to lay her eggs. This one amongst the flowerpots won out. Amusing to see the nestlings sporting top knots of moss wrested from their nest lining. Whirring forms of fledglings often seen since about the place. One’s had to be shooed out of the house and others from under the cars in the yard before driving out.

The railway goods waggon that’s our unusual garden shed has in successive years been home to nesting swallows, blackbirds, robins and pied wagtails, each fiercely protective of  territorial space. We have indoor residents and  under-the-eaves tenants, and thus they co-exist. The wagtails usually opt for either the suspended metal watering can or bucket. The spill of feather, grass and wool lining indicate eventual fledging. Later came across a second wagtail nest within a tangle of rampant clematis, montana rubens, outside the bathroom.

The rain brings amphibians  and their ilk out to forage. A frog amongst prostate free flowering  lysmachia nummularia at the old pond’s edge one day, or the elegant emergence from cover of a leopard slug on another damp day. There are around forty types of slug in the UK, most of which are not supposed to be crop pests. This one’s beneficial in feeding on  a diet of fungi, plant or animal matter and in turn is preyed on by hedgehogs and birds.

Clennell Wood Walk

~ stephentomlin ~ 6 Comments
Shooting the Bird woodcut by Luke Clennell

I’ve been a member of the Bewick Society  (http://www.bewicksociety.org/) since I was first associated with Cherryburn, the artist and naturalist’s birthplace in the Tyne valley, and I’ve written about it here in the past. Recently I was amongst a small group of members who went on a walk from Tritlington, just north of Morpeth, to discover more about one of Bewick’s most accomplished apprentices, Luke Clennell, and the semi-ancient woodland there that today bears his name.

Our genial host was Michael Hunter, a Newcastle based landscape gardener, who during lockdown in 2020 bought three acres, a quarter of Clennell’s wood (formerly known as Robin Hood wood). With his Patterdale terrier Roo on a long lead (when not cradled in in his arms) Michael filled us in on the remarkable history of this rolling landscape between the A1 to the west and the Northumbrian coast a few miles east.

Born the son of tenant farmers in the nearby village of Ulgham Luke Clennell (1781-1840) was one of Thomas Bewick’s most promising pupils. with a similar rural background to his master. Young Luke was apprenticed to an uncle, a grocer in Morpeth, but so all consuming was his appetite and aptitude for drawing that the uncle and local patrons persuaded Bewick to take the 16 year old on in his Newcastle workshop. Clennel quickly became his master’s principal assistant, helping produce the hugely influential second edition of A History of British Birds and was responsible for some of its distinctive ‘tale pieces,’ small woodcuts wittily reflecting rural life, that tail ended the book’s sections.

The Angler is just one example of his skill and showcases Clennell’s particular ability in handling foliage. When his apprenticeship ended the young man left to set up on his own in London where he fulfilled his ambition to be a painter. Initially successful Clennell took on a massive commission in 1814 from his patron, the earl of Bridgewater, to commemorate a dinner of worthies at a post Napoleonic war conference that proved to be his undoing. In struggling to complete 400 separate sittings, sketching heads of attendees, the artist’s mental health, already strained by the death of his wife, collapsed and the painting was completed by another artist. Luke returned to his homeland and the care of family but never properly recovered, spending the last nine years of his life in the Newcastle asylum.

It’s hard now, overlooking this unremarkable stretch of rolling farmland to envisage the stark industrial landscape it presented to the world between 1990 and 2005. Then the wood we were visiting was an isolated island – saved from destruction by its official status as an ancient semi-natural woodland – marooned in a vast strip mining operation.The Stobswood open cast mine was operational1990 – 2007. During that time British Coal abstracted 13 million tons of coal and 250,000 tons of fireclay from the 580 hectare (1,433 acre) site. Appropriately the site known as the biggest hole in Europe had at its operational heart the biggest digger in Europe ‘The Ace of Spades’. This massive walking dragline was better known to locals as ‘Big Geordie’ and dominated the skyline for miles around.

Today that abyss has been completely filled in and restored as agricultural land, wetland, meadows and new woodlands. We could see on our approach along the public footpath that the woodland extension is currently dominated by colonising birch which will eventually give way to native species like oak, rowan and willow.It was a strange sensation walking over that swathe of restored land as the earth was spongy underfoot, not yet having properly settled, a process which will take years. It has been seeded with a wild flower mix so might be interesting to see how that fares as time passes. It was also a different consistency to the heavy clay of the unaffected land we passed, where bullocks grazed in old grass meadows by the infant riverside and its bank stabilising alders and willows.

Michael shares the 12 acre wood with three other buyers, their boundaries marked by coloured wooden posts. One focuses on shooting with a mini-range; another is given over to ornithology with many bird boxes and avian friendly settings while the third is an exemplar of wood craft, with renewed coppicing , dead hedging and other examples of traditional woodland management.

Michael and his family revel in their visits to the site and he’s allowed by regulation to camp out for a set number of nights a year. In that time he’s become (literally) a lot closer to nature, as an unobtrusive witness to the secret lives of its animal inhabitants, in particular hares, badgers, roe deer and foxes.

We visited the well established badger setts and traced their trods through the undergrowth of bluebells, wild garlic, dogs mercury and grasses. Stopping for a brew under the dappled canopy he pointed out the shallow depressions where deer have lain, the places where hares congregated to frolic of an evening.

At some point in the 20th century the three quarters of acre at the wood’s heart had been cleared of broadleaf and replanted with spruce for commercial purposes. That sits awkwardly with the rest of the site, and we hoped it might be cleared and restored one day. Hauntingly, in amongst the dark looming pole straight conifers stood an old oak tree, a sole survivor from the past, seemingly dead but on closer examination still hanging on in there, with leaves emerging in its highest canopy to greet the hint of spring sun..

Having immersed ourselves for a happy couple of hours in this impressive survivor of semi-ancient woodland we left with a renewed faith in the ability of nature to recover from the severest sieges. Cheered too at the stewardship of individuals like our host whose actions help restore the balance of life, living in  harmony with and learning from the natural world. As we walked back over the brow of the hill I couldn’t help but feel that the essence of Luke Clennell’s troubled genius is resident in the wood he would have known as a boy, at home in a place where his artistic spirit can rest at peace.