Lots of sunshine this week! I even whacked the shorts out again!!! And I think the birds and butterflies have been enjoying it too – what a treat 😊
And, in addition to the sunshine, Week 35 brought some more ‘wild’ highlights, including:
🎶 A September ‘dawn chorus’
🐣 A new bird podcast
🐏 A long walk in the Yorkshire Dales
🦋 A beautiful common blue butterfly
Thank you for reading and enjoy!
Monday 6th September 2021
It was such a beautiful morning today. I saw my fair share of sunrises in August and, though it wasn’t quite a sun rise, this view was just breathtaking. The mist from the river obscured the light and I stopped and took in the colours as I walked. It was around 7am. I think the sun is technically rising at around 6.30am at the moment. This blows my mind – only a few weeks ago, the sun was rising at 5.45am. How have we lost this much time already?!
Tuesday 7th September 2021
The birds are really confusing me at the moment. Motivated by the beautiful morning sunshine yesterday, I woke up extra early today and went for a wander while it was still cool.
I know that robins sing all year round, but I was under the impression that most other birds were starting to wind down. But as I walked down the main road, there was a cacophony of blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, wood pigeons, collared doves and wrens bursting into song alongside the robins. There definitely wasn’t any winding down at all! Maybe it’s the heat and sunshine that’s suddenly brought out the songs?
Wednesday 8th September 2021
I listened to a new podcast today. It’s called Golden Grenades and it’s about birds. Each week, guests chat about their five favourite birds and their number one bird has a ‘stand-off’ with the host’s favourite: the peregrine falcon. That bit is a little odd (then again, I’m a little odd!) but it was interesting to hear about the guest’s favourites.
In this episode, the guest was Jonny Fisk who works at Spurn Bird Observatory in the North East. His top five birds were: house martin, blackbird, dunlin, pallas’s warbler and sparrowhawk. I wasn’t sure what a pallas’s warbler was so I had a little google – it’s a beautiful little bird with bright gold streaks on its head and it’s a very rare visitor to the UK.
Thursday 9th September 2021
I read through an interesting article this morning. I was having a break from work and thought it might be a good way to keep my mind focused away from Teams and Outlook. The article was a summary of the wildlife you can see this month. There were a lot of things on the list that I haven’t seen yet like the canary-shouldered thorn moth (what an amazing name!), the little stint, ruff, long-eared bat, black darter dragonfly and wryneck. I wonder if I’ll be able to tick any of them off…
Friday 10th September 2021
Today marked the start of a short trip up to Barnoldswick – the town where my family live. I haven’t been up to stay with family since February 2020 and I had an additional job to do while I was here. It was my opportunity to look through a few of grandad’s art bits and pieces.
I’m not sure whether it really counts as an ‘act of wildness’ but my grandad loved wildlife and it was really lovely to see not only his finished paintings and drawings but his doodles and notes as well. I particularly liked these ones, along with this note ‘Do painting of old railway bridge over canal at Salterforth with train going over’ – I make notes of scenes and animals I’d like to paint all the time too.
Saturday 11th September 2021
Well, I channelled the walker in me this morning. Given I don’t tend to be up this way very often, I decided to go for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales. I opted for somewhere not too far away and found a walk on Barden Moor – close to a market town called Skipton – in my walk book.
The start of the walk was a 25 minute drive away and, as I neared my approach, I had a bit of a sitch. The road leading up to the moor from a village called Embsay was apparently closed. Not ideal as there are no other roads up to the moor!
I pondered my options – But. However. Perhaps. – and I suddenly realised it was only a two and a bit mile walk up to the starting point of the walk, assuming the road closure would allow a pedestrian through. So, ambitious me decided to go ahead and voilà a 5.5 mile walk turned into 10.5+ miles…
The views were incredible. I could see distant crags and moorland towering over the two reservoirs nearby. I also saw lots of red grouse and meadow pipits. A buzzard and a kestrel gave me a good display and I even caught a beautiful glimpse of a stonechat.
Sunday 12th September 2021
I set off on my 3-hour drive home pretty early this morning which meant there was plenty of time for a walk in the sunshine around Shipston once I got back. A beautiful common blue butterfly caught my eye on the walk – it was loving life on the birdsfoot trefoil.
*For anyone new to my blog, let me explain a bit more about what these posts are about. Every week I share a summary of my daily ‘acts of wildness’. This wildlife challenge was inspired by ’30 Days Wild’ and ’12 Days Wild’ from The Wildlife Trusts. The ‘356’ isn’t a typo – typically, I only thought about doing this after 2021 had already started so I won’t be able to do a full year this time. Next year will be different though! Thank you and I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 