356 Days Wild: Week 49

Well, I made up for my walking lull this week!

Week 49 of my wild challenge involved a little trip up north to see family before Christmas. And I made sure to take my walking boots. The whole long weekend was a huge highlight, but there were other, smaller highlights too, including:

🎄 A thoughtful Christmas story (about a fir tree)
🐦 A long-ish walk around Shipston – with a goldcrest, bullfinch and yellowhammer
☀️ Visiting England’s highest lake
🦆 Spotting a goosander on’t canal!

Hope you enjoy the full story and, as I won’t be posting again until next week, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas! 🥳 Thank you for reading 😊

Monday 13th December 2021

I treated myself yesterday to a little book called The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories. It’s a beautiful book and it’s full of festive short stories. I read the first one over lunch. We’re having some work done to our house and I had a brief moment of respite from the absolutely horrific sound of the nail gun!

This story is called ‘The Fir Tree’ by Hans Christian Andersen and it definitely made me think. I’m not sure whether that’s why he wrote it in the 19th Century, but, if it is, it worked. In brief, it’s a story about a little fir tree in a forest that wants to have an adventure. It hears about Christmas and how beautiful fir trees look when they’re decorated with trinkets, etc. It dreams of the day it can become a Christmas tree. As I read it, I just knew what was going to happen – it was so short and yet so poignant.

So, yes, this little tree’s dream eventually came true. It had a wonderful Christmas Eve with candles, sweet treats and trinkets lining its branches but, afterwards, it was left in an attic until it was eventually chopped up and burned. It ends with these lines: “Now it was over, and the tree was gone, along with the story. It was over, over, over, and that’s what happens to every story!”

Tuesday 14th December 2021

The light isn’t my friend at the moment but I guess it isn’t long until the shortest day now. Regardless, I decided to head out to the chapel of rest before the sun rose. I thought it might be light enough for me to have a walk through the cemetery once I got there but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The photo makes it look a little less dark than it was – I wouldn’t have been able to walk around without a torch. And walking with a torch in a graveyard would probably attract some unwanted attention!

Wednesday 15th December 2021

As I suggested yesterday, it’s impossible to go out for a good early walk so, instead, I started work really early and then headed out for a short walk around the meadow once the sun had risen at about 8:15am.

It was a muddy walk (unsurprisingly) and I enjoyed some skidding and sliding. But what I enjoyed much more were the buzzards in the field. I saw 4 in total – I’m not sure what they were doing. They must’ve liked something in the crop because they kept hopping along and only eventually took off because I got too close.

Thursday 16th December 2021

I’ve got a couple of days off this week and I made the most of today by combining two of my local walks – Honington and Burmington – to make a local mega-walk. Well, it wasn’t that mega. About 8 miles in the end.

What was really lovely about this walk was that I had a few encounters with some old friends: a goldcrest, some yellowhammers and a bullfinch. It’s funny, I can associate these (and some other birds) with very specific places in my local area now. The goldcrest, for example, wasn’t too far from where I spotted one last winter – in the scrub next to Stratford Road leading out of Shipston. I really enjoyed this cutey. He kept bobbing into the hedgerow ahead of me so I was able to walk alongside him a couple of times.

The yellowhammers were near the entrance to ‘the meadow’ on Fell Mill Lane when you leave Honington. I’ve seen yellowhammers elsewhere as well but I remember seeing them in the hedges bordering these fields in summer too. And the bullfinch was near the sewage works on the same road. Not the most pleasant place, but the trees here seem to be popular with bullfinches!

I’m definitely getting some inspiration for a ‘local wildlife around Shipston’-type artwork/book/thing…

Friday 17th December 2021

Yesterday evening, my partner and I headed up to the little town of Barnoldswick in Lancashire to see family before Christmas. The town isn’t far from the Yorkshire Dales so, between family time, we took the opportunity to have a walk at Malham Tarn.

Malham Tarn lies above the famous Malham Cove, a few miles away from Malham (the village). It’s not directly above, but it’s high up and it was a good job too because the fog was so thick on our way there, further down in the valley. Above the fog, the views were just stunning.

The walk was just under 5 miles in total but we kept stopping to work out what was on the lake. It’s England’s highest freshwater lake and you can tell it’s a good stop-off point for migrating birds. We saw a flock of lapwings flying above the lake first, followed by wigeons on the water itself. We also saw some white ducks with black heads on the tarn – we think these were goldeneyes. It was a wonderful walk and, if you’re ever up that way, I would encourage you to seek out this quiet haven (especially if you see crowds flocking to the cove!)

Saturday 18th December 2021

Another little stroll today. This time along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal after an absolutely enormous lunch on the town square. It was as large as a Christmas Day meal and I knew I’d fall asleep if I didn’t get some cold, fresh air.

We just walked down the canal to a small village called Salterforth. This stretch of the canal always yields some sort of surprise – we’ve seen kingfishers here before, along with mandarin ducks and great crested grebes. My partner and I joked about what we’d see this time as we walked and two goosanders appeared. Not particularly rare but definitely ‘different’!

Sunday 19th December 2021

And a final comment on the fog. We headed home this morning and, as we drove over the ‘top road’ to get to the motorway, the view was incredible. The fog was sitting deep in the valley, with the sun shining down on it. I couldn’t get a photo from the best spot, but this one gives you an idea. The beautiful blue sky above with the line of mist in the distance. The dry stone walls were all frozen too. I don’t think I ever appreciated this landscape when I was young but I can certainly say that I do now.

*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!