Tag: North Stainley

Ducks are a-dabbling …

We’re lucky. Our village has not just one, but three village ponds. It’s home to a variety of geese, to coots and moorhens … and to any number of mallards. Males seem to outnumber females. Most days in the spring and summer the laddish drakes – if they’re not lazing around on the grass – like so many teenage boys, mob the younger females in a rather aimless and half-hearted fashion.

We’re nearly at the time of year when ducklings will hatch and charm us all. The ponds are on both sides of the main-ish road that splices the village in two: the mother ducks march their broods back and forth, confident that traffic – yes even huge and heavy municipal dustbin lorries – will instantly grind to a halt to let the young family cross.

Nevertheless, few broods grow intact to adulthood. Jealous mallards despatch ducklings not their own. Geese kill them. Foxes take them to feed their own young. Herons visit. And despite the care most drivers take, there are traffic accidents. We often wonder what happened to the brood that Malcolm spotted one day on a lane near here: a mother duck leading fourteen – yes fourteen – ducklings along the road.

For Denzil’s Nature Photo Challenge #4 Ducks

… and also for another new challenge: Bird of the week

The forgotten pleasure of an evening stroll.

I haven’t been on an evening walk all year. It’s time to put that right. Will you come too? We’ll go along the woodland path behind our house.

Beatswell Wood

Look! On either side as we walk , there are bright kingcups, primroses, wood anemones.

And here we are in the village, by the pond. Are there any ducklings yet? Apparently not – no ducks either just now.

North Stainley village pond.

We’ll turn towards home. Only a short walk. But we can watch as the sun goes down, and have a few quiet words with the horse in the field. Not a bad way to begin the end of the day.

Jo’s Monday Walk

Bright Square

My neighbours the animals

Lockdown again.  Forensic exploration of our own neighbourhood again, as we set off for daily exercise.  Yet one way or another, I’ve posted dozens of shots of the area I call home, and I can’t expect others to delight in it as I do. The other day though I noticed, as I hadn’t since the car-free spring lockdown when birds were vying for territory and nesting, distant birdsong.

It made me think about the creatures who share our daily round.  Not the elusive ones – the stoats, weasels, foxes, deer who decline to stick around as you get your camera out.  The types like Basil and Brenda, as our neighbours call the over-sexed pigeons who stomp across their roof, noisily indulging their passion at 6.00 a.m. 

Basil? Brenda? Who knows?

The horse who moved in with the Jacob sheep in the next field at the beginning of lockdown when her stables closed for business.  She’s still here. The hens next door, who sometimes deliver eggs for our breakfast.

The large flocks of sheep who are part of every farmer’s daily round in these parts – no cattle for us..

The heron who nicks fish from our landlord’s pond.

The mallards on the village pond, and the crows on the rooftops.  The squirrels dashing across our path and up the nearest tree.  The pheasants who are even more abundant this year, as lockdown’s put a stop to the shooting parties they were specifically bred for.  Rabbits too.  So many rabbits.  Why haven’t I got any photos of them?

The featured photos shows our much-frequented path through Sleningford Hall at Easter time, with all the new lambs.

Lens-Artists Challenge #123: Found in the Neighbourhood.

Top Square

I picked up a copy of  our little-read community newspaper today ….

‘Because of the almost world-wide lockdown caused by Covid-19, Concours Top Squares, due to open in Topcliffe Village Hall between 1st and 30th April, will now be held in camera.

This now internationally acclaimed exhibition has for the last three years brought together arts practitioners from a range of backgrounds working in less conventional materials.  The only requirement is that entries must be entitled ‘Top Square’.

Locally, hopes for a top prize are pinned on a promising new Arts Collective working from Middle Park Farm, near North Stainley, and who call themselves ‘Windewe’. The prevailing wind and local sheep have worked in constructive partnership, winding and weaving wool round the wire fencing surrounding the sheep’s pastureland.  They’ve made dozens of such works, mainly confining themselves to using the sheep’s own wool, though some examples incorporate dried grasses, leaves and small twigs. Apart from those chosen for the exhibition, all other works by Windewe can be viewed from the Ripon Rowel path, and are on permanent display.’

Top Square 8

Sleningford Gazette, 8th April 2020.

For technical reasons beyond the Editor’s control, this article was omitted from the edition of 1st April.

 

# Square Tops 8

Round the Edge of the Village: It’s All About the Texture

Sunday’s walk, on a cold blustery afternoon, along a too-familiar path, could have been a non-event, a means to burn off a few calories and not much more.  Jude’s challenge this week brought me ideas though.  ‘Look for texture’, she said, ‘close in on your subject and capture the texture and not the context’.  Challenge accepted.

Here we are by the village pond.  Here’s Mrs. Mallard.  And here are her feathers.

And – a sure sign that spring has sprung – here’s a dandelion.

Off to the track through the fields now.  I trudge past the sheep, stolidly munching grass and hay, and spot a rusty old shed at the end of the pasture. Lichen on rust.  Perfect.

Well, you can’t wander through the woods without finding a fallen log.  And fallen logs mean knots, nooks and crannies, velvety moss.  I take a couple of shots.

Oh look.  Here’s a muddy bit:  and I haven’t got my decent boots on.  But oh, look again!  Here’s texture a-plenty. A goose-print; a – er – what – squirrel perhaps? print; a different bird print (offers, anyone?); and a dog-print.  And finally a cracked-mud print.  That was good value.

Any walk in our countryside produces any number of long-established oak trees.  So here is some bark – both shots from the same tree.

The last shot of all doesn’t follow the rules.  But here’s a farmer doing his Sunday afternoon ploughing.  Unturned earth, turned earth, and all being thoroughly investigated by a host of sleek white black-headed gulls.  If that isn’t a symphony in textural contrast, I don’t know what is.

And since this is a post for Jo’s Monday Walk too, I’ll just mention that there was tea and Drenched Lemon Cake waiting for me when I got home.

#2020 Photo Challenge 13: Texture.  ‘Get close to your subject and capture just the texture itself, without the context’.

Jo’s Monday Walk.

Longer Daylight, More Sunlight = The First Flowers of Spring….

… spotted on a walk through our village yesterday.

Snowdrops – first spotted on January 1st.

These daffodils by the village pond are always extra-early – even though it’s North Yorkshire.

Aconites bravely push up through the gravel.

January Light