Spring holidays are best spent exploring says JOHN INGHAM
HOLIDAYS for normal people are for resting. But last week in the Lake District I was a man on a mission.
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My family and I arrived in Little Langdale above Ambleside well ahead of nearly all the summer visitors.
But over a perfect week, as wet weather gave way to a heatwave, as westerlies switched to swallow-bearing southerlies, I achieved my aim of greeting the birds that will grace our summer – plus a few others most easily found in the hills.
Just one visitor was ahead of me as I took my dog to Slater’s Bridge, a stone medieval crossing that arches over the River Brathay.
Cascading from the oak woods that Friday night was the sad trill of willow warblers newly arrived from the southern half of Africa.
The next day a chiffchaff sang its two-note “song” in the Elterwater valley where goosander – large whitish ducks with long thin bills – dived for fish in the river.
On Sunday morning another visitor started singing for love. A jerky song high in the trees led me to a sparrow-sized black and white bird – a pied flycatcher just in from Africa’s jungles. For days he was alone – but on Saturday females and rivals poured in.
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On Wednesday, on a very blustery day, Buttermere hosted a red-breasted merganser, a relative of the goosander back from a winter on the coast and ready to nest nearby.
By Thursday Britain was warming up thanks to a southerly air flow and clear skies. In the woods the willow warblers were joined by two other migrants from south of the Sahara.
Hyperactive wood warblers announced their arrival with a song like a coin spinning on a table. On the fringes of the wood a beautiful liquid song from the top of a tree revealed a tree pipit.
That evening in Little Langdale I heard the first cuckoo, a faint call blown on the breeze repeated in the valley the next morning.
On Friday, our last full day, we walked up to Easedale Tarn above Wordsworth’s Grasmere to see wheatear, robin-sized moorland birds from central Africa, willow warblers singing away well above 1,000ft in juniper bushes and hear the call of a peregrine falcon.
Over the week I also found time to spot a dipper, a plump brown and white bird that defies physics to feed on the bottom of mountain steams. All that was missing on my hitlist was a redstart. But you can’t win them all. Spring was here in all its beauty. So I retired to my favourite pub, The Three Shires, and celebrated with a pint. As Presidents Trump and Bush like to say: “Mission accomplished.”
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FED UP with squirrels scoffing your bird food? Reader Dennis Grahame claims the answer is an impressive home-made feeder designed by Canadian Chris Notap.
Google Chris’s name and “squirrel” to see the video guide. My DIY skills don’t go beyond changing light bulbs so my squirrels are safe to carry on feasting.
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CAMPAIGNERS want us to help save endangered farm animals – by eating them. The at-risk list of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust includes Soay sheep which have been around since the Vikings, the beautiful white Vaynol cow plus Lop and Landrace pigs. The Trust says: “The more people who eat rare breed meat, the greater the demand and the more animals will be bred.”
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AFRICAN penguins could vanish within 15 years due to intensive farming, says Compassion in World Farming boss Philip Lymbery.
The South African birds can’t compete with trawler fleets. They hoover up the penguins’ food for fishmeal for farmed salmon, pigs and chickens.
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PR
DRAGONFLY wings have inspired a new super-insulator.
When emerging as adults, their bodies produce bicarbonate, which releases CO2 to dry their soft, wet wings.
Scientists from Newcastle and Durham Universities used the same process to dry aerogels – and created an ultralight insulator “many times” more effective than rival products, reports Advanced Materials.
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STANDING among the cliff-top sea pinks, this puffin perfectly captures the spirit of a seabird colony. You can buy the original – and 200 others – at a stunning exhibition at a wildlife mecca from tomorrow.
The Pinkfoot Gallery in Cley on the north Norfolk coast is selling linocuts by the grandfather of wildlife art, Robert Gillmor, until May 11.
Robert, whose home overlooks the Cley Marshes, has illustrated 500 books and designed countless stamps like this puffin.
Some of the profits will go to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust – and while you’re there make sure you see the real birds at the nearby reserve.