No animals of note on my short morning wander today but some lovely soft sunrise dawn views across the harvested fields…
Nice quiet sunrise at the bottom of the lane
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Author Archives: daftmumblings
Lunchtime gatekeeper
Sweden: Nocturnal Animals
We’ve just returned from a week’s stay in the Swedish countryside and during our stay I put out my camera trap for several nights. I usually place it in the forest behind the summer house but this time I placed it in the garden and put out some peanuts to see what might pay a visit.
On the first night we had this nervous looking brown hare…
After a couple of nights of no more than pigeons and blackbirds, I caught this badger snuffling up the peanuts…
…and on this last night, I caught this fox, again nervous around the camera.
These are lovely little snippets of life in the darkness outside while we slept. There were some mammals missing that I would love to catch on camera at the summer house. We didn’t see any red squirrels at all during our stay, despite them being very common, and we have caught a moose in the camera viewfinder out in the forest before. Most of all, I would like to snap a pine marten which have only been seen once from the house in the last few years that my family have been going there – maybe next year!
(Ignore the date stamp on the videos – I didn’t reset it when I inserted the new batteries).
A local snake
We’ve just returned home from a week in Sweden and after seeing an adder while away we’ve just found this beauty of a grass snake on the sunny wall opposite our garden.
I have to admit, snakes aren’t my favourites of the animal world but it was a real treat to see this one so closely and to get some nice video and pictures of it.
Perhaps this will help with preparing me for what might be a much more snakey trip later in the year!
A Swedish snake
We’re in Sweden at the moment, visiting family and the lovely wilderness. On a walk this afternoon, we stumbled across this adder warming itself in the sun. We first thought it had eaten a big meal but, following a query on the image below from a friend, the snake might be a pregnant female with a belly full of youngsters. I, firstly, had no idea when adders give birth and, secondly, that they actually give birth, to live young. A bit of googling revealed all and this adder might be expecting her new arrivals in August or September.
Hopefully, I’ll be going another post or two on our Swedish travels.
Another dawn moment
I’ve been struggling to keep up my early morning wanders down the lane to the fields. I’m not quite sure why; I’m a creature of habit and I haven’t yet secured a walk into my morning routine.
This morning I pushed myself out of the door as it was such a lovely, bright and sunny dawn. I was rewarded with the sight of a fox trotting up the track towards me. We stood there for a few moments staring at each other and then it turned tail and scampered back down the track and off into what was the poppy field.
These are the kind of brief moments such walks are made of – I really must make them frequently.
A midsummer moment
Like many may have lately, we have looked at some of Dr Michael Mosely’s books. This morning I took one bit of his advice and headed out for an early walk down the lane and then around part of the village.
It was a cracking start to the day with not a single cloud in the sky and very little chill in the air. The bright sun intensified the colours of the scenery and the only sounds were of an array of birds and my feet treading on the sandy track and village tarmac.
I was rewarded with a very special moment. Walking up one of the little villages lanes, the ironstone church was lit up, almost orange in the sun. Flying and chasing around the steeple were ten or so swifts. At first they flew silently, sometimes slowly on their flickering wings and other times chasing in small packs circling the tower. Then came their screams; the sound I long for all winter and which lasts in our skies for far too few summer weeks. I stood there for a few minutes lost in the screams and effortless wings; a short spell cast by this perfect midsummer moment.
A little bit of joy at the end of the lane
My lunchtime walk yesterday took me to the fields at the end of the lane. After looking over the sheep in the shallow valley, I turned back to wander home but was stopped by a single poppy, its sharp red standing out amongst the surrounding greens. As I walked up the slight rise into the field opposite I came across a view that brought immediate joy and brushed away the generally grumpiness of the hours before.
It wasn’t a stunning red carpet but a softer scattering of poppies amongst the other plants in the field. It gave the impression of a past times when poppies might appear anywhere in the arable fields when they weren’t so finely managed to remove any competition from the farmed crops. We have found fields a few miles away purposely sown with wild flowers which have much great spectacles of blooming. However, this little spot at the end of a quiet lane, hidden away and out of sight, felt more natural and out of the hands of man.
There were quite a few more poppies yet to flower, so I’ll be making more lunchtime trips over the next few days…
Local poppies
Out on a cycle last week I spotted a field with wildflower border but not a lot seemed to be blooming. Returning to the same spot today, we found a view of blooms laid out before us with perhaps a lot more to come…we’ll be returning over the next few weeks to see how the field is getting on…
Byways and bridleways
With the weather finally giving us some relief from the seemingly endless rain of the past many months, I’ve started to explore on my bike some of the off-road routes in the countryside surrounding my home.
I tend to be a road cyclist these days although in my younger years I did enjoy mountain-biking but trips were few and far between. Where I used to live in Cheshire, it never really crossed my mind to search out alternatives to the tarmac country lanes, save for the occasional ride down some of the nearby canal towpaths. However, here in Northamptonshire where I now live, it seems there are more opportunities to get off the roads and onto routes away from the traffic.
A mile or so from our village is the Brampton Valley Way which is the former railway line between Northampton and Market Harborough. It provides a 14-mile off-road route through the countryside with fairly frequent places to join or leave it. This route is a spine through the area which I’m now using to link to other traffic free corridors.
Now that we’ve had a reasonable amount of dry and warm weather, the off-road routes are starting to become less muddy, opening up more choices of route. I’ve been looking over the Ordnance Survey maps of the area and it seems to be cross-crossed not just by footpaths, which can’t be cycled on, but also by bridleways and byways, all of which provide possible cycle routes.
So, over the last couple of weeks I’ve tried out some new routes and have been rewarded with some little hidden gems of vistas, some lovely moments with wildlife, and more peace and quiet away from the roads.
If the rain keeps away sufficiently, I’m hoping the summer can be one spent finding more quiet corners and less visited corners of the countryside.
Daft Mumblings 