This week I made a couple of visits to a valley I hadn't visited for a few years. It is a wild and steep sided valley and tumbles down from high moorland through limestone exposures to join the River Lune not far from Kirkby Lonsdale. It is unspoilt and is home to fell sheep and some wonderful birdlife. Towards it's lower reaches is found some ancient deciduous woodland which clings to the rocky valley sides and above that is scattered hawthorn scrub and bracken covered fellside. The wild and steep sided rocky upper reaches are home to wheatears and on my visit I found good numbers and they were showing well on the roadside walls and fences. Lower down in the woodland I was fortunate to glimpse a pied flycatcher and a number of redstarts had taken up residence in the old and damp woodland. A green woodpecker was yaffling but I didn't manage a sighting. On the beck dippers were about and were busy feeding young.
I could have spent more time in this delightful area but had a long drive back home. I will however soon return to this special place when more birds will have made it their home for the summer. The images show the valley, a lucky shot of a recently arrived pied flycatcher, and one of the many wheatears that were flitting around the upper reaches of the valley.
I would love to visit this place. It looks so medieval to me and maybe it is. It is how the land would look, I suppose, if man had not arrived and cut things down. I also liked both your bird photos. I have never seen either species over here in Ohio where I live. We are as flat as a pancake and the fields are filled with corn, wheat and soy beans in season. Our birds are diverse but nothing like you have. I show what we have on My Birds Blog.
ReplyDeleteLiving in such wonderful places like you do is so different from where I have lived, you might enjoy a look at The Hamlet of Gordon, Ohio. It is where I was born and raised and it is how small hamlets used to be and this one still exists.
The Hamlet of Gordon