A six mile pick-me-up

I usually walk three miles or so in my local 'lockdown' exercise strolls. Sometimes that doesn't feel enough, either because the weather is so nice or my mood is so sombre or I just feel cooped up, so occasionally I will set off for a longer ramble. All three of the reasons applied the other day - and, despite the weather being so lovely, it took me at least half of the distance to start to feel lighter and more at peace with the world. I find the restrictions are having a kind of numbing effect; I'm not depressed but I feel rather muted.

My route took me east along the canal to Buck Wood and then off down a track that crosses the River Aire via a footbridge, towards Baildon. The route back is along the river bank for much of the way. It passes through a little nature reserve, where a pond has been constructed. It was a peaceful place to linger a while, watching the birds. They know no restrictions, busily getting on with nesting and courting.

There is plenty of blossom everywhere, so very pretty. Look how the sepals on these flowers (below) are pink, peeling back from the white petals. Each individual bloom reminded me of a dancer.

By the time I got home I found I'd walked about six miles, and I did feel better for it.

Hirst Wood Reserve

HWRG, the Hirst Wood Regeneration Group, whose endeavours I mentioned yesterday, have been responsible for the hard work and planning behind the little nature reserve near Hirst Wood lock. I had a walk around it recently and enjoyed the sight of spring bulbs in flower and hints of buds on the trees. From its beginnings as a boggy field in 2015 (see HERE), and despite some vandalism, it has grown and blossomed (literally) into a very pleasant and fruitful area, enjoyed by the local community and schools. Very much a case of 'from little acorns, great oak trees grow'.

No self-respecting nature reserve is without its own bug hotel:

This one had quite a friendly cat too. It was sleek and well cared for, so I'm sure it has a proper warm, cosy home somewhere nearby and just comes down to the reserve for an adventure. It didn't really want its photo taking!

Dam acrobatics

Another camera club outing took us to Adel Dam Nature Reserve on the outskirts of Leeds. I seem to have been making a habit, this summer, of going to places where I really need more zoom on my zoom lens! I would find it hard to carry a large lens around, so I'll just have to make do with the one I've got. I don't usually do a lot of nature photography - and indeed, the first impressions of Adel Dam didn't reveal a lot to photograph anyway, apart from the very peaceful waterside scene. It was a warm, muggy day with not a hint of a breeze so the reflections were near perfect.

Patient observation from the hides, as so often, started to unpack a little more activity. There are several bird feeding stations around the reserve and families of blue and great tits were active. At this time of year, the juveniles still look like pale watercolour impressions compared to their more definitely marked and coloured parents. We saw lots of grey squirrels too, playfully leaping about and shamelessly helping themselves to the peanuts from the feeders, despite measures that had been taken to try to keep them off.

There were a few ducks, mostly mallard, all looking rather dull and 'female', since the males all lose their coloured plumage in the summer. I think I spotted some female mandarin ducks too - much less showy than the flamboyant males but with a distinctive white eyestripe. Then (below) we saw a little grebe (sometimes called a dabchick, which name rather suits it).

Notable 'spots' at the feeding stations included some great spotted woodpeckers, by far the most common of the three species of woodpecker found in the UK.

The acrobat above, enjoying pecking at a fatball, is a juvenile, which has a much larger patch of red on its crown than the adult male. It wasn't put off by the great tit pecking away at the top of the same piece of fat.



On the left, the absence of red on the bird at the top suggests this is the adult female, whereas the one at the bottom is, I think, the juvenile again.
























The acrobatics were contagious... A jay appeared (below) and seemed quite content to feed completely upside down at the feeder! You wonder how they cling on at that angle!

Compare the meerkats

As well as the big beasts, there are plenty of smaller creatures at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park  - cuter, if not exactly cuddly. Meerkats are much more popular since the rise of the insurance comparison site featuring them! They are rather sweet and very funny, alert and active, standing sentry and warning the rest of their clan with alarm calls when danger is lurking.

Squirrel monkeys are highly intelligent, with the highest brain-to-body ratio of any primate, including humans. The one in my photo was figuring out how to use a piece of plastic pipe with holes in. It seemed fascinated by it.

Lemurs are creatures somewhere between a cat and a squirrel, with very long tails. There are two different species at YWP: red-bellied and ring-tailed. Both are native to Madagascar, endangered by land clearance, hunting and climate change. They like to live in groups and were playing and grooming each other.

Wallabies are kept at YWP just, I think, for their cuteness factor. Coming from Australia and Tasmania, they are not particularly at risk. They are kept in a grassy compound, among trees, where visitors can walk through on a central path and watch them at close quarters. The animals weren't bothered in the least. The mother below had a tiny Joey (baby) in her pouch, here with its head and a foot poking out, but an older sibling was also constantly trying to stick its head in to suckle. The mum was very patient in dealing with the constant demands.

There are so many species of antelope and deer in the world and I can't identify most of them. I don't think I've ever heard of the ones in the photo below. They are Kafue Flats lechwe, which are found only in the Kafue Flats area of Zambia. I thought them very pretty, with their big, dark eyes. 

Well, I had such a good day out at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. I highly recommend it to anyone who lives within travelling distance.

The rarest of rare

Spot the leopard...  Spot would be an apt name for a leopard, wouldn't it? But I mean can you see it in the picture above? It is lounging high on a platform (top centre of the photo) looking out over the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. Of all the animals I saw, this was the one that thrilled me the most. It is a truly magnificent beast - a critically endangered Amur leopard, native to temperate forests in the far east of Russia and north east China. Teetering on the edge of extinction due to poaching (for fur), prey scarcity and a diminishing gene pool, there are believed to be less than 70 surviving in the wild. The captive leopards here and in other facilities across the world are all part of a breeding programme designed to reintroduce animals to the wild.

Isn't it gorgeous? I actually found myself tearing up as I watched this truly awesome, beautiful big cat.

Equally impressive and equally endangered in the wild are the Amur tigers, from the same region of Russia/China. The three at YWP (one male, two females) are part of a breeding programme to conserve the species. There are believed to be less than 500 left in the wild. Three cubs born here in 2015 have now moved on to other locations around the world as part of the breeding programme. It's another gorgeous beast, roaming the 'Land of the Tiger', a large reserve with woodland, grassland, rocks, waterfalls and pools that allows the tigers plenty of space to explore.

There is more interesting information about the animals and the various conservation programmes on the YWP website HERE.

Weird and wonderful

The Yorkshire Wildlife Park (YWP) is home to some very weird and wonderful creatures. Whoever would imagine a giraffe? They are graceful beasts, constantly on the move, those long necks swaying, arching and curling round each other like strands of seaweed underwater. (Did you know they only have seven vertebrae in their necks, just like us?) They also have lusciously long eyelashes.  The YWP has four giraffes - two reticulated (with dark patches and bright white lines, native to the Horn of Africa), one hybrid and a rare Rothschild's giraffe (with less well-defined patches and creamier lines). The latter are native to Uganda and Kenya but it is estimated only 1500 survive in the wild. The four of them share a (tall!) purpose built house, big enough for 16 animals, and during the day are free to roam a large area of sand and grassland reserve. 

Whoever would imagine a zebra too? This one is a Grévy's zebra, more donkey than horse-like in appearance. Their patterning, up close, is amazing.

Even odder in appearance is the okapi, looking like it's made of spare parts from other animals! They live in dense forests in central Africa and are rarely seen, but are believed (from studies of their dung) to be declining. The okapi nurtured at YWP are therefore very important as part of the conservation effort.

Here's another weird little creature I'd never heard of - an agouti, a rodent that inhabits the rainforests and savannah of central South America. It has teeth and jaws strong enough to open a brazil nut! Known as 'jungle gardeners', they often forget where they have buried nuts and seeds, and thereby help plants and trees to grow.

In the same walk-through reserve, I saw these mara (below), native to Argentina. They look like a cross between a small deer and a large rabbit but are in fact large rodents, who mate for life and breed... well... like rabbits! They are threatened in the wild because of habitat loss.

Isn't nature amazing?

Going wild

At first glance, this might look like just another park with a lake... You'd be wrong. Look more closely and you'll see the king of beasts lounging there, lazily surveying the scene. This is the Yorkshire Wildlife Park (YWP), near Doncaster, where I spent a very happy day being awed and delighted by some of the wondrous range of creatures gracing our planet. YWP was established about ten years ago, aiming to be a place where people could observe, interact with and learn about animals and to be a centre of excellence for the conservation of global biodiversity.

Some of the first large animals YWP acquired were a pride of African lions that had been kept in very poor conditions (due to lack of knowledge and funds) in a Romanian zoo. They were brought to Yorkshire thanks to a public appeal and established in a new 10 acre reserve, where they have regained their health and have become a favourite with visitors.

There are also three Eastern Black Rhinos, rehomed from German zoos. These are critically endangered in the wild in East Africa, as poachers target their horns.  It is hoped that the young male and female at YWP may one day mate and help with the global conservation efforts for this magnificent (though rather odd-looking!) animal.

Another big beast to be found at YWP is the polar bear. There are currently four, accommodated in a 10 acre purpose built reserve (one of the world's biggest polar bear reserves). It's not so strange that they live on land like this, rather than on ice. Polar bears in the South Hudson Bay region spend up to seven months a year in similar conditions. All the YWP bears have come from Europe, from zoos or breeding programmes. In the wild, polar bears are classed as a vulnerable species because of climate change, so it's important that study, conservation - both in the wild and in captivity - and rehabilitation of rescued bears are carried out.

The Yorkshire Wildlife Park is a walk-through park (not a drive-through safari park) but the animals are kept in very large, secure reserves. The larger species can be viewed from walkways and viewing platforms, whilst visitors can enter some areas to see the smaller creatures close at hand. There are regular educative talks scheduled around the park, feeding times to watch and visitors can also book 'experience days' where they can get closer to the animals and see behind the scenes with the guidance of a ranger. It's actually really interesting and I think the animals are very well cared for, healthy and comfortable.

Welsh Wildlife Centre, Cardigan

Wales: It was a good walk from our flat upstream along the River Teifi to the Welsh Wildlife Centre and Teifi Marshes Nature Reserve - a return trip for us, as we enjoyed a visit the last time we were in Wales. Run by the Welsh Wildlife Trust, it has hides looking out over the river and areas of marsh and reedbed. It's popular and you would no doubt see more if you went early or late in the day, when there'd be fewer disturbances. Nevertheless we were pleased to see a little egret fishing. We saw them occasionally on the estuary outside our flat but this one was much closer.

The hides are all named and in the Kingfisher Hide we saw... a magnificent grey heron:

and - would you believe it! - a kingfisher. That was a real thrill. We watched it for quite a while as it was sitting on a branch and then diving for fish. It was too far away for a good photo (my lens isn't long enough and this is heavily cropped) but it's the best image I've ever got of a kingfisher. I don't know why they are so exciting as they are not uncommon on our rivers. I guess it's their vibrant colour and the speed with which they move, so that you rarely get more than a glimpse of a flash of electric blue.

After that excitement, it was time for a coffee in the Visitor Centre, though I stopped to capture some pretty pink hawthorn, which is much rarer than the usual white blossom.

The Visitor Centre is an imaginative glass and wood structure, with a nice café on the upper level and a shop and educative displays lower down.

The joy of holidays

I've recently returned from a holiday in Wales with a couple of good friends. We had - amazingly - much better weather than it had been at home, with only one day of heavy rain plus another sharp shower when we happened, fortuitously, to be in a café. Mind you, we spent a fair bit of time in cafés, coffee and cake being, in our view, a major component of a good holiday!

The photo above is from one of the stops we made on our outward journey. It's a lovely area near Aberystwyth, known as Bwlch Nant yr Arian, where there are walks and mountain biking trails. The brilliant sunshine made the lake and mountain scenery look spectacular, though it was actually extremely cold. We stretched our legs with a walk around the lake, enjoying the signs of spring in the young bilberries and bright foliage.    

Beautiful bluebells

The nature reserve the kind lady told me about is Low Wood, managed by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It is apparently particularly notable for its bluebells, and I have to say that they are stunning. It's hard to give a true impression of an English bluebell wood in photographs. Trust me, it's ten times more spectacular than this... It's also hard not to get carried away taking pictures. I hope you enjoy these.