Some Good News on Birds of Prey in Northern England

A MerlinDendroica cerulea / Foter / CC BY

While walking in the uplands of Northern England I like to keep my eyes open for birds of prey. And not only when walking. Recently while driving in the Eden Valley I  spotted a large buzzard hovering and then sweeping away over the fields to the left. It was splendid to watch, and I stopped for a while to admire it.

I'm not an expert on birds and am very far from being a "twitcher". I don't even own a pair of binoculars apart from one that came as a free gift with a membership (was it the National Trust?) a year or two ago. Having said that I do like to hear of rare species of birds being spotted, and of dwindling bird populations reviving. From time to time I've commented on various blogs about eagle owls, ospreys and red kites.

Today, though, it was good to read some good news about a much smaller bird of prey, the merlin.

"Britain's smallest birds of prey are flying in to nest on Yorkshire grouse moors which have helped stave off their downfall. A new study commissioned by the Moorland Association has found dramatic gains in merlin populations on globally recognised heather moorland managed by gamekeepers for wild red grouse like those found in the Dales, Nidderdale and the North York Moors."
See the full story at the Yorkshire Post

This incident reminded me that I still have some work to do on a site I started on last year but never finished. It's called "Birds in Books". Checking back on it I find that I did publish it but did not finish adding all the pages that I intended. There is, though, a splendid book from the RSPB on British birds of prey. Take a look.
Another raptor article: Ospreys in the Kielder Forest

75 Years of 'The Dalesman'

Congratulations are due to 'The Dalesman', the premier magazine of the Yorkshire Dales. A magazine whose launch occurred just a few months before the outbreak of war might be expected to have disappeared without trace. But not 'The Dalesman'. It's still going strong. Well done! And here's to the next 75 years.

Celebrating 75 years of Dalesman

The Queen and Prime Minister have sent messages of congratulations to the Dalesman magazine, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this April.

The Dalesman was first published in April 1939, just months before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Read more here

Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale

Another "Bit" - Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells by Alfred Wainwright

Ever since I started my online bookshop at TheLakeDistrict.inBooks.co uk I have been selling copies of the Pictorial Guides. Consistently over the years they have been among the most popular titles, both in their original format and also the second revised edition. In fact the product heading my statistics with the highest number sold is the Wainwright Guides revised edition, not as a single title, but the full boxed set. I've sold more of these than any other single item. In fact they have been so popular that some time ago I created a special site devoted specifically to them: The Wainwright Guides

Now it appears that there's going to be a further revision. It will take several years as every one of Wainwright's routes up every mountain has to be checked carefully for changes. I suppose my initial thought about this was, "Help", no-one's going to be buying the current edition now.

However, I don't think that will happen, simply because if you're going to take a Lake District walking holiday this year you need your Wainwright Guide now, not in three years time. And when you've become so hooked on Lakeland fellwalking that you come back again and again you'll have given it so much use that you'll be ready for a fresh copy by the time the 3rd edition arrives on the scene.

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I hope you found that interesting. If you didn't then don't give up on me. Just come back for more later. There'll be a lot of different stuff here.

Woolsthorpe - Isaac Newton's Apple Tree

Driving often up and down the A1 I'd intended to visit Woolsthorpe for several years but somehow always seemed to have a reason to keep driving north or south rather than turning off the main road.  Eventually, however, I was travelling down to Cambridge on a day when I had plenty of time for a stop, so at last I got to see the famous apple tree.

I have to say that there's nothing particularly spectacular about the tree apart from the fact that it's very old. It would almost certainly have been chopped down years ago if it weren't for the history associated with it.

This is no ordinary apple tree. This is where, allegedly, Sir Isaac Newton watched an apple fall to the ground (or did it land on his head?) and began to speculate as to why it found it necessary to go directly downwards. From this came the theory of gravitation, explicating the concept of gravity.

Today the manor house, the garden and the tree are all in the care of the National Trust, and a very interesting hour or two can be spent going through the rooms of the house. There is much there to learn about the great 17th and early-18th century scientist.

To say simply that Newton was an outstanding man is almost to belittle him.

Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos.

Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In addition to his work on the calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, and developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function.

Extract from Wikipedia, Isaac Newton

And that's only a start to the listing of his many accomplishments.

I left it too many years to visit Woolsthorpe (despite the fact that I also wanted to see the village church where my 3x-great-uncle was curate for many years). I'd recommend that if you're passing by on the A1 you make the detour. You'll not regret it.

Woolsthorpe Manor

Amazing collection of First World War memorabilia found in attic

This year being a hundred years on from the start of World War I there is a lot of interest in items related to it. Some are relatively trivial but this story in The Northern Echo is quite amazing.

Relatives and friends emptying the large old Houghton-le-Spring house of a friend who had died aged 92 thought they had already found an amazing collection of First World War memorabilia.

Nothing prepared them, though, for what they found when they explored the old servants' quarters in the attic rooms. ...

Read more at The Northern Echo

New homes on farms - Planning roles change

At last it looks as though there may be hope for many delapidated farm buildings that for decades have been falling into ruin.

Planning rules are changing and farmers in many cases will be able to restore and adapt buildings that have increasingly become blots on the landscape while planners resisted their development.

National Parks and Areas of Outanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) will be exempt from the changes but it is to be hoped that planners in these areas will increasingly recognise that an expanding population of roofless, collapsing structures adds nothing to the beauty of the hillsides.

A good article on the subject here

Beatrix Potter - Lover of the Lake District

Lake District holidays did not commence with the creation of the National Park. Even back in the late eighteenth century people who could afford the journey enjoyed relaxing in the beautiful "newly discovered" area of the Northwest. But the late-nineteenth century, with rail travel in full swing, families such as that of the young Beatrix Potter would rent a house for weeks at a time to get away from city life.

Lake District walks were her great pleasure. She fell in love with the Cumbrian countryside, and as the Beatrix Potter stories started to become well known and she began to prosper as a writer she bought a property which eventually became her main home - Hill Top Farm, now in the care of the National trust.

In early life she had fallen in love with her publisher. They became secretly engaged but he died at a young age before they could be married. Many years later she married William Heelis, a country lawyer.

Nowadays what was his office in Hawkshead is also a National Trust property operating as the Beatrix Potter Gallery. Many of her watercolours and sketches, originally produced for her books, are on display there. Other highlights of the gallery's displays are items relating to the film starting Renne Zellwegger, 'Miss Potter'.

She was an astute business woman. Not only the Beatrix Potter books but many other related products added to her wealth, much of which was put to use in purchasing land in the Lake District for conservation purposes. and especially to protect the traditional hill farming way of life and the area's distinctive Herdwick sheep.

The many books by Beatrix Potter are today popular around the world as is confirmed by the great numbers of international visitors who each year flock to see her old farmhouse. The gift of a Beatrix Potter complete collection
has become a treasured possession of thousand, children, teenagers and adults alike. And it's not only books

Hawkshead village is well worth a visit. It has the school that the 19th century poet laureate William Wordsworth attended, as well as the Beatrix Potter Gallery. Hill Top is not far away, on the road towards the Windermere ferry.

Peaceful Loweswater in the English Lake District - The Western Lakes

The western area of England's Lake District contains five main lakes, three of which (Crummock Water, Buttermere and Loweswater) are close together while Wastwater and Ennerdale Water are rather separate from them by mountains.

Of all the lakes in the National Park Loweswater is probably one of the least well known, Allong with with the better known Buttermere and Crummock Water it feeds the River Cocker which a few miles downstream merges with the Derwent. Mellbreak is the mountain that towers over the eastern end of the Loweswater. Carling Knott and Burnbank Fell rise above its southern shore. However, at the lake's western end the land becomes more gently undulating and pastoral. Loweswater is very small, even less in area than Rydal Water, being only about one mile long.

The National Trust owns both the lake and much of the land around it, just as it does in the rest of the Buttermere valley. They do permit rowing boats, and permits can be obtained for fishing. Most people, however, are more interested in the walking opportunities and there is a nice walk with a few possible variants that circuits the lake.

This is not a place that will resonate with people wanting slot machines and noisy bars, not even sailing trips on motor launches. It is a quiet place for calm reflection or simply to empty one's mind of all the hassles of everyday life.

A First Post

Just in case anyone is wondering what on earth is meant by "Brit Bits and Bats", well I'm British (and proud of it) and this is a blog on which I'll put a variety of bits and pieces about all sorts of subjects - in other words, "bits and bats". So that's the language problem solved. Now to go away and write something more substantial.