August 25th, 2009
It’s good to see that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been up holidaying with his family in the Keswick area this month and touring some of our favourite haunts round Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater.
The Lake District Herald (15 August) reports that the PM took an evening launch trip on Derwentwater and was particularly interested in Derwent Isle and the house there (See photo above).
He may not have realised that he’s in good company. Another well known holiday maker in the Keswick area was similarly fascinated by the scene. Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, spent several holidays at Lingholm (bottom left of photo opposite) in the early 1900s and had her red squirrels in the book sailing out on wooden rafts across Derwentwater to St Herbert’s Island, 500 yards to the south.
Full details are in Margaret Lane’s excellent book, The Magic Years of Beatrix Potter (pages 108-111). A copy of this is in The Larches’ library.
Posted in Local news, The Larches, Wildlife | No Comments »
August 20th, 2009
We’ve been in Jackson Hole, Wyoming‘s lakeland this last week checking out the differences between Lake District Parks in the US and the UK. (See blog post – Lakeland holiday cottage).
One similarity we’d been expecting was breeding ospreys, but we didn’t get a sight at all – until the day we left. We had noted the strange bundle of sticks on the top of the electricity pole (see photo opposite) the day before but assumed this was an old nest.
Passing the pole on the way out, we could see a head and beak jutting out from the nest and as we stopped there were cries from the young birds. Over the next 30 minutes we were treated to a great display (see below) as parents and young moved around the nest and flew over the ponds.
The difference? Well here in the Grand Teton National Park the birds just get on with their lives oblivious to traffic, noise and humans; and attract little interest from passers by. In Cumbria as one of the prime visitor attractions for the whole of the Park, the ospreys are viewed annually by over 50,000 people from the watch point in Dodd Wood above Bassenthwaite; and for five months they receive 24 hour protection from an army of volunteers.
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August 17th, 2009
We’re in Wyoming this last week for our son’s wedding in Jackson Hole. It’s given us a chance to check out lakeland holiday accommodation US style in the Teton National Park and compare it with Cumbria’s Lake District. Of course The Larches is hard to beat, but our pine built cabin here with decking and a hot tub gives it a close run! At an altitude of 6000 feet and surrounded by aspen trees, we look out across the 8 mile wide Jackson Hole valley.
There are similarities with the Lake District National Park, though here it’s on a grander scale. Grand Teton rises steeply to 12,700 feet just 10 miles to our north and I set off a herd of elk on my run one morning. Yesterday we found the bison. The two parks were founded in their present forms in the years 1950-51 and are roughly the same size. Both focus on conservation and are hugely popular, but the real difference comes with the maps!
Where the Cumbrian fells have often old Viking names, the US maps are littered with a modern vocabulary like Surprise, Solitude and Amphitheatre Lakes, Disappointment Peak, Battleship Mountain, Death and Paintbrush Canyons, Symmetry Spire; or have names of settlers, soldiers or surveyors – Mt Owen and Bradley Lake.
The French trappers scored some hits too with the Gros Ventre (stomach) plain, Rendezvous Mountain [see photo above] and Teton (breast) the tallest peaks in the Park. Teewinot Mountain and Lake Taminah are just two of a few native American names which have survived the settlers’ onslaught!
Posted in Environment, Wildlife | 1 Comment »
June 28th, 2009
Had two squirrel sightings last week, but the long grass on the back bank had limited our viewing til cut. Would be good to get more photos of the squirrels, but it’s tricky – you have to have the camera ready all the time! The one here was taken last year with a telescopic lens.
Two tips if you want to see the squirrels – make sure there are hazel nuts in the feeding box and get up early in the morning. The kitchen’s a good look-out point. Photos from some earlier sightings are in the Wildlife section
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June 23rd, 2009
I was out on the marshes late last night - Midsummer’s Day + 1, so there’s plenty of light ….. Down past Thornthwaite Church and over the A66 and you’ve a new world to yourself.
I’m heading through the birdsong for Bog House. A pheasant clatters up squawking, where six months ago a deer had leaped from the snow as I passed. There’s a rainbow over Keswick and the river’s full after rain, but it’s the sun that has the best hand this evening, moving round the Derwent Valley amphitheatre to spotlight one by one the big names.
Clough Head is first – a brilliant yellow with a rare quasi-lenticular cloud show above, then it’s Barrow’s turn, the dark green profile of its ridge sharp against the evening sky. Next Catbells – it’s an unusual shape when seen here from the north. The clouds slowly shift while I thread my way through a birch thicket. As I climb the river bank, to NNE below a clouded Skiddaw, Dodd and its woods are slowly turning a golden green and brown. The top is shorn of trees, but the lower sections retain a thick canopy.
This is osprey terrain now and I can see the position of the nest. The parent birds aren’t flying, but a blackbird sings her heart out to me for a full four minutes from the top of a field post. Only as I get back to The Larches at 9.45 does the sun’s spotlight on Dodd click off. What an evening of son et lumière it’s been. Who needs a home entertainment system, when the best show’s outside?
POSTSCRIPT: For a map and description of a longer variant of this circular walk and more photos see Walk No 2 of the Walking and transport section of the site.
Tags: "Derwent marshes", "Lake District walks", Bassenthwaite, Lake District cottage, Thornthwaite
Posted in Walking, Wildlife | No Comments »
He may not have realised that he’s in good company. Another well known holiday maker in the Keswick area was similarly fascinated by the scene. Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, spent several holidays at Lingholm (bottom left of photo opposite) in the early 1900s and had her red squirrels in the book sailing out on wooden rafts across Derwentwater to St Herbert’s Island, 500 yards to the south.
