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Countryman
Diary - December 2007
Christmas Day 2006
While the majority are preparing meals, overeating,
clearing up, arguing, playing games and falling asleep in front
of the TV I’m making the most of the short daylight hours
outdoors with friends in the Lake District. It’s unseasonably
warm and the fells are hidden by a curtain of light mist and
everything – the sky, the lakes, the mountains, the trees – is
grey. But the place is magical. Not many people are about, even
on the paths around Windermere, but those who are offer a cheery
greeting.
There’s almost a crowd as we enter Ambleside.
Throughout the rest of the year vacant car parking spaces are
rarer than sightings of the real Santa but today you take your
pick and even the wardens are having a day off. A gaggle of Chinese
tourists insist I take a photo of them feeding a variety of birds
too idle to fend for themselves. They tell me their tour guide
assured a traditional British Christmas with snow and reindeers
and a fat Santa dishing out presents. I’m sure their hotel
laid on all the appropriate gimmicks but the weather certainly
wasn’t going to put on a time-honoured seasonal show.
On the lake the birds were putting on their
own display. There are more than a thousand ducks, geese and
swans living on Windermere throughout the year but during winter
this doubles with wintering goldeneye, tufted duck, coot, pochard
and red-breasted mergansers flying in from Scandinavia and Eastern
Europe.
Christmas is enchanting with young children,
can be indifferent with the family and lonely on your own. Fortunately,
Nature cares little about our customs, what we expect and what
we want. It hands out wonderful free presents all year round
and the festive period is a great time to get out and enjoy the
countryside and wildlife.*
By late afternoon it was colder and even more
grey. We sat beside the ferry which was enjoying a rare day off
and my friend retold his Crier of Claife story (“Yes, we’ve
heard it before but do go on”): Centuries ago, on misty
evenings like this one, the ferrymen here would often hear strange
high-pitched calls for a boat to come across the water. The elder
boatmen feared to go but one night a young ferryman scoffed at
them and rowed across. He was gone for hours and on his return
whatever he had seen had terrified him so much that his hair
turned grey and he couldn't speak. The next day he died.
The legend has several variations and one claims
that local people asked a monk who lived on one of the islands
in Windermere to exorcise the ghost. On Christmas Day (now there’s
a coincidence) he took a bell and bible across the lake, and
confined the ghost to the quarry and woods ‘until men should
walk dryshod across the lake’. To this day there are stories
of walkers being followed by a hooded figure at dusk on the heights
of Claife, near the edge of the lake. With a shudder I suggested
we headed back home for another kind of spirit.
Egret enters housing debate
A first for Berkshire’s breeding birds
has been confirmed by the Berkshire Ornithological Club (BOC).
The little egret, (pictured left) an elegant white heron, has
bred for the first time in Berkshire this summer at the largest
heronry in the county. But there is a sting in the tail to this
exciting news – the breeding place of this fledgling-first
is exactly where plans are in progress to build 7,500 houses
over the next decade as part of the Kennet Valley Park development.
BOC, the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), and
the RSPB are all concerned about the impact of this development
on nationally important breeding birds, like little egrets and
nightingales, as well as other wildlife. This area is the most
important heronry in Berkshire and has around twenty annually
occupied nests. Kennet Valley Park developers propose a small
piece of land south of Reading as mitigation for the loss of
wildlife but according to BBOWT the habitat is very different
and they say the chances of the birds relocating naturally are
slim.
The trust is also hoping to raise £800,000
by 1 December to buy a piece of land on the Upper River Ray on
the Bucks/Oxon border. A land of big skies and atmospheric mists,
this rare floodplain habitat is one of the last strongholds of
the curlew in the region, and is an important area for all kinds
of other wildlife. If the trust, which has already been given
a generous grant from WREN (a landfill tax distributor), buys
the land adjacent to one of its nature reserves, it hopes to
restore the natural floodplain which will be great for both people
and wildlife – taking pressure off the rivers and helping
to alleviate flooding downstream. It will also form a massive
piece in a jigsaw linking the whole wetland landscape together
down to the RSPB’s Otmoor reserve.
To help call 01865 775476 or visit www.bbowt.org.uk
Will there be any nasty viruses involved?
I’ve found the perfect Christmas pastime
for my erstwhile farming correspondents Robin Page and Humphrey
Phelps, although I’m sure the latter won’t mind me
commenting that this particular present may be beyond his technical
know-how. Instead of being up to their armpits in slurry and
red tape they can now sit back comfortably at their desks and
live the life of a farmer via a computer screen through a ‘farming
simulation’ scenario on the internet. I’ve probably
already lost Humphrey and others, but bear with me.
In something called SimAgri, dreamt up by a
French farmer, the ‘players’ can rear animals, work
the fields, purchase machines and equipment for a farm, construct
buildings and much more. They can decide to become equipment
dealers, managers of an artificial insemination centre or start
a partnership and create an agricultural cooperative. Each animal
species has its own breeds, each breed has its own stats (genetics,
milk production, weight etc.). It’s the same for the crops,
with yields varying from one region to another. Apparently there
are currently more than 20,000 active ‘farmers’ participating.
No money passes hands... pretty similar to real life then, uh?
Seems easy to me, this farming malarkey – maybe this is
where some politicians learn about agriculture? Call up www.simagri.com
for the good life. For those without internet… thank your
lucky stars.
A very merry Christmas to all our readers and
advertisers from the staff at The Countryman.
Paul Jackson |
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