After spending the morning today testing ropes at my caving club's headquarters at Brackenbottom near Horton in Ribblesdale........
Photo of "The Dump" courtesy of Bradford Pothole Club.
I relaxed with my folks and took some shots in their garden. Here's one of the cherry blossom.
In the evening we went back to Sconce Lane to get on to the Little owl again to see if I could get some photos. Here's what I came up with.
Perhaps the highlight though was the Short-eared owl which quartered the moor within 50 meters of us and the drumming Snipe passing overhead. Both "amber list" species.
This consisted largely of rigging ropes, throwing lines in "throwbags" and jumping in to fast flowing water in order to recover "casualties" from the rapids. This last technique is known as "livebaiting". A risky approach to rescue but, in these controlled circumstances, great fun. The lucky guy above at least has a kayak between himself and the water. We just had wetsuits, helmets and boyancy aids. If nothing else the course was a powerful reminder of the incredible force of even modest amounts of water.
I'm now a Swiftwater First Responder and have the badge to prove it!
On Thursday evening I used my bat detector for the first time and was really chuffed to hear what I thought were Pipistrelles echolocating and feeding on insects over the river.
The Bat Conservation Trust has information on Pipistrelles and other bats on its website.
A positive on both counts though rather too distant/dark/fiddly to digiscope effectively.
and Rooks.
The Sconce Lane area is a special spot for me as the site of many happy cub and scout camps as a kid and today it's part of my regular route for biking. The place has a long history which you can read about in the PDF file here, from the homespun website of Granville Haigh (a old scout leader of mine).
Bradford Ornithological Group also have a Yellowhammer feeding station here in order to encourage its recovery. Another "red list" species, it's locally (and indeed nationally) scarce. BOG may be having some success. I've seen Yellowhammer in this area and on local moorland, albeit in small numbers, on a number of occasions.
I took this shot of another local resident while I was there too.
The building is over 200 years old and, although now converted into a bunkhouse, its sparse features give some insight into what life must have been like for Welsh farmers. However the superb Red Lion pub 20 minutes walk up the road at Penderyn must have taken some of the edge off things! Thanks to WSG for the picture.
Sandwiched between the South Wales "Valleys" coalfield to the south and the Brecon Beacons National Park to the north, the contrast between rural beauty and the social and physical landscapes of defunct heavy industry is especially apparent in this area.We visited Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, one of the longest cave systems in the UK at around 50km of passage. You can take a virtual tour here and enjoy some of the experience we had. We also visited Porth Yr Ogof a popular system with around 15 entrances concentrated in a wooded river valley where we enjoyed disappearing underground to follow refreshing streams and periodically emerging into spring sunshine. We followed the river upsteam a little way from where it sank underground and found toads mating in the shallows.
On Saturday we enjoyed a day's mountainbiking at the Afan Forest Park centre near Neath. All the trails here are tough but excellent fun. We completed The Wall trail.
To round off our visit to the land of song we called in at Ynys-hir RSPB Reserve near Machynlleth, where the highlight was Little Egret. I also took these photos.
You'll have to take my word for the fact that the image below is of one of two ospreys currently nesting north of Keswick.
You can find out more about ospreys in general and the project in particular here and here.
On Sunday I was back at East Barnby Outdoor Education Centre to assist colleagues with another residential. The river trip down the Esk in open canoes, from Ruswarp to Whitby harbour began in unpromising weather and the students had to make progress against a strong headwind at times.
However we were rewarded by the presence of a common seal hauled out on the river bank at lunchtime and bright sunshine on arrival at Whitby.
Today I worked voluntarily for Space to Grow, kayaking on Roundhay Park Lake in Leeds where White Rose Canoe Club have their headquarters. The youngsters were from Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) and who, for various reasons, are at risk of all manner of trouble. The youngsters are refered to PAYP through agencies like social services and youth offending teams.
Roundhay Park is a beautiful spot, the weather was fantastic, the activities fun (leading to a certificate) the staff upbeat and the kayaks were brand new "shiny" super-modern boats. What more incentive could there be! However, the youngsters were difficult to motivate at times. I can only wonder at the influences which have made them so lacking in enthusiasm for life. Perhaps constant fear of failure, being told "you're no good" and being put down for showing interest (by their parents in some cases) means they stop trying to succeed as a sort of defence mechanism. We did manage a few smiles though, all of the youngsters met small challenges at one point or another and I think we opened, at least a little way, an new avenue of opportunity for each of them.
