Grey

Not just grey but cold.

Yet Another Day of February Spring

The perfect weather cannot last more than another day but some of us have been lucky enough to be here in this ideal setting to enjoy it. Much better than in the suburban streets and gardens despoiled by house alarms, chain saws and shredders and sundry other power tools beloved by modern man.


The 8 pointer above was relaxed about our presence. Less so his companion which from its size I would guess to be a very young hind.

Like Old Times

Unseasonal mildness during the day and frost overnight in the middle of a period of calm high pressure weather all seemed a bit old fashioned on Sunday morning. This was caused by the lack of noise: for once there was no wind and, at 7.30 am anyway, no traffic noise even in the parts of Blacka closer to Hathersage Road. Usually the motor biking fraternity take to the roads early on Sundays taking the opportunity when the heavy traffic making for the city and the motorways beyond is out of the way. Those of us who relish peace and quiet are thus normally denied even Sunday morning peace. But today was, for once, different. Birds were singing and all was still and gleaming.

Early Spring

Calm and mild almost unreal for February. A stormcock and a blackbird singing on the edge of the woods and this stag posing for photos, not really bothered by our presence

Galoshes Compulsory

Not many people will be going this way today. It's a pretty quiet spot on a Tuesday anyway. Otherwise a profit could be made by anyone with an inflatable dinghy ferrying people across this temporary lake.

Even this wet blustery winter has exceeded itself this morning and a dry foothold is hardly to be found.

Early Monday Browsing

The five deer were fairly happy when we were upwind of them, but quickly dispersed when they realised we were coming towards them from the other direction later on.



At first it seemed like four stags and a hind or young deer, but a closer look suggests the young deer on the left may also have had antlers.


We came across them again running through the trees:

Wild Surprises

Blacka Blogger has tried to make it clear in this blog that what he values in this landscape is that it is changing. It does not stay the same year on year. A progression is happening and this brings surprises. All is dictated by the interaction of different natural processes often competing with one another. The joy of it all is that it is not dictated by that bane of modern life managerialism - office dwelling clones whose purpose it is to control everything, and when they are not controlling they are justifying themselves in weasel words.

Change is disturbing to many people who fear that what is round the corner may be what they do not like. Blacka Blogger deals with this worry very simply. We live in a world where change is unavoidable, a kind of change that is driven by human agencies and the economy. And depressing it usually is, dominated by greed and various forms of self interest. In nature the forces of change dance to their own tunes defying the best efforts of motivated and "driven" humans to control them.

The steep incline on the east side of Blacka Moor has changed when the managers were elsewhere with their eye off the ball. Heather has been replaced by bracken and birch and this has brought in other creatures, larger mammals who welcome the very absence of human management. This morning brought just the kind of surprise that wild landscapes bring. I recently drew attention to the way that light snow clings to paths leaving them white while the rest of the taller vegetation remains apparently untouched. Here is an example:


The delightful surprise this morning was the revelation of animal tracks normally unnoticed all over the eastern incline of Blacka, all picked out in the snow. Deer and badgers and foxes walking through the bracken litter have created their own routes and compressed the dead plant remains only for it to show up in high contrast when light snow picks it out. What joy.