Relaxing

You can't be eating all the time.

Being Watched

All the photos posted yesterday were more than a year old. So something of a coincidence this morning. Once again most people would not have noticed this.

Normal view:

Zoomed view:

“A true sense of wilderness” ??

“A true sense of wilderness”!!! Quoted from the Sheffield Moors Partnership’s draft Master Plan.    Wilderness? My artificial leg!!

Where do I start? The old unreconstructed and unmodernised farm I was working on in the 1960s had more wildness than moors like Burbage and Hallam and the Eastern Moors. So had the city bomb sites and disused air raid shelters I played in as a child! These dreary monoculture moors retain the repressed character of grouse-shooting estates long after they ceased to be so, too much so to inspire anyone looking for mystery and excitement. What you see is what you b***** well get - miles and miles of it. That may be fine for someone who doesn't look about them much maybe on a jogging exercise or speeding through on a mountain bike. Many of those will have other priorities such as the activity itself. But we deserve better than this and so do our grandchildren. If we want to bring up new generations  to have some imagination we need to nourish their senses with some genuinely natural landscape, not tell them that what is patently artificial is ‘true’ wilderness. God knows they get exposed to enough lies and spin these days.

Once Blacka started to go more wild after the managers sort of forgot about it, it developed some character and more natural beauty. That’s what the boring moors lack. They’ve been too managed. What’s the lesson? Who said “Sack the whole tribe of managers”?  
A bit harsh surely? Maybe we should just rewild the managers. They've spent too long in their offices. A case for "I'm a Manager, Get Me Into There" ?

Something a bit more wild:
Click pictures.

More on Farming and Landscapes

Following on from the previous post Farming or Nature:

Why is it that there has to be an either or?
Does farming the landscape have to make it unnatural?
Can't we have both alongside each other harmoniously?
What about the claims from the apologists for the farming and conservation industries that our landscape has been 'fashioned' by farming over the centuries and it's farming that makes it attractive?

That last one is the regular and overworked spin that's put on the situation by the vested interests. It really won't stand up to examination. Behind it is an assumption that every part of the landscape is better for the control and exploitation that has been visited upon it by those who farm, usually with livestock. Are the hills and moors really better looking for having no trees on them? Because that is what farm livestock does: their constant munchings have stopped the natural succession to a more wooded landscape. Those who benefit from the farm subsidies will tell us that we love it like that. And it's conceivable that some people might be tempted to agree without having any idea of how trees could make things worse.

But for once we might look at the valleys and the lower land where farming has a different role to that on the hills. Here are two pictures which should give pause for thought. The first is a recent picture looking to the slopes around Sheffield's Mayfield Valley. This is a favourite view and one much prized by estate agents. Some of its attraction is down to what it's not.

No housing estates for one. But it also shows a pleasing balance between scattered older settlements, irregular field shapes and occasional wooded copses that satisfy the eye when seen from a distance.  The attractiveness does depend though on the fact that you can't see the plastic bales, rusting farm machinery and wind blown feed bags that are standard around many farms. And how pretty is the grass in the fields when you get close up? Usually the range of plant life is very restricted indeed if there have been sheep or cows in the fields. The most attractive parts then are in the lanes where no cows stray. Grazed fields do not have a show of wild flowers. so the fields may be nice to see from a distance but there is nothing to look at close to.

Now look at this picture taken in early June on Blacka Moor a couple of years ago.

In the foreground everything is teeming with interest because it is unmanaged. In the distance is farmland at its best. That is where the sheep and cattle should be not up here in the hills where the deer do their own thing; their grazing has an effect but a moderate one tempered by their needs rather than the artificially engineered needs of meat production for the human market. It is not on the industrial level of specially bred cattle with a mission to lay waste all the vegetation.

We need large land areas where no farming, no farm grazing takes place so that the interest on the ground is maintained. Simply land that is free and unexploited.

Farming or Nature?

It really is a choice though the history of lobbying by special and vested interests has muddied the waters. Supposed compromises have led to certain assumptions being made. It's these that pollute those awful vision statements nobody reads except the managers. But they contrive to hamstring any attempt to have a fresh view.

From Sheffield Moors Partnership's draft Master Plan Key Issues:

"The latest employment figures show farming and land management to be significant, with the sector employing 3,500 people which comprises 18.5% of total employment in the National Park."

This is intended to justify farming the landscape and forestall attempts to get a fresh view of the moors as a natural landscape. That, of course, would not be good news for the land managers who worry for their jobs. Like so much else it's utterly disingenuous. Once again I think that these people are paid with public money to spin for self interest.

The National Park is not the Sheffield Moors nor vice versa. The moors are a part of it.  Burbage Moor, Houndkirk Moor,Big Moor, Blacka Moor do not employ people to any significant extent. In fact the main employment associated with them is conservation managers in offices writing reports and applications for grants. If there is the odd farmer involved he usually lives a long way off (Halfax in one case!!) delivers some sheep and then goes home!
Some parts of the Peak District National Park are overwhelmingly farmland and that explains the quoted figures. It is deceitful to imply that the moors are a vital part of the economy, apart from the conservation economy. But we know where this deceit comes from. As with Moors for the Future it is  about appeasing the shooting industry. The owners of private grouse moors want their exploitation to be part of the mainstream of what the National Park is all about so have worked hard to get themselves into key positions in the various boards and committees. Hence the constant cry that grouse shooting is a vital part of the economy. And because officers have had to accept that it transfers itself into this large area of public land:  "if it's moors it must be part of the economy". Self interest rules all.

What do we have to do to stop these people denying natural beauty in the landscape and promoting more and more years of totally uninspiring artificial land. This morning I went past a field of swedes. It was no more artificial than Houndkirk Moor.

Running of the Deer

The drama has not ended after all. Whether it's The Baron or another new contender there was much running about and plenty of bellowing in the sheep enclosure as 14 hinds were being claimed by a large and possessive stag. The immediate cause of the excitement was a persistent young male refusing to give up. Each time he approached he was driven off, not stopping to engage in combat. But the result was a great deal of hither and thithering across the slopes of The Buttresses.

Moving On

The natural year moves on with the arrival of a new month. Huge flocks of birds fly west. Starlings, jackdaws and other corvines and thrushes are the most numerous.

The Baron was with his hinds just a few days back.

Now he’s left them for some male company and conversation putting aside the recent rivalry. Bromance returns.

A more thoughtful pose. Was it all worth it? 

An alternative theory is that the fair sex has tired of his noise and restlessness and given him the push. Yesterday the two stags were together. Today a small group of hinds in the same place.