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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/14/country-diary-bannisdale-cumbria-fells-planting-river-mint
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| Country diary: the fells are buzzing with hope | Country diary: the fells are buzzing with hope |
| (25 days later) | |
| It was midday, but already the sun was low to the alder-fringed ridge of Dryhowe Pasture. A buzzard passed above the skyline, its underwings and tail stained like December’s landscape: peat-dark, and the paler patches like snow-remnants on winter bracken. A kestrel swerved elegantly into view, then dropped into the top of a birch tree, sunlight filtering through its fanned wings. | It was midday, but already the sun was low to the alder-fringed ridge of Dryhowe Pasture. A buzzard passed above the skyline, its underwings and tail stained like December’s landscape: peat-dark, and the paler patches like snow-remnants on winter bracken. A kestrel swerved elegantly into view, then dropped into the top of a birch tree, sunlight filtering through its fanned wings. |
| With nowhere to park and two miles back to the main road, Bannisdale is usually a tranquil place, but today the buzz of machinery echoed around the valley. An all-terrain vehicle tracked around the fellside, dumping bundles of stakes at intervals. At Dry Howe farm, bristling bundles of stripling trees were being loaded into a pickup ready to be zipped up to one of these planting sites. | With nowhere to park and two miles back to the main road, Bannisdale is usually a tranquil place, but today the buzz of machinery echoed around the valley. An all-terrain vehicle tracked around the fellside, dumping bundles of stakes at intervals. At Dry Howe farm, bristling bundles of stripling trees were being loaded into a pickup ready to be zipped up to one of these planting sites. |
| Thousands of birch, holly, hawthorn, rowan, oak, alder and aspen are being planted, to create habitats of indigenous wood-pasture – of tree cover and open grazing. A kestrel flickered along the prickly spine of the new fence built to separate the sheep from the trees. | Thousands of birch, holly, hawthorn, rowan, oak, alder and aspen are being planted, to create habitats of indigenous wood-pasture – of tree cover and open grazing. A kestrel flickered along the prickly spine of the new fence built to separate the sheep from the trees. |
| Further on, beyond a bank of glacial moraine, the infant river Mint disappeared behind a drystone wall above what was once a tarn but has become a dry ochre basin of Juncus grasses. Canalised in a previous century, the Mint is to be re-meandered to its original course through the valley bottom, and Dub Ings will become a tarn once more. Like the new trees, this work – done in partnership with Natural England and another local farm – is intended to lessen the effects of flooding on communities further downstream; the memory of Storm Desmond is never far away. | Further on, beyond a bank of glacial moraine, the infant river Mint disappeared behind a drystone wall above what was once a tarn but has become a dry ochre basin of Juncus grasses. Canalised in a previous century, the Mint is to be re-meandered to its original course through the valley bottom, and Dub Ings will become a tarn once more. Like the new trees, this work – done in partnership with Natural England and another local farm – is intended to lessen the effects of flooding on communities further downstream; the memory of Storm Desmond is never far away. |
| A raven slid a parabolic glide above the valley, then the kestrel, higher still, like a floater on the iris. Peregrines used to nest in the crags, the farmer had told me, but last summer had been too wet. I felt the thrum of anticipation at the increasing wildlife the new woodlands will generate; how in helping communities, nature is given a helping hand too. | A raven slid a parabolic glide above the valley, then the kestrel, higher still, like a floater on the iris. Peregrines used to nest in the crags, the farmer had told me, but last summer had been too wet. I felt the thrum of anticipation at the increasing wildlife the new woodlands will generate; how in helping communities, nature is given a helping hand too. |
| To order Karen Lloyd’s The Blackbird Diaries, recently published by Saraband (£12.99), at a special price go to guardianbookshop.com | To order Karen Lloyd’s The Blackbird Diaries, recently published by Saraband (£12.99), at a special price go to guardianbookshop.com |