Grass roots - grazing in the city

Guest blogger Dave writes:

Urban agriculture is a concept which apparently originated in New York, and has since been enthusiastically taken up by metropolitan centres around the world, as here in the German capital Berlin.

Strange to think these sheep are grazing just  a couple of kilometres from the grim concrete fortress which was home to the former East Germany's secret police, the Staasi - hated and feared in equal measure by the GDR's beleaguered citizens.

As well as the flock, bees are thriving and producing honey amid the communist-era tower blocks.

This being Berlin, the local graffiti artists have also been hard at work making their own colourful mark on the landscape.

The city farm is adorned with antique ploughs and harrows dating back to when the area was a valuable source of agricultural produce.

Most Berliners live in flats, so access to private outdoor space is at a premium. Allotments are especially highly prized and hardly ever  come onto the open market. Known as "garden colonies", allotments also act as flourishing social centres. Most of the colonies boast a beer garden, and gardeners are keen on swapping their fruit and veg among themselves. The rules governing the colonies are dauntingly complicated, and as with British beach huts, you're not supposed to live on site. Still, for most colonists their allotment is a lifelong commitment.

 

Despite being roughly the same size geographically as London, Berlin's population is only about a third as big, and that lower density means there's plenty of greenery. And thanks to the super efficient German public transport system, no matter how far you venture out into the woods, there's always a tram, train or bus to get you home.   

Mobbed by sheep!

I've just noticed how often my posts feature the wildlife I come across when I'm out. Today started off quite sunny so I seized the moment and took a short walk, it turned out to be just 2 miles, around the edge of Alsager through an area called Oakhanger Moss. Quite a few local areas are called 'Moss' but some are now housing estates; I wanted to see what they look like nowadays when not built on.

It turned out to be a slightly odd kind of woodland, with a feel of complete abandonment, and lots of ferns and bracken growing where the sunlight filtered through.

I am not a fan of signs like this one, which feels rather stroppy in tone:

It made me reflect that, as a child growing up on a farm, there were no rules at all that I can remember. Unthinkable now. A recent walk through the grounds of Davenport Hall near Swettenham was absolutely plastered with signs about horses not walking on the grass verge, no ball games and so on.

However the highlight of this mini walk were these chaps, who came pelting across the field as I walked through. They came very close and left me with a big grin:

I assume they thought I might have food, as they soon headed off once I turned out to be food-free. And who says sheep are stupid? When I retraced my steps, they clearly remembered my rubbish food record and didn't so much as stir in my direction.

It turns out that Oakhanger Moss is an SSSI - right on my doorstep, and I had no idea. According to English Nature, 'the meres and mosses of the north-west Midlands form a geographically discrete series of nationally important lowland open water and peatland sites. The finest examples are considered to be of international importance. They have developed in natural depressions in the glacial drift (sands and boulder clays) left by the ice sheets as they retreated from the Cheshire-Shropshire Plain some 15,000 years ago. The majority lie in Cheshire and north Shropshire.'

So I'm fascinated to learn that Oakhanger Moss, which was a mere (small lake) until at least the 1600s, is a good example of the way that meres get turned into mosses (a range of damp habitats) - see English Nature's explanation for more details.

Brought up in Yorkshire, a county that's famous for its countryside, I've always felt that Cheshire was a sort of Conference League county in comparison, but I begin to see that's not quite the case. I wonder why Cheshire doesn't make more of  it?

The beautiful Dorothy Clive Garden

An enormously enjoyable afternoon was spent at the Dorothy Clive Garden near Market Drayton in Shropshire. At last the weather was warm and sunny, and the garden's special feature was in full bloom.

It's a really unusual garden in two sections: a fairly conventional one with lawns and borders, with an astonishing quarry garden filled with rhododendrons, azaleas and bluebells. It was these which prompted the visit and I wasn't disappointed.

Paths spiral up and down the walls of the quarry, which was turned into a garden by Col. Harry Clive to provide a beautiful environment to tempt his ailing wife Dorothy out for walks. She suffered from Parkinson's Disease and sadly died soon after the garden was begun, but her late husband continued to develop the scheme until he handed it over to its management to a charitable trust in the 1950s.

The sound of this waterfall is audible throughout the quarry garden, and helps to orientate the confused visitor (like me).

At the entrance, this beautiful pool greets the visitor, and I was very excited to see newts swimming in it, something I've rarely seen before. Yet another 'new' creature (new to me) since I've been blogging, that's a real buzz for me,

I love how the planting includes plants some might consider weeds, such as yellow poppies and cow parsley. Just like my garden!

The bike is out!

For the first time this year, my bike got out of the garage and onto the road.

Now, I should explain I am not (absolutely not) in any way a serious biker. I like smooth surfaces and nice weather. Today, a quick trip to the bank (about to shut, hence walking was too slow) had both - thanks to a recent resurface of my road which transformed it from its Damascus-style shelled look to a near-mirrored surface. I should also say that my bike is a super-cheap ebay special with no suspension whatever,  whose best feature is its super-comfy discount store padded saddle.

It was great! I was almost beaming as I zoomed along with minimal effort, breeze in my face and a real sense of movement. How lovely to travel really rather fast, yet not to worry about the speed limit! (In practice, very unlikely to be breaking it, but that's how it felt). How handy to park right outside the bank with no fear of traffic wardens or traffic chaos.

It's funny how, each Winter, I forget  that my bike is a great form of local transport. So glad to remember it, each Spring!

Conspiracy of dull tasks

Very dull tasks: car repair and dental appointments. Plural. Whilst fairly small in themselves, they seem to have conspired to eat up the little bit of spare time I might have spent getting outdoors.

The weather might be a factor too: until the last week or so, I've often managed to sneak in a short walk between appointments. This means I'm in work clothes, which tend not to include several layers of thermals (a bit too warm in the office, and the beetroot-faced look is not a good one). So that hasn't happened much lately, this being the coldest, and probably windiest, Spring in England since 1962, according to the Met Office.

Still, this blog seems to chime with the zeitgeist about the value of the outdoors: the new National Trust magazine is all about it, including best NT wildlife spotting sites:

• Bosherston Lakes, Pembrokeshire
• Farne Islands, Northumberland
• Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire
• Murlough Dunes, County Down
• Arnside Knott, Cumbria

It also lists NT sites which stage weekly 'parkruns' which sound lovely, although sadly none are near where I live:

• Killerton and Plym Valley in Devon
• Sheringham Park, Norfolk
• Tredegar House, Newport
• Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire

Undaunted, I'm inspired to explore Tatton Park, a (fairly) nearby NT site whose 1000 acre deer park dates back to 1290. My last visit revealed a new hide by one of the meres which didn't, sadly, enable me to spot the alleged kingfishers or sand martins, but maybe this time patience will prevail.

Fuzzy rabbit and crisp hare

I'm a huge admirer of the kind of wildlife photography I see in magazines and online. I'm a member of RSPB but to be honest, the only reason I open their magazine is to look at the photos. I'm amazed at the patience and determination which make possible a shot like this one, of a hare running towards the camera on a foggy morning:

Credit: Mark Williams, G900PHOTOGRAPHY

I love how the fog and the dew are visible, and every whisker on the hare too. Hares are one of my favourite animals so I find this photo really draws me in. Huge thanks to Mark for permission to use his photo.

I thought I'd have a go myself, on a stroll past a nearby evening rabbit location, but as I suspected, it's no mean feat to capture an animal with such intimacy. This is my puny effort, included only to show where I'm starting from:

Well, it's identifiably a rabbit but I can't claim much more than that. I realise that I can't expect too much at this early stage of getting to know the camera and how to use it.  I will practise and I will get better... in the meantime here are two hares in art, both of which I love:

This is an illustration from a Christmas card sent last year by a very old friend, it's called Winter Hare from a linocut print by Andrew Haslen.












This one is an original painting in oil by
local artist, Kate Gandolfo, titled Hare at Sunset;
it hangs in pride of place in my living room.

These hares are much easier to photgraph ;-)

Amazing birdsong at dusk

On a circular walk ending back at the little nature reserve, the dusk birdsong was magnificent. I especially noticed blackbirds which were both visible and audible, very decent of them to help out such a poor identifier of birdsong as me. My mother on the other hand has a great ear and can pick out lots of different birds by their song. She refers to it as the 'triple throated blackbird' which apparently describes its ability to sing three notes at once, as singers in some Asian countries do. It's not a term I've heard anywhere else and a web search draws a blank too. Has anyone else come across it?

This reminds me that a friend mentioned a new BBC podcast of birdsong, appropriately called 'Tweet of the Day', and makes me resolve to listen to it so I can brush up my skills. Click here to visit the page if you fancy investigating the song of the shag, the Dartford Warbler or the Grey heron.

Just plain cold

Outdoors today was very very cold. I was helping to run a plant stall at a local 'Summer Fun Day', which involved standing outside more or less from 9am till 4pm. Well, it was a day and it was fun but it certainly was NOT summer. It felt like February, not mid May. Even two thermal vests and a down jacket were not enough to keep the chill at bay for more than ten minutes. The atmosphere was lovely and loads of people came to have a good time; many of them got a big hug from me in my efforts to warm up. But for once, the outdoors was not my friend. Interesting to notice that, how it's different from my sense that I need more outdoors, that outdoors is a universally positive aspect of my life. Maybe the fact that I was standing about as opposed to moving about was at least partly to blame. More evidence that life is not black or white, but mostly shades of grey. No 'literary' reference intended.

Motorway and mud

Well, this evening's little run wasn't exactly wild, crossing the M6 (amazingly, not at a stand still) whose audio footprint is quite wide. The choice of running routes from my door is pretty limited, yet even when dissected by the longest and (surely one of) the busiest motorway in the UK, there is nature to be found.

The dusk birdsong was amazingly loud; the verges are bursting with lush foliage (or 'rabbit food' in these parts), and even an unscripted section, off road (lost!) and rather muddy, had lots to notice, including Hassall Hall Pool, a small lake I'd never seen before, but which is claimed to be 'arguably the most picturesque water within the whole of Cheshire' by the local angling society.

Photo copyright Holly Bush Angling Society

 I dimly remember reading, and it seems this way from observation,  that Cheshire has more lakes (possibly a larger area of standing water) than any other UK county but that may be incorrect.

A little idle research on nearby Hassall Hall shows it to be a listed 17th century house with a 'catslide' roof. Fearing the worst I investigated further to learn that it's a normal house roof enlarged to cover a single storey back extension, so that in theory a cat could descend from the ridge to the ground floor eaves in one long slide. Let's hope it didn't happen too often.

After a few days of not getting out much/at all, it was great to be outdoors, using up some physical energy after a working week using mental and emotional energy, and exploring the countryside on my own doorstep.

Time: the enemy?

I have a love/hate relationship with time. Sometimes I feel like it's the enemy, conspiring to make everything I do feel rushed, uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. At other times,  time is more amenable and I can use it as I choose, blending things I need to do with things I choose to do and time spent just being.

So far whilst writing this blog, workloads have been such that time has felt reasonably friendly, but in the past week we're at daggers drawn again. Every car journey has been as fast as (legally) possible, I've arrived at appointments in the nick of time or a few minutes late, my mind scattered and buzzing with random thoughts. I've double booked appointments too, a sure sign of trying to do too much and not spending time just being.

A short walk this evening brought this into focus. I had to - no, I had OFFERED to deliver some leaflets to neighbours, a 20 minute task at most. I'd put it off for several days already - it's too wet, it's too late, I'm too busy... arriving home in the early evening sun, there was no excuse and off I went. I became aware of my mind feverishly computing alternative routes to find the quickest; of the urge to get some phone calls done at the same time. Mindfully letting these thoughts pass as best I could, it became easier to appreciate the quality of the light, the (reasonably) warm breeze, the birdsong and the riotous floral displays in the gardens as I went.

However, I can't say the same for the snappy yappy terriers behind some of the letter boxes...

Celebrating in style

I've noticed how a couple of days without much exposure to outdoors leaves me missing the experience, so here's a vicarious one to share. This is a short film about Derek Craig's 35th birthday celebrations. I agree with a lot of what's said, especially about his love of the outdoors, and I'm in awe of his skills. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Any comments welcome:


An inspiring short by Fitz Cahall

At last, a bluebell extravaganza!

I've posted before about bluebells but to be honest, I was making the best of a very few flowers. Now, two weeks later, here's the real thing. This is why we go back each year to this little-frequented spot. My only challenge is to whittle down the 50+ pictures to a manageable number. In the dappled light, the intense blue and the sheer scale of the 'flower beds' were breathtaking. I can't decide on a favourite, what do you think?

A wet run with the countryside to myself

 The tiny nature reserve provides a great place to start a run along the Dane Valley. Sadly a run-friendly compact camera can't capture the dozens of swallows which were swooping low along the river catching insects, or the grey wagtail perched on a branch with the same thought in mind.

This part of Cheshire is not exactly wild but it is very pretty. The River Dane is apparently the longest, cleanest and (maybe) the fastest flowing river in Cheshire. It must surely be one of the most winding rivers too.

Who says sheep are foolish? These ones had the sense to shelter from the drizzle under a tree

What a difference a week makes: 

last weekend at Brereton Heath in the sunshine:

Today at the same nature reserve in the rain.
I rather enjoyed it.

So, not exactly Wild Running Boff, but it was mainly off the beaten track and much more interesting because of it. 4.7 miles (mostly running, a little walking after the odd small hill) passed remarkably painlessly.

Duck alert!

A quirky outdoors moment today...

On my (very short) walk from workplace to car today, I noticed all the traffic was at a standstill. The cause?

Three ducks in the middle of the road! They had walked, for reasons best known to themselves, into the road opposite the park gate. There was much quacking. Two drakes and a duck.

Worried they might get run over when the traffic started up again, I let out my inner sheepdog and ushered them back into the park.

Everybody happy! How nice that the drivers smiled and joked together as they got moving again. What a shame there wasn't a moment to capture it all on film!

The rather special brimstone butterfly

At last I've seen a slightly unusual creature. Usually when I turn to a guidebook on butterflies, flowers etc, my cherished specimen is described as 'so common as to be not worth bothering with' or words to that effect.

On a Monday run around that same tiny nature reserve, yellow butterflies were in evidence which surely must have been the brimstone, known to frequent the reserve which lies towards the Northern limits of its breeding territory. Whilst not exactly rare, I'm not aware that I've ever seen one before. It carries the distinction of being one of the few species which hibernates as an adult and therefore is one of the first butterflies to be seen in Spring. These early ones are last year's adults, which will live until July, when the new adults hatch.

Sadly they were too flighty for me to catch on camera but here's a photo I didn't take:

It might not be rare but it looks pretty special to me.

Lovely weather might have its drawbacks

 A sneaky walk today between appointments, around Sutton Reservoir near Macclesfield. It's only small but in a very pretty spot and it was such a warm, still day, the temptation was irresistible. These yellow flowers looked like giant buttercups with glossy leaves:

 

 There was a perfect bower of blossom for any passing bridal couple, although none in evidence when I visited:












However, what wasn't so pleasant, in fact somewhat  concerning in early May, was the relatively low water level. I fear hosepip bans are just around the corner, even here in the wet North West.

Funny how beer tastes extra delicious outdoors

A luxuriously free afternooon took us to a Staffordshire high point near The Roaches. Parking in Wincle, it seemed churlish to walk past the micro-brewery without sampling its wares and kicking a football for the brewery dog. The Rambler was very good indeed. Maybe beer tastes better when it hasn't travelled far?

  

We climbed steeply through some bluebell woods, as yet not in bloom, with almost all trees seeming lifeless, to the open pasture surrounding the gritstone ridge which ends in the rocky Roaches. Just off a path through moorland scrub we found Lud's Church, a rocky chasm whose walls are covered in damp mosses flourishing in the shady gloom. It's said that sunlight reaches into the chasm only on midsummer's day, but every other day it's probably as cool as it was yesterday.

Heading back along the gritstone ridge, the views were far reaching in all directions; the Roaches to the East, Shutlingsloe roughly North, The Cloud ahead to the West and rich pasture to the South.

 
The 5 miler whetted the appetite for a hearty pub lunch at Sutton Hall, now restored and thriving after a fallow period some years ago, a really beautiful black and white timbered building typical of the local vernacular architecture.

Never trust the guidebook, says guest blogger Dave

May 3, 2013. Dateline Berlin.

Never trust the guidebook. An old lesson relearnt the hard way on a day out from the German capital by train and bicycle.  The anonymous author promised some idyllic country cycling. It started well.

Dappled, sunlit woodland still partly flooded by winter snowmelt; birdsong, and the smell of spring in the air at last. But alas, the ground under our wheels. Cobbles. 

Eager Dave on his shiny new racing bike with its whippet thin wheels, dismounted and pushing disconsolately for fear of a flat in the forest glade. And there goes Terri on her sturdy shopper’s special, fat tyres gliding smoothly over the awful boneshaking stones. Hare? Tortoise? Never underestimate an old lady bike.

Back on blissful tarmac, another take on human endeavour in the landscape, and our faith in German construction is restored by a real engineering marvel. Seven years in the making from 1927, the Niederfinow ship hoist lifts and lowers massive cargo barges 36 metres between two stretches of canal in a giant water-filled cradle. 

Nearly a century on, the elegant steel structure, visible from miles around in the mostly featureless north German plain, is suffering the effects of corrosion.

 But this being Germany, they’re building a whole new hoist alongside. Just keep pedalling!