A Cloud on the Horizon

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Monday, 17th January 2005
Wild West Yorkshire nature diary

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squirrelA squirrel nibbles from the ground feeder but - now that we've opted for a stout metal hopper, it's unable to trash the feeder as it did with the wooden one last year. Another squirrel appears and it leaves off nibbling and gives chase. But his seems to be more of a game than aggression; I guess that this is a male in a courtship chase, following a female who is playing 'hard-to-get'.

smokeA dark cloud billows a few miles up the valley towards Mirfield: something has gone up in smoke.

ketrelkestrelTwo kestrels fly in close formation above the road. On the embankment a mistle thrush sings a few phrases of its melancholy song, while a magpie perches in a treetop nearby.


digger First in the Field

For the first time there's an excavator in the field by Coxley Beck. The 'densely wooded' slope that the Department of the Environment inspector cited as a reason for us not to object to the scale of the development is being re-worked to become what we're assured will be a 'temporary' road. The slope they're working on isn't so densely wooded these days; once the inspector had granted planning permission the trees were clear-felled.

Heigh-ho! It was too late for us to object by then. Next Page

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk

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