Climate change problems; water levels are falling, bees are dying.

We went walking between Woodstock and Charlbury yesterday.

There are cracks in the ground. But the soil is soft in places too. . In the picture below you can see the bed of a small stream that has already dried up.

A little further down the stream bed there is a spring. Water still flows out of the ground here, as you can see.
But for how much longer will it flow?

On a lighter note I wonder if anyone can identify this strange creature on a clump of grass in the middle of the Evenlode. Water levels have gone back to summer levels this week in the river here.

I went into the woods above Cornbury park this week too. This little pool is a favourite spot of mine. It is not the first time the pool has almost dried out, but it is the first time it has been nearly dry so early in the year.

All the brown area in the foreground is usually a few feet deep.

This man has been keeping bees for over fifty years. We chatted about the TV programme on bees on Channel 4 the other day. Bees are under severe threat. We need them to be there. Without men like this our environment would be in an even worse mess. He said he had seen several dead or dying queens this week. The bumble bee I saw seemed to be having trouble flying. I couldn't get a decent picture.

Snakes in the grass

I am writing to the council, the paper, anyone I can think of about the snakes in the grass I saw yesterday.

I did actually see a snake in the grass for the first time. It was a grass snake, quite harmless and eager to hide itself again in the undergrowth.

But that is not the subject of my log today. These are;

No, it isn't a cobra raising its ugly head in the foreground. It is a supermarket bag with dog turds inside. In a hundred yards of pathway from East End down to the secluded valley I found nine turd bags abandoned by the path.

Our dog walking neighbours are  possibly obeying one law, while breaking a much more important law, the law that prohibits despoiling our beautiful countryside.

TAKE YOUR LITTER HOME!

If you walk many of our country roads you will see a piece of abandoned rubbish in the hedge every two feet. The Council eventually clean up, but it is a losing battle.

I am concerned that no one will clean up this mess ever.

I confess that I am happy to let my dog add its muck to that of all the other animals in the countryside, as long as it is away from the path itself. It is not as healthy as the all the sheep and cow effluent in the fields, perhaps. But it rapidly goes back to nature again. It is countryside, not the town, not a park or even a "country park."

These shitbags may sit there indefinitely, turning the path into a rubbish dump.

There are many other paths into the valley.
How long before they are all like this?

What is the solution? A dog litter bin at the start of this path would be helpful. But is it sensible to place a string of them across the length of the walk between East End and Coombe or Hanborough?

I think it is unreasonable to ask people to walk for miles holding a bag of ordure in one hand.

Some clarification about what is and is not a poop scoop zone might be helpful.

There are times when I am disgusted with many of my fellow human beings.
They treat our fragile natural environment like a litter bin.

Grammar is the difference between knowing your shit
and knowing you're shit.

So how do we punctuate this situation.

I am for a full stop.

After writing this piece I rang the council. Someone will be round to clean up the mess early next week.
They also clarified the law. It is all right to let your dog do its business out in the country away from a footpath or bridle way. What is absolutely NOT ACCEPTABLE is to leave the shit by or on the path in a bag.

People have started to hang shit bags in trees, I am told.

How mad is that?

I paste this from the West Oxfordshire Council website

Dog fouling

Dog fouling is when a person permits a dog in their charge to foul in a public place and fails to clean it away immediately after.

A public place means land to which the public has access within built up areas of the District,  which includes roads, gutters, footpaths, verges, pedestrian areas, parks, school playing fields, sports grounds, and cemeteries etc.

Ideally, dogs should be trained from an early age to go at home in their own garden before or after a walk, rather than during.

If dog fouling does occur away from home it can be quickly and easily removed using any suitable plastic bag without your hands coming into contact with the faeces. Simply place your hand inside the bag, pick up the faeces, and then pull the bag down around your hand, effectively turning it inside out, and resulting in the waste now being contained within. Tie a knot in the bag and place it in a dog waste bin or take it home for disposal. If this is not possible, as a last resort double-wrap in two plastic bags and dispose of in a litter bin.

• There are over 500 dog waste bins installed throughout the district.
• Aluminium dog fouling warning signs and self-adhesive stickers are also available.

It is a problem because:

• Dog faeces carry many germs that can cause illness and in extreme cases could result in blindness.
• It is both offensive to smell and to look at, and is extremely unpleasant to step in.

Report dog fouling

You can click on the link above and be taken to forms for reporting this stuff. I just wish it hadn't taken four telephone calls to different places before I was shown the right place.

West Oxfordshire has a pretty good website, but even the men and women from the council clearly struggle to find the right places.

When you do find it, the information is very helpful and clear.
You can find the problem spot here on google earth if you have it.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=East+End&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=rYd1T6-TFMXg8gORr-3PDQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=3&ved=0CBgQ_AUoAg

Small is beautiful

I decided to look at the wonderful world of small things today.

I took my macro lens down to the valley and started to look for  bugs and buds and bees. I didn't bring flash or tripod though. Things are not as sharp as I would like them to be. But I feel a great burst of excitement and creativity working at the other end of the spectrum from the broad landscape which is my comfort zone.

Licken, looks like coral doesn't it

flower and beetle

beautiful blackthorn

cherry delight

the blue bells are back

a dyad dancing

a bee feasting on a willow bud

The blue bells are just appearing once again. Even earlier this year.

I love this crown among the bushes

Art meets nature

Not everything was from the small world, however. I have also made a change by adding people. This young couple were cooking picnic sausages by the riverside. Hey; maybe this is the summer already. Maybe it will never be as warm again this year. Hope you like your picture. Ah but the focus is on the dogs.

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert

So begins one of Shelley's greatest poems. All things change. On TV the other day they showed the cave of the swimmers from the north African desert, and the geology that shows monsoons brought a savanah to the desert there five thousand years ago.

Two vast trees have fallen over the river here.


It is barely spring, but we have a drought here in England. The jet stream has taken the rainfall north and left the east of the country without rain.

Perhaps my wish to walk by the river every day is based on something primal, a need for water to help my life flow and be fertile.The sap has rather dried up as my sixties have begun.

I chose the theme for my walk in advance for the first time. I chose decay. I began in the woods above the ruins of a Roman Villa,which lie on the flat in the centre of a stretch of open country.

Three hundred years BCE the Romans were building magnificent villas with under floor central heating in the English countryside. It has taken till the twentieth century for us to be able to do that again. Now we have managed to start heating up the whole environment.

Progress?

The new wave of austerity that grips us has prevented renewal of signs and notices on my walks.

I could not resist doing some restoration to this remarkable picture which has been badly eroded or damaged by time or passers by. If you blow it up you can see details of Roman life portrayed.

This sign is in good shape. 

It shows the outline of the villa which you can make out from my picture from high on the hill                           

Next we have an ax left behind by the Romans in a field by the river.
OK
It isn't. It is the leg and hip of a deer or a sheep. There were many part skeletons strewn along the river bank today.

Was there a cull?

Why leave the corpses to rot?

A mystery of decay.

Back in the woods I feel more at ease. I love the shapes made by these fallen trees. I feel more of an artist, less of a documentary writer.



Gabrielle does not like my images of decay and would prefer me to write about other things.

She reminds me that what falls in nature will go back to earth and be renewed.

Yet there is great sadness in me at the fall of a mighty oak. It may take 500 years to replace.
200 saplings planted by us will not compensate for such a loss.

Back with my theme of yesterday, the fallen trees by the river bank; there are so many of them in the area.

I want to end with Shelley, since I have no poem of my own to add as yet. But before that I will add a little note of appreciation to Oxfordshire Cotswolds, as West Oxfordshire Council likes to call itself when encouraging tourism. They have worked very hard both on line and out in the fields to provide us with maps, guides, walks and signs to help us enjoy this wonderful countryside.

Sadly there appears to be no money to open up the hut that gives a roof to the old Roman mosaics in the villa.

I offer a shot through the window with apologies for the quality of the image.

I offer trunks and heads, or so it seems to me. The legs are missing. It makes a curious link with Shelley.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away". 


Let's hope our river and fields are here to stay.




I am pleased to report that the level of the river is still well above summer levels. 
I hope it will be some time before you can cross it in gumboots.

Spring is sprung

"If not for you
winter would have no spring
I couldn't hear the robin sing
I's be sad and blue
If not for you."

Bob Dylan's song goes a bit down hill after that
If you are going to have the sky fall then a little bit of rain with it (rain would gather too)is not much of an add on.

Indeed, we really need that rain. It has been gathered in clouds all last week, but none of them was dropping more than a few spots.

This week the weather is wonderful. I was out in the valley for three hours yesterday and came home with sunburn on my face.

I thought I would share some of the signs of spring arriving. This one arrived last week, early, as most things are as global warming steps up.


I love the little white flowers of the blackthorn, which arrive before the leaves open.

I haven't seen the amazing cherry trees on the way into Oxford this year.
We have just a few locally. This made a great macro, I thought.

The sheep are lambing, the farmer told me. He did not want Sophie in the field with them. They are in a field away from the public footpath area now. It is the grazing which makes the valley so sweet and grassy, rather than the scrub elsewhere. It is on the edge of overgrazing now though. You can hardly avoid stepping in the shit.

I noticed a happy connection between man and nature that is accidental. In one field all the willows have been pollarded. Some have also been burned, for some reason. This one turned the tree into something of a work of art






Before I forget, let me add a link to my new nature blogger's network http://uknhb.blogspot.co.uk/


Why do people pollard? I have read excuses about conservation and supporting healthy tree life. i don't buy it. Crack willows are meant to crack.Do we want trees to look manicured like bushes in a park? I don't.

Have a look at these. It is all part of the charm of the secluded valley that the trees crack and fall as nature intended.




Some people worry about floods. The Charlbury bridge parapet was washed away in the last big flood and a vast amount of debris went off down river. Rothermere has destroyed many beautiful trees that used to line the river, doubtless with the excuse that trees can block the flow of water.

Much of the magic of his part of Wychwood has been damaged if not destroyed by this tidying up.

The secluded valley has been so far protected from this degradation.

Thank Ostra for that

Kingfisher Delight

I am delighted to share with you my first Kingfisher sighting of 2012. I have lost the date, but it was in late February.



Yet it has taken me weeks to write about it. I have been back and back to the spot in the hope of a photograph; but sadly there have been no more sightings.

I have decided to share with you pictures of the area where Stumpy and family go fishing.

Stumpy!
Well, when I look at him from behind he has a decided wedge shape, much broader in the rear and quite short, so I have called him Stumpy.


It was such a thrill to have my first sighting of the Kingfisher of 2012.



I have a feeling I found their nest in the river bank. A small bird shot out of the bank straight across the river and out onto the fields on the other side.
At first I did not think it was a kingfisher, but then it peeled left to come around on to the river again.

The flash of blue on the wings was unmistakable.

I am so pleased the kingfishers are still here since I have not seen one since early autumn last year.



It was in October I went to a course on wildlife photography at Slimbridge wildfowl trust and explored the very large kingfisher hide they have there. There have been no kingfishers on that river for at least eighteen months I was told.

It makes it all the more pleasing that the Evenlode, just up country from Slimbridge has kept its kingfishers. It is just one very special feature of the secluded valley.