A charm of goldfinches chatter and jangle as they work patches of thistle, harvesting their downy seeds, in the fields beside the ruin of Brown Hill Farm. Starlings cascade from the telegraph wires, and a greenfinch grates from the trees that surround the working, whitewashed farm of Lane Top. Its sheep navigate slowly among the … Continue reading Thrive →

In the first dun light of morning, a wren sings its usual trill, but it is tentative, muffled, truncated, evidently subdued by the night-long deluge. Another, atop the mound of Hannah’s lemon-and-cream honeysuckle, has a different attitude, celebrating getting through the night with its usual full-throated cacophony. Nearby, the Colden thunders headlong into the Calder, … Continue reading Harvest →

Bindweed knits nettles and balsam, great willowherb and wild raspberries together on the verges. Children pluck the white trumpets of the first, either affixing them to their noses with inhalations, or squeezing the calyx to launch the corolla into a graceful twirling descent to the ground, an old game that gives it one of its … Continue reading Witness →

At Slack Top Cemetery, from the high bordering holly and sycamore, wych elm and horse chestnut, comes the soft whistles of bullfinch, the sparking ricochets of siskin, the bright jangling of goldfinch, the grating rasp of greenfinch. A swallow hawks over the mown paths between the graves, their silent rows sunk between rosebay and foxgloves, … Continue reading Traces →

The landscape is restless. Spotlights of sun scan across field and wood, illuminating a farm here or a field there before being overtaken and smothered by their harrying shadows. The wind riffles the uncut meadows, tall grasses writhing as they bend and sway before the fitful breeze.  On the headland that separates the two basins … Continue reading Dream →

A peal of thunder and a sudden deluge announces the abrupt end of the long heatwave and intense humidity, with an 11-degree dive in the temperature between 2.00pm and sunset. The days that follow have much more normal highs in the upper teens, with showers and fitful sunshine and a bluster of westerlies. But before … Continue reading Drift →

A change is afoot. The cooling wind that has blown through weeks of cloudless days swings from the east round to the south, then stills altogether. The air becomes sultry, the newly-humidified heat more intense, the sky overcast and ominous. The meadows, dun brown now after a month of drought, are expectant. Today, all that … Continue reading Solstice →

Summer, without ceremony, barges spring aside. Temperatures climb to the high twenties, tarmac bubbles, strawberries suddenly ripen, and, punctuated with brief pauses to crowd around notable insects like a large yellow underwing moth and a two-banded longhorn beetle, the children on the village green lark the day long with water pistols, paddling pools and ice … Continue reading Aglow →

In the cool of early morning, the stall holders at Mytholmroyd’s small Saturday market are setting up in the shadow of St Michael’s Church. A hand drawn map displayed on the wall nearby details the shops that used to serve this village half a century ago, well over 60 of them, grocers and garages, tailors … Continue reading Essence →

The year is poised within the moment of its perfection. Under flawless skies, all the valley’s hawthorns are hoar-frosted with blossom. On the hillsides below Winters, lining the lane to Lower Rawtonstall, climbing out of Nutclough, spilling down Luddenden, they beam white in the brilliant sunshine and beacon at dusk.  Across the landscape, the uniform … Continue reading Luminous →