I've just been for a very wet walk. It didn't rain, although it certainly did this morning; the heart-shaped petals of the dog-rose that dot the hedgerows have been battered by the heavy raindrops and are now stuck to the roads and tracks like thin scraps of crepe paper. No, it wasn't the rain that soaked me but the huge swathes of grass; the deep purple seeds of yorkshire fog and the furry meadow foxtail that has grown tall and thick along the footpaths. I managed to get so far along the track by rolling up my trouser legs and edging sideways along it but soon realised, as the grass grew thicker and impassable, that I'd have to do better than that. Unfortunately by then I was at the point of no return. Either i got wet going one way or possibly wetter going the other. I ended up walking home with my jean legs like great wet flaps of cloth stuck to my legs.
One thing however made this journey entirely worth while. On the track towards home there is an oak tree. About halfway up its trunk is a swollen, uneven oval scar where a great branch has cracked off and the tree has healed the wound. In the middle of the scar is a hollow pocket and in this pocket sat three steel grey kestrel chicks, each one peering out at me from above. I had noticed them because of the racket they were making. I could hear them chirruping from the end of the drive.
You'd think it couldn't get much better than that, but today it could. As I stood staring up at the chicks their uncannily brave mother or father flew in from apparently no where carrying a baby rat (it was mouse sized but had the unmistakeable thick tail of a rat). The three chicks stretched and wobbled upwards, straining for the first 'go' at lunch. Within the blink of an eye the kestrel had gone, no doubt to catch more food, leaving the chicks squabbling noisily in their oak tree bedroom.
Nature is entirely and awe-inspiringly amazing. Help the RSPB keep it that way.