Images that lift spirits in lockdown
MEADOW pipits standing on one leg in the snow.
A mallard chatting with a goosander on the Manchester Ship Canal.
A buzzard being chased by a crow.
These are images that have kept me delighted during the last few weeks and have helped to make Tier Four and the lockdown much more bearable.
And these pictures, along with those painted in words, by peatlands birding legend Dave Steel, have been shared on a daily blog on our website.
Dave appears to know every secret place on that huge landscape called Chat Moss.
I spent 20 years of my life living next to that mossy area but rarely venturing too far as it was a major industrial area in my eyes.
The Wildlife Trust now owns vast swathes of the moss – or peatlands as we now call it – including Cadishead Moss, Little Woolden Moss, Astley Moss and Highfield Moss.
We also manage other parts of it.
By managing, I mean restoring it to a mossy landscape, where peat is allowed to get wet, grow plants, suck in and store carbon and welcome wildlife.
In spring and summer, the place is buzzing with bees, butterflies and dragonflies and birdsong is all around you.
Yet in winter it is just as lively, as Dave will tell you, with numbers and species of birds hardly falling from the warmer periods.
In Greater Manchester and Lancashire, we have been pretty much in lockdown for nearly a year now and some of us have had to stick to that more than others.
So it is good to have reports of nature doing well while we are trapped in our homes.
I certainly appreciate my daily dog walks, with regular meetings with herons, wrens and robins to brighten up my morning and afternoon.
The changing weather has also been interesting – we have certainly seen the seasons through 2020.
Watching wildlife cope has been fascinating.
Birds were happy to mess about in the mud during the mild and wet November and early December.
Then the big freeze came and birds like robins, sparrows and bullfinches look as though they have increased in size.
Have they eaten too much?
No, they are puffing up their feathers as a defence against the cold.
Finding food became a problem as the ground was hard or covered in snow or ice.
This is one of the times of year when our bird tables, feeders and water bowls really take on more importance.
I will double up on feeding during snowy days and the starlings, blackbirds, pigeons, sparrows and great tits are appreciating it.
As I write to you, a robin has landed on the bird table, puffed out its feathers and helped itself to some grub.
We are so lucky to have this beautiful bird and others like it on our doorsteps.
Looking back to Christmas, seeing the film Elf reminds me of my encounters with wildlife.
Santa Claus could not fly his sled without the festive spirit being high.
In the same way I don’t think I would have coped as well during the pandemic without nature lifting my spirits.
And reading Dave’s blogs and looking at his photographs have helped to push my spirits to a level where I sometimes feel I could take off and join the birds he mentions.
Nature is playing its part, helping us through the pandemic.
Please do everything you can to give it something back in return.