The Red Notebook

Charles Darwin had his Sandwalk; I have my Moor Walk: a 3.4-mile circular walk from my house, up the hill, across the golf course, on to the moor, up to Trig Point S4643, through the heather, back down off the moor, down the farm tracks, past (!) the local pub, along the lane, down the bridleway, and back to my house.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been on my walk since August 2001 when we moved into what will almost certainly be, as Down House was for Charles and Emma Darwin, our permanent place of residence for the rest of our lives. The Moor Walk is my thinking walk, which takes up a couple of my hours most Saturdays.

The thing I like most about the Moor Walk is that it is the same walk. Apart from the occasional diversion, I walk almost exactly the same route every time, always in the same anti-clockwise direction, always pausing at exactly the same spots. I even have nicknames for some of the stopping places en route: the Pond Skater Puddle, the Rabbit Shed (deep in the heart of Rabbit Country), the Lucky Field (where I nearly always spot something interesting). Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt; it makes the Moor Walk very personal, and very special. The Moor Walk is my walk.

The South Pennine moorlands aren’t exactly rich in wildlife: the acid soil and the blanket cover of bog grass and heather see to that. But the wonderful thing about going on the same walk over and over again is that you always appreciate when you see something new, and you know what to expect to see at certain times of the year. Yesterday on my walk, for example, in addition to the usual red grouse, meadow pipits, lapwings, curlews, rabbits and pheasants, I saw my first wheatears and ladybird of the summer, and heard my first skylark. The swallows are late this year: I have seen them in the lowlands, but not above the moors. Not yet.

Nature dead in tooth and paw yesterday.

Wheatears, one of my favourite birds, are, like stonechats, only an occasional treat on the Moor Walk, which makes seeing them particularly special. But the most unusual thing I saw on my walk yesterday was on the muddy bridleway less than 100 yards from my house: a dead mole.

Doubtless, had Darwin chanced upon a dead mole during his Sandwalk perambulations, he would have popped its corpse into his pocket, taken it back to his study, boiled it, stripped away the meat and flesh, and closely examined its skeleton with the aim of writing a short paper on how Talpa europaea is wonderfully adapted for an underground life eating his beloved earthworms.

I, on the other hand, left the mole for the crows. There is a limit to how far one should attempt to emulate one’s heroes.

I was delighted to see a couple of brown hares boxing in the field in front of my house this morning. It’s something I haven’t seen since my childhood. My view wasn’t quite as good as this:

The semi-tame local pheasant whom I have named Philip landed on top of my bird table this afternoon. As far as I am aware, pheasants don’t usually feature in bird-table identification guides.

Philip the Pheasant [Phasianus colchicus]

… Courtesy of this BBC video. (Spot the howler.)

Oh, and it turns out Peter from the Beagle Project and I made the Yorkshire Post last week.

• Darwin in Ilkley
• Nice one, Yorkshire!

On this date in 1868, Charles Darwin wrote to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society:

Sir,

I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your letter in which you announce to me that the Yorkshire Philosophical Society has done me the honour of electing me one of the Honorary Members of the Socety [sic]; and for this honour I return my most sincere acknowledgements.

I beg to remain,

Sir,

Your Obedient and Obliged Servant,

Charles Darwin

Nice one, Yorkshire! I am suddenly extremely proud of my adoptive county.

See also: Darwin in Ilkley

This has absolutely nothing to do with me. Don’t think I’ve ever been quite so proud of my adoptive home town (which also happens to be the Sapphic capital of Britain):

Hebden Bridge List: Darwin Theme For Hebden Bridge Arts Festival 2009

Last year’s Hebden Bridge Arts Festival was a huge success – and the 2009 Festival promises another fantastic mix of theatre, music, dance and art. This time around, the Festival will be celebrating the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, with an exciting strand of events under the banner Evolution, Revolution.

The mind boggles.

A wary rabbit yesterday.

It was an unseasonably glorious day here in West Yorkshire yesterday, so I went for a traipse on the moors. Everywhere I looked, nature seemed to think spring was in the air: the moss was greener, a stonechat was staking out his territory on some fenceposts, and I even saw my first lamb of the year. That’s a lamb on February the Ninth. There’s climate change for you.

The rabbits were out as well. Dozens of them. Spring had definitely sprung as far as they were concerned: they were acting decidedly friskily.

All very idyllic, I thought. But then I came across something to remind me that, even on a glorious day like yesterday, with spring just around the corner, nature is forever red in tooth and claw:

A less wary rabbit yesterday.

See also: More of my photos from yesterday

I live just 22 miles from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, but my travels almost never take me to that neck of the woods. But, this afternoon, I happened to be passing nearby and finally got to make a long-delayed Darwinian pilgrimage.

Darwin stayed in Ilkley during the autumn of 1859. Officially, he was there for the water treatment, although it has been suggested that it was a convenient hideaway during the publication of On the Origin of Species that November.

I took plenty of photos during my short visit, including this one of the bath house Darwin used to visit (which was unfortunately closed when I called—I shall return!):

White Wells Bath House, Ilkley Moor

On 14th October, 1859, Darwin wrote to his son William describing Ilkley:

North House, Wells Terrace | Ilkley | Otley | Yorkshire

Friday

My dear William

On Monday they [the rest of Darwin's family] all come from Barlaston to the above address & I leave the Establishment. The House is at the foot of a rocky, turfy rather steep half-mountain. It would be nice with fine weather; but now looks dismal. There are nice excursions & fine walks for those that can walk. The Water Cure has done me much good; but I fell down on Sunday morning & sprained my ancle, & have not been able to walk since & this has greatly interfered with the treatment…

The Establishment Darwin was writing from was Wells House, a large water cure establishment, which I also managed to photograph. The address given at the top of Darwin’s letter, where he would relocate to when the family arrived, was the house he was staying at when Origin was published. I managed to get a photo of that too.

I can confirm that the hill down from the bath house is pretty steep. But I had read Darwin’s letter before I set off, so was very careful on my descent, and my ankles escaped serious injury.

See also: Wikipedia: On Ilkla Moor Baht’at