A glorious late-summer day. Far too glorious not to head up to the Moor after breakfast.
There had been another fog-sea first thing, remnants of which lingered in the valley-bottom, slowly drifting away into the lower lands downstream. A waining gibbous moon hung semi-transparent in a cloudless blue sky.
As always, as I reached the stile on to the Moor proper, I inspected the new fence-post that replaced my beloved ‘Niche‘—a former fence-post with a weathered, hollowed-out top, crammed full of plants (see my book On the Moor). I was delighted to see the new post was beginning to show signs of decay on top, and had a liberal covering of bird-shit. Perhaps it won’t be too many years before we have a Niche 2 post-top garden.
There were plenty of sheep grazing the moor-grass and browsing the heather, and I spooked a brace of grouse as I headed up to the trig point, then along the Edge, and down back along the wall at the edge of the Moor. No wheatears, but the meadow pipits were out in abundance. Little brown jobs. Such underrated birds. I have something of a soft-spot for them.
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