Gates and Sunrise

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Hello

Mark and Jamie from Pudsey Landscapes

On walking out of the Park along the the Kelcliffe bridleway I happened upon Mark and Jamie from Pudsey Landscapes digging out the farm gate entrance in readiness for creating a generally more welcoming experience. When I approached they were hard at work but paused monetarily to chat and update me with where they had got to. They are expecting to have the gates in over the next week or so.

Steps at Hillside End of Bridleway

As well as good progress on the Farm Gate we commented on the steps going up at the Hill Side end of the Bridleway. I am sure many of you will recall the experience previously associated with this particular entrance. Requiring a physical dexterity usually associated with an Olympic gymnast coupled with  a generous element of good fortune one was always rather relieved to get through unscathed. We now have the foundations laid for a pleasant and gentle descent down well laid out wooden steps. Nice!

Sunrise looking Eastward from Little Kelcliffe

The weekend has brought the clearest and crispest of winter days with a frosty bone hard terrain and clear blue skies. In turn these have brought the most beautiful of sunsets and sunrises. Here is a sunrise snapped yesterday morning from Little Kelciffe looking East towards Guiseley.

Bird Watch – Pink Foot in the Park, by Darren Shepherd

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Pink Footed Goose (Source: Annimal Spot)

Darren reports that yesterday, Thursday 12th January,  around 3pm, a skein of about 80 Pinkfeet geese flew over the Park, heading  north northwest.    The same birds were then seen at Barden Scale, Bolton Abbey at about 3.30pm.

The pink-footed goose (Anser Brachyrhynchus), does not breed in the UK, but over-winters here in places like Norfolk and Lancashire,  before returning ‘home’ to Spitzbergen, Iceland and Greenland.  Darren’s conclusions are that Parkinson’s Park appears to be on a migration flyway.  So, expect more wonderful V formations in the coming months.

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View from Little Kelcliffe - High Royds with Rombalds Moor behind and Edison Fields in front

Work continues on the gates and the entrances, whilst the weather has smiled today; making a change from the howling gales, bone chilling rain, and river of mud conditions in the Park of late.

Looking around, it was hard to believe that it is only 12 January.  The grass is more spring green, than winter pale; the sky, a brilliant blue with white wisps and black wings; and the songbirds are twittering away searching for ‘the one’.  A good day for shiver free walk in the Park,  to find that slimmer, fitter new you.

End of the day in the Park

It feels good now to walk across the open expanse of Little Kelcliffe, and feel part of the wider landscape – Hawksworth Moor to the left, Wharfedale to the right, and the impressive Victorian expanse of High Royds in front.  Quite different, to picking a careful way along a mucky track through the tangled and hummocky overgrowth – it will be great when we can get the hedge around the copse under control again and properly laid.    Thank you Gentlemen of Pudsey Landscapes for putting up with the dreadful weather to give back to we Guiseley folk some simply pleasure.  However,  I think a cold snap is forecast,  so get those thermals, and ice picks out !!

Bird Watch – Calling Curlews, by Darren Shepherd

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Curlew Flying - (Source: Scotlandincolour.com)

Night and day, the wildlife and birds of the Park live their lives and have their ‘adventures’, and it is worthwhile taking time to slowdown to their pace and just observe.

Today, 9th January, a red kite, with no wing tags, circled overhead.  Many kites have wing tags of different colours,  the left wing gives the place they fledged, and the right the year.   As ours has no tags,  they have either fallen off, or, it is wild.  The kite seems to be in the park regularly now, although, as today, it is frequently harassed by one of the local crows – these Continue reading →

North Leeds Life Article

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Click image to go to online readable magazine

The January 2012, North Leeds Life (Ilkley/Otley edition) has just published an article on Friends of Parkinson’s Park in their Community News section page 8.

They also give details of Bark in the Park, a sponsored dog walk, organized by St Gemma’s Hospice at the end of February in Golden Acre Park.  Otley’s new Word Feast event, celebrating the written and spoken word, which is running a writing competition for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  And, entry information for the 2012 Jane Tomlinson Run events.

The article is  online, click the picture on the left, and scroll down to the Ilkley/Otley version with the green header.

Bird Watching in the Park

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Little Ringed Plover - (Source, Steve Leo Evans, Flickr)

Darren Shepherd of Nethercliffe Road, is a keen ornithologist, and has left this fascinating comment on the ecology page, which deserves greater prominence.

“I would like to add a few more birds to the list of those seen in the Park. The rarest of the bunch, in the past few years, has been the successful breeding of Little Ringed Plover on the building site.”  This is a wading bird, that likes gravel pits and river shingle beds.  “Another wading bird that I suspect has bred in the area is the Oystercatcher” a bird that is regularly found on the coast but has started to move inland.  “Another regular bird is the Redshank“, which likes damp habitats such as salt marshes and flood meadows.  The sightings of these birds would link in perfectly with the fact that the lower slope of Clapper Brow and Great Brow have many natural springs, and the land is quite boggy – the Kel of Kelcliffe, means spring.  When Crompton Parkinsons were in residence they controlled this water flow as best they could, but over the years nature has reasserted itself. Continue reading →

Swinging Gates

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New entrance 'doormat' for the Oxford Avenue entrance

A wild and windy week, (apparently the wind speed last night was 75 mph at Yeadon airport) but the men from Pudsey Landscapes have carried on heroically.   The top part of the park (Little Kelcliffe) has now been opened up, and is starting to look like a useable space again.  (We have plans for events to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee later in the year, and this will be an ideal area.)

A key focus of the work is now the entrances.  Jamie and Mark are hard at work on new gates and entrance ‘doormats’  for the Oxford Avenue, Greenshaw Terrace, and the Farm Gate entrance. Meanwhile, on the Hillside Avenue side,  the hole in the hedge, that has been used as an entrance for a number of year, has now been made into proper steps.  In addition,  we have managed to get the council to do some work on improving the bridleway access from that side, and work is underway. Peter is hard at work taking out the old barbed wire that surrounds the park on a number of sides – let’s hope none of it is too springy !! Continue reading →

Park Features To Be Registered as Historic Environment Records

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The bank is a potential rabbit warren earthwork

Good news to start 2012.   The West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service has told us that they will be registering both the milk churn stand, and Clapper Brow with historical environment records (HER monument records).

Because of the name, the lie of the land, the soil, and historic ownership in the vicinity, we believe that parts of Clapper Brow may be an ancient rabbit warren.   Clapper is a term meaning ‘rabbit’, and the field has three diagonal earthworks that could well have been deliberately made for the farming of our little furry friends. Continue reading →

Walking the dog beats going to the Gym

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Dear Reader

Honey the dog never tires of a walk in the park

Did you know that in a recent survey sponsored by leading pet experts Bob Martin, it was discovered that the average dog walker spends more time excercising than the average gym user! If you sum up all the walks in a week you can get between 6 and 8 hours of walking as compared to 1.5 weekly hours of exercise for the average non-dog owning gym user.

As an owner of two energetic dogs this made very pleasant reading although it did make me wonder what they meant by the “average dog walker”. Read on… Continue reading →