Monday February 20th 2012
Yesterday was one of the sunniest day we've had this year, such a change from our normal cloudy overcast days that occur so much in the Pennines in our part of the world.
This is an annual walk around this time of year up into one my favourite dales ..... Littondale a quieter dale branching off from Wharfedale, it is one of the prettiest and most unspoilt dales in the Yorkshire Dales.
It's around this time in February that the Snowdrops are at their best and ever year it's almost a compulsion of mine to photograph these flowers and strive to get that perfect photo, it's never going to happen so back I go every year.
Littondale has now become colonized by Oystercatches and every year their numbers seem to increase, yesterdays count was more than a couple of dozen, it's the shingle beds along the sides of the river that attract them, it make a perfect nesting habitat. They arrive back from the coast in Mid-February but I'm not sure where they obtain their food supply at this time of year because the dale looks fairy barren.
After photographing the snowdrops along the banks of the river and around the old church at Arncliffe we climbed out of the dale and traversed along the sides of the fell, at this point the Yorkshire Air Ambulance circled round and and landed on a suitable patch of level ground to attend to a walker who had slipped on some ice and broke her ankle, she was found by a group of walkers and they called the Air Ambulance and the Fell Rescue on their mobile. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance features in the television series Helicopter Heroes on the BBC and this incident was covered and videoed by an on-board cameraman which turn out to be a very attractive cameragirl. The whole incident was carried out professionally and efficiently by both the air ambulance crew and the fell rescue and the lady was flown to the hospital at Leeds.
The shingle banks of the River Skirfare provides suitable habitat for the Osytercatches
A never ending endeavor to obtain the perfect photograph
Arncliffe Church.... the snowdrops are the first flowers of the season but many wild flowers have naturised in this peaceful area
Arncliffe an unspoilt village in Littondale
Yorkshire Air Ambulance being guided down by one of the crew who alighted earlier on more suitable ground higher up the fellside
BBC filming the action for the autumn series of Helicopter Heroes
A special pose for me ...... note the High Definition video camera
Departing for the hospital in Leeds
Continuing on our walk down Littondale to the village of Hawkswick
Yesterday was one of the sunniest day we've had this year, such a change from our normal cloudy overcast days that occur so much in the Pennines in our part of the world.
This is an annual walk around this time of year up into one my favourite dales ..... Littondale a quieter dale branching off from Wharfedale, it is one of the prettiest and most unspoilt dales in the Yorkshire Dales.
It's around this time in February that the Snowdrops are at their best and ever year it's almost a compulsion of mine to photograph these flowers and strive to get that perfect photo, it's never going to happen so back I go every year.
Littondale has now become colonized by Oystercatches and every year their numbers seem to increase, yesterdays count was more than a couple of dozen, it's the shingle beds along the sides of the river that attract them, it make a perfect nesting habitat. They arrive back from the coast in Mid-February but I'm not sure where they obtain their food supply at this time of year because the dale looks fairy barren.
After photographing the snowdrops along the banks of the river and around the old church at Arncliffe we climbed out of the dale and traversed along the sides of the fell, at this point the Yorkshire Air Ambulance circled round and and landed on a suitable patch of level ground to attend to a walker who had slipped on some ice and broke her ankle, she was found by a group of walkers and they called the Air Ambulance and the Fell Rescue on their mobile. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance features in the television series Helicopter Heroes on the BBC and this incident was covered and videoed by an on-board cameraman which turn out to be a very attractive cameragirl. The whole incident was carried out professionally and efficiently by both the air ambulance crew and the fell rescue and the lady was flown to the hospital at Leeds.
Good to see so many Snowdrops as I haven't seen many around here this year. It looked a lovely walk:)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post so much. What an adventure! Snowdrops, perfect!
ReplyDeleteA very different view than what we have! The snowdrops are lovely.
ReplyDeleteAre you still drooling over the HD camers?
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to keep working on Audrey!
Helicopter Heroes sounds like an interesting show. I'm surprised we don't have something similar here in the US since "reality" shows are all the rage. I had to laugh at your camergirl and HD vid camera. I think your videos are great. My favorite snowdrop picture is the back-lit one right below the cemetery crosses. To me, that's perfect.
ReplyDelete