Autumn in upper Airedale (Malhamdale)

 Mon Nov.7th 2011.
         Yesterday was a perfect autumn day and compared to last weeks walk where there was a distinctive lack of autumn colour today made up for it on a lovely stretch of the River Aire along the Pennine Way to Malham.
      On last weeks walk the dominant trees were all Sycamore and owing to the gales a few weeks ago they had either blown off or turned a dullish shade of  grey (most unattractive).The trees along the river today were a mixture of Horse Chestnut and Beech and were holding on to their leaves which made for some attractive autumn pictures.

                                           Hanlith Hall

          A small cottage garden still in flower owing to the mild autumn

                                           Malham Cove

                               Footbridge in the village of Malham

                                              Flasby Fell

I couldn't resist these two pictures for the blog, it just depends where you stand (apologies for the smutty humour)

                                      Kirkby Malham

                Late afternoon sun along the banks of the River Aire

And finally as I post this blog a reminder that winter is approaching ,as I look out of my window another morning frost, this time enough to form a skim of ice over my garden pond.

       Last Junes wild orchids spikes a sad reminder of their former glory

Lack of Colour

 Monday 1st Nov. 2011
           One thing that has struck me over the last couple of weeks is the lack of autumn colour in our area , it would seem that excessive windy weather last month and unsuitable weather conditions has left our local countryside rather drab compared to some of our previous autumns.
           We did our usual Sunday walk with our friends down in the Ribble Valley specifically for the autumn show but this year ...nothing, I just got my camera out for one shot on this ridge when the light was fading

Today whilst searching for Salmon and Sea trout down a tributary of the Ribble  the only autumn scene that caught my eye was this beech tree catching the sun against the darker background of Pendle Hill.

 On Saturday just over the Pennines in west Yorkshire  John Williams has abandoned  is beautiful garden on the moor until next spring , in the moorland misty drizzle it has a soothing affect has it shuts down for winter.

                         

                       and finally what it will look like in the spring

In Pursuit of our Salmon

Friday 28th Oct.2011
          In our never ending search for our local migratory salmon today we've travelled 18 miles to Dunsop Bridge in the beautiful Forest of Bowland, an area of outstanding natural beauty. From the village which has the claim to be the centre of the British Isles we followed the River Dunsop (a tributary of River Hodder and then in turn the River Ribble) up the valley a couple of miles to where the valley forks and took the right fork and followed Whitendale Water up the valley for another couple of miles. This is an area of griitstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland mostly lying in N.E. Lancashire and owned by the Duchy of Lancaster and United Utilities (who look after the water extraction) for the water supply for N.W. England.
     Up this remote valley we came across a team of four young ecologists from the Environment Agency and Ribble Catchment Conservation Trust carrying out a river survey on the fish and aquatic life of this upland steam, they sampled a 25 meter stretch with nets and electrofishing and the results were very encouraging with a good population of young trout, sea trout and salmon, 42 in all plus a couple of sea trout around the 11/2 lbs in weight, there were no salmon stunned in any of the stretches they surveyed because for reasons not fully understood the run of fish up the Forest of Bowland tributaries is always about a month later than the other areas in the same river system, their genetic makeup must be slightl different.

              The start of the walk... the village green at Dunsop Bridge

A couple of  visually unsympathetic fish passes up the lower part of the valley near to the waterworks

         Higher up the valley in Whitendale the scenery becomes wilder

                                  The site of the river survey

                                  Two young Brown Trout

                                Young Salmon (Salmon Parr)

  The boggy moorland above the higher reaches of Whitendale Water in Whitendale, here the fish have difficulty reaching the higher stretches of the river because of water extraction by the water company

Finished and Running

Monday 24th November 2011
                                The new fish pass that is being constructed in our local town of Burnley, Lancashire should be completed on the 21st Oct. It will hopefully bring salmon and sea trout back through the centre of Burnley for the first time for over 200 years. I've just finished a short film of this project for the Burnley Film Makers which will be part of the 2011 newsreel which will be shown to the public on Nov.16th at Higham Village Hall.

Our secret is out

 Saturday 15th Oct. 2011
          It's more than 50 years since I began my Autumn visits to Stainforth Force to see the yearly salmon run as they move up river to the headwaters around Ribble Head.  It's here where the River Ribble tumbles down over 3 waterfalls into the Stainforth Foss, a  pool about 30ft deep. This has always been a popular place to see the salmon and it's always been known locally but this year on the BBC's popular "Autumn Watch" programme website it gave information as to where salmon could be seen (in your area) and it named Stainforth Force, so instead of the usual few people watching, on one count I counted over 60 people at the side of the falls all enjoying this annual event.
      This year we took 2 of our grandsons to watch the salmon jumping and they really enjoyed it, perhaps more than we did, because we were conscious of the constant danger of them falling into the water because they never stayed still.

                    One of the many photographers enjoying the day