Tag: grouse moor management
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Live Moor promontory fort
A small Bronze Age fort on the north-west corner of Live Moor, more often called Knolls End. Within spitting distance of the Cleveland Way and Coast to Coast footpaths but no Information Boards adorn the site. It was only “discovered” in 1979 so there have been no excavations done. But … … there are sure…
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Chequerboard moorland
I suppose it would be petty of me to whine about this anthropogenic change to the moors created by mowing of the heather moorland. I should be thankful that this moor is no longer being burn and great plumes of smoke waft across the skyline but I fear the random patches of the old black…
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It can be done …
The relatively small patch of heather moorland around Captain Cook’s Monument has recently been strip mowed. This photo is technically of a strip on Little Ayton Moor, north of the parish boundary wall, but the area surrounding the monument, Easby Moor, also has at least two parallel strips. The moors are technically dry upland heath,…
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Hrímfaxi, the goddess of the night’s horse, pulls her chariot through the dark sky
It was pretty bleak on Urra Moor this morning. I had half expected to see ‘The Hagmare of Orrer‘, a witch that was said to roam the moor in the guise of a horse. I had met this beast earlier on Greenhow Moor. The great plow of Watership Down thundering out of the freezing mist.…
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The North York Moors Draft Management Plan
I found out today that the North York Moors National Park have been consulting the public on their Draft Management Plan November 2021. The trouble is the deadline for comments was 21 January 2022. I’ve missed the boat. I wonder where they publicised this “consultation”. Anyhow, the plan proposes six “outcomes”: 1. A resilient landscape…
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Great Ayton Moor
It’s been a while, a blue sky and high cirrus clouds, and a huge sigh of relief from the hundreds of Red grouse inhabiting the moor. December 10th, the last day of the grouse shooting season. They’re safe now until the “Glorious Twelfth”, the 12th August, free to survive the winter and to procreate, to…
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Different moor, different view
I’ve never been on this bit of Kildale Moor before. Never seen Capt. Cook’s Monument from this particular angle. Usually I’m on my bike when I cross Brown Hill but today I was on foot so I was minded to leave the tarmac and head south until the view opened up. But the sun broke…
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The keepers have been at it again.
This is somewhere near to the WW2 bunker on Great Ayton Moor. The smoke was heading straight towards Guisborough. Now it’s been a year since the Government committed to banning rotational burning on peatlands. However, nothing has happened. This is perhaps not surprising since it has had the coronavirus to deal with, but there is…
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Whorlton Moor Shooting House
At the beginning of September, a photo did the rounds on FaceBook showing some graffiti on a shooting house purporting to have been done by Extinction Rebellion. This was linked to an article on the website Campaign for Protecting Moorland Communities (C4PMC), a site “dedicated to protecting moorland communities and the driven grouse shooting”. I…
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It’s looking a bit black over Bill’s mother’s
An East Midlands expression that came back to me on Potter’s Ridge, a small hill that has Highcliffe Nab on its northwestern end. A few moments later the first drops of rain arrived. And don’t ask who Bill was, ’cause I never found out. On strange phrases, I learnt a new word today – ‘quockerwodger’…