"Slow down, you're moving too fast, got to make the morning last...." sang Paul Simon. If there is one change that the Little Chaps have brought to our adventures, then it is definitely to have made us look at the world differently, to slow down and look at everything and to take it all in. There is so much to see and appreciate in every walk or bike ride and opportunities to learn something new can just leap out at you.
Pic. Little Chap #2 really needed this quiet moment near the start of our walk - a difficult week with a few of his friends being off school and mid-term tiredness as well. This moment sorted him out...
"Why, Daddy?" (or Mummy) is a question that every parent knows and has heard a thousand times (sometimes all in one morning!) and, on our adventures, there is nearly always something new to see, to discuss and to learn about. As a result, we have learnt a lot about tractors (John Deere, New Holland etc), other farm machinery, animals, land use and farming methods, geology and historical points of interest. I don't always know the answers, and have made a point of telling them when I don't know, but then we've gone home to Google tractors or trains or whatever (other search engines are available but I bet you use Google too) and it's made a great follow up activity to our adventures. The power of informal learning is immense and talking about things that interest them is a huge bonding experience. Just sitting and looking at things or watching how something is done is great on a walk to keep interest levels high and the follow up conversations last for many miles.
One of the biggest areas of learning for me has been in Wildlife, and in particular, birds. I've always known a few of the obvious and common birds and ducks but by no means is that a large list. The Little Chaps soon learned the obvious species that we saw on our early walks with them - on the moors of Simon Seat and Beamsley Beacon we saw Pheasants and Grouse in abundance. Little Chap #2 was particularly taken by the "Go back, Go back" call of the Grouse we disturbed. The other common sighting were Mallards on the rivers of the valley bottoms and identifying the Mummies and the Daddies was soon mastered. It was around this time that we started to visit the RSPB or Wildlife Trust reserves. These are great places to visit generally, but especially as "rest days" on holidays or as a "day-after-the-big-walk/ride" activity and, in the very early days, as far as little legs could manage. Visiting the reserves is such a peaceful experience. The Little Chaps respected everyone else speaking in hushed tones in the Bird Hides and binoculars made their way onto Christmas lists - a bird book for Mummy and Daddy so that we could answer the "what's that one?" question. We are by no means expert birdwatchers (much to the despair of Great-Grandad who was absolutely the family's "master birdwatcher") but we all take pleasure in the walk around the reserve and the short time of sitting and watching the activity on a lake or around a bird feeder.
It's a great activity that requires no special clothing and we have only basic and small binoculars. Most bird hides have identification boards and the Reserve Staff/Volunteers can usually provide a children's trail type activity as well.
St Aidan's RSPB reserve is only a short trip from Leeds and we did a great walk recently that also took in the weir and Lemonroyd Marina - click here for that route
In fact, we first visited here after seeing the huge Dragline digger featured in an episode of Abandoned Engineering and figured we all wanted to see "Oddball" as well as the wildlife
Pics: Yorke's Folly, a sheltered spot for lunch, great view down Nidderdale
Talking about taking your time and not rushing is, therefore, somewhat ironic given that today's walk was covered in record time! To be fair, that was largely because of the winds from Storm Malik. We headed out to Pateley Bridge, an easy 45min drive from Leeds, to walk up to Yorke's Folly. This is a great, relatively easy, walk that offers brilliant views with only a small amount of climbing. We've done this loop a few times with the Chaps - it offers a riverbank section, an old mill and millpond with sluice gates, farms (where we have seen lambs being born), an aerial mast, a trigpoint, a brilliant little "off-road" / "cross country" section where the Little Chaps really enjoy going off-piste, the folly itself - the list goes on! Plenty of things to see and to discuss and to prompt memories of other adventures. We chose to do the loop in reverse of our normal route so as to keep the winds on our backs over the moor. A great choice as we got blown along at record speed. This is a route that we would definitely recommend for the views over Nidderdale and it is fairly quiet in terms of not seeing loads of other people. Click here for route details
Pics: duckpond with Mallards, a great spot overlooking the millpond to snack on our Christmas Cake (at last!), looking for visitors to the garden
Our other reason for moving along was that we were keen to get back to do our bit of the RSPB Garden Birdwatch. We've been doing this for the last few years with the Little Chaps as they have started to master the patience needed to sit for a short while. I had no idea it has been running since 1978, tracking bird populations and the fortunes of individual species (although you have probably heard about the worrying declines of some of these). We love to spend time in our garden, poking with sticks, digging holes, building dens, growing vegetables but we so rarely just sit and look at it! So we filled up the bird feeder, got a drink and settled down to see what we could see. We managed to spot most of the birds we were expecting to see - "our" regulars! A number of Great Tits, Blue Tits, House Sparrows and the Woodpecker were all around which was great to see. It might be too late to contribute to this year's numbers but it's never to late to start looking at the nature that's right in front of you so give it a try next weekend.
What a great weekend! We've managed to get out and have a great walk despite the wind, enjoy some amazing views and appreciate the wider world, as well as spending some time with the nature that is right on our doorstep. Maybe next weekend we'll slow down a little...
Pic. being blown at speed towards the Trigpoint!
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