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Sheep have gone and the woodland tiptoes back in Sheep have gone and the woodland tiptoes back in
(about 5 hours later)
Lightwood, on the north-western edge of this town, is my ur-landscape – the place of sheep-grazed hills, steep-sided cloughs and rushing water over dark gritstone beds that launched my relationship with the whole of nature. Sadly, it has also become a landscape of loss, since many of my most treasured fixtures – lapwing, woodcock, grey partridge, ring ouzel, tree pipit and wood warbler – have gone.Lightwood, on the north-western edge of this town, is my ur-landscape – the place of sheep-grazed hills, steep-sided cloughs and rushing water over dark gritstone beds that launched my relationship with the whole of nature. Sadly, it has also become a landscape of loss, since many of my most treasured fixtures – lapwing, woodcock, grey partridge, ring ouzel, tree pipit and wood warbler – have gone.
Yet, recently, I was delighted to find that Lightwood has also gained since my childhood. As we walked the track where the reservoir has been drained and dismantled, we were shocked to find both sides smothered in tangled banks of marsh bedstraw, ragged robin, valerian, marsh thistle, greater bird’s foot trefoil, tormentil and, here and there, great phallic spikes of spotted orchid. On the higher slopes were patches of bilberry already with fruit, and swaying passionately in the breeze were the magenta-headed columns of foxglove.Yet, recently, I was delighted to find that Lightwood has also gained since my childhood. As we walked the track where the reservoir has been drained and dismantled, we were shocked to find both sides smothered in tangled banks of marsh bedstraw, ragged robin, valerian, marsh thistle, greater bird’s foot trefoil, tormentil and, here and there, great phallic spikes of spotted orchid. On the higher slopes were patches of bilberry already with fruit, and swaying passionately in the breeze were the magenta-headed columns of foxglove.
Related: The big butterfly count 2015 – in pictures
Why was all this glorious colour here? I had never known it in my early days. Then the penny dropped. Based on the birch and alder saplings that are springing up, I can infer that some time in the past decade the sheep have been taken off these slopes. What had once been shorn turf sprinkled with the yellow studs of tormentil has become a garden and an incipient wood. It is a perfect expression of the rewilding championed by George Monbiot in his book Feral.Why was all this glorious colour here? I had never known it in my early days. Then the penny dropped. Based on the birch and alder saplings that are springing up, I can infer that some time in the past decade the sheep have been taken off these slopes. What had once been shorn turf sprinkled with the yellow studs of tormentil has become a garden and an incipient wood. It is a perfect expression of the rewilding championed by George Monbiot in his book Feral.
Then we stumbled on the crowning motif for this new riff in Lightwood’s ongoing song. Nestled among the grasses was a dark green fritillary, the first I’ve seen here in more than half a century. This violet-eating butterfly is known in Derbyshire but at sites such as Dove Dale. The cold had immobilised the creature and it lay on its side so we could not see the tiger-coloured wings with their broken transverse ripples of black. No, we had to make do with the underwing: an oval of faintly iridescent moss green banded in straw yellow and studded with 21 silver-white “eyes”.Then we stumbled on the crowning motif for this new riff in Lightwood’s ongoing song. Nestled among the grasses was a dark green fritillary, the first I’ve seen here in more than half a century. This violet-eating butterfly is known in Derbyshire but at sites such as Dove Dale. The cold had immobilised the creature and it lay on its side so we could not see the tiger-coloured wings with their broken transverse ripples of black. No, we had to make do with the underwing: an oval of faintly iridescent moss green banded in straw yellow and studded with 21 silver-white “eyes”.