High Summer

Ebor Way

It’s a perfect midsummer’s day for our walk from Wetherby alongside the River Wharfe, past Flint Mill Grange to Thorp Arch but we appreciate the shade of the Sustrans route along the old railway on the return leg.

wayside birds

Each bird has its favoured habitat. The song post for the yellowhammer in open farmland is on a phone line in contrast the blackcap makes a call that sounds like pebbles clacking together from the foliage of a tree in a deep, shady railway cutting. The warbler (willow?) prospects elegantly in the shrubs of a burgeoning hedgerow while the red kite swoops through parkland as we reach Thorp Arch.

Raptors by the Railway

Ochre trackside birches contrast with the clear blue sky.

A red kite glides over a broad stretch of the valley of the Wharfe.

Sheep and flocks of herring gulls are dotted around in the green pastures on the hillsides.

The frost hasn’t given in the cutting between Pannal and Hornbeam Park. A buzzard flies up from the top of the embankment and settles in a tree.

On our circuit of Harlow Carr RHS gardens, we see a second red kite, flying over the pinewoods.

The light is steadily fading on our journey home but, as the train stops at Weeton, we glimpse a heron.