Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Beginner’s class for Border Collies, Low Hill, Hope Valley, Peak District. Two farmers are releasing the sheep in groups of four.
“How do you make sure that each group of sheep are consistent?”
“You don’t – that’s the point of it.”
“These four look well behaved?”
“Just wait until they get out there! They’ve come down from across the border: Scottish Blackface.”
Despite the stringent security, the sheep in the beet field have finally staged an escape and half a dozen of the more adventurous of them are enjoying the lush grass in the back garden of the end terrace house on the other side of the fence.
“What variety are they?” I ask the shepherd (I knew he was the shepherd because his 4×4 had an ‘EWE’ registration).
“They’re Swaledales with a few Texel, but they’re mainly mules. These came from Horton-in-Ribblesdale.”
So none of them are Beulah Speckleface, as I’d guessed the other day.
A few weeks ago in Hawes we saw Swaledales being rounded up from the moors. That morning we’d seen people gathering up at Bardale Head two miles south of the town, so I guess the sheep had been driven up Bardale and Raydale onto the moor then turned back down Beggarmans Road and through Gayle into Hawes. There were certainly hundreds, if not thousands of them.
With a low over the North Atlantic, we’ve got the prospect of warm winds coming up from France and Spain but this morning it’s blowing so cold that, by the time I’ve drawn the ewe, my eyes are watering so much that I can hardly focus on the twin lambs which are following her.
Time to go indoors here at Charlotte’s Ice Cream Parlour for coffee and scones and to draw the view looking up the Calder Valley to the moors.