Breaking the law

Birds were my first great love (both varieties feathered and the other lot) but also exploring, which was to get me; and probably still does, into so much trouble. It was however where I learnt some of the basics of nature watching or finding as I prefer to think of it. I was considering this as I watched some new additions in Druridge Bay last week.

Beautiful Avocets

 Avocets in my youth were an evocative emblem of the RSPB that all aspiring naturalists wanted to tick off. I didn’t see my first avocet for many years and had to travel to see it but now I was watching the most northerly hatched Avocets in the Country. A fitting tribute to the management of Northumberland Wildlife Trusts reserves in Druridge Bay but also to the birds exploratory instincts to bring it this far north.



I was considering this attribute further at the weekend as I took a camping trip with my son to Cumbria. Everything has to be planned now and scheduled; where are you going, what are you doing, when will you be back etc. We have lost that spontaneity of our youth, the mischief that drives you to explore and find out those hidden treasures we are so forbidden from finding in our closeted modern legislated world or at least I thought we had.



The site we stay on is near Appleby but it could be any corner of the UK and it isn’t really camping anymore. My wife calls it ‘glamping’, as this is what her friends call it after years of luxury camping trips. The benefits are there to see especially as the weather was very inclement and the warmth of an electric heater and a stable tent the size of York minster were very much appreciated.

Off the beaten track into a hidden world

However, the land around is quite beautiful and very explorable with many almost sunken lanes and wooded valleys and crystal clear becks with buttery yellow trout, but with a young boy and inclement weather not really a lot to do in his realms of interest. But these are places I explored as a youth, surely that basic urge must still be there, it just needs to be persuaded there is more to life than an Xbox.



So off we went, drearily at first but I still just couldn’t resist, mischief coursing threw my blood, getting off the path to see what was around the corner or over that hedge. Kids today just never get the chances to do this anymore, they are either stuck on a computer or worse still, immediately branded a delinquent and told to ‘get off my land’, and chased for doing what we did naturally only a few years back.

As we slipped off the trail we entered a small valley full of flowers, shrouded trees and  singing birds. Who was more excited me or my son is debateable as he plodged in the mud. We hid from some passing walkers so know one else would know our discovery. This really was a blast from the past as I found the hidden nest of a redstart and showed a half a dozen glossy blue pearls to him to admire, placing one against his cheek to feel its warmth before carefully replacing the egg and surrounding cover then watching the bird return totally unconcerned minutes later. 



Blue pearls of beauty and wonder - redstart nest and eggs

 We watched a red squirrel run along a branch and as the sun came out the light illuminated some shadowy figures on the bed of the stream. Wild brown trout as sweet as a nut and something for another day with a line, hook and worm, we also turned a few boulders and found plenty of crayfish hiding beneath and I encouraged him to pick them up discovering them first hand.

Wild brown trout sweet as a nut

The moral of this tale if there is one, is that apart from watching the squirrel all the things we were doing were technically illegal even though I do myself possess a licence to handle native crayfish, I don not possess one to peer into the nest of a bird or fish for those trout or even be on that land. Was I wrong in doing this for encouraging such wanton law breaking, in short I don’t think I was, the look in my sons eye at such delicate marvels as those redstart eggs said it all.

We are so obsessed with laws and regulations these days we have forgotten just how important the art of discovery is without it where are the naturalists of the future ever going to come from if they are not allowed to find.