Wildlife Impersonations

Not far from our cottage is a steep country lane leading up onto the moor and the slopes of Kilmar Tor and Hawks Tor. Near the top, the lane passes through Hawks Wood a thick, dark conifer wood full of moss covered boulders and fallen down tree trunks. Deer frequent the woods(plus their ticks), badgers, foxes and other wildlife. The woods also conceal a ruined warfarin mine - but I'll leave that story for another day. Moving swiftly on we (family and me) were standing in a small sunny clearing in the trees near the highest edge of the woods when we were surprised by the unmistakeable ,and very close, call of a cuckoo. Now you often hear these guys up on the moors, but they are a real pain to actually locate with your eyes, but this chap shot through the branches in clear view which was great. Doing my best Dr Doolittle impression (it must have been pretty good because my wife thought it was another cuckoo) I gave a couple of cuckoo-style calls back, but our friend was having none of this and flew off quick. However from some way away, up on the moor, came another call in reply to mine. I gave it a couple more goes, and each time there was an answer from this new mystery cuckoo . Then after a couple more minutes, not wanting to provoke a mass attack from irate male cuckoos I decided to call it a day.

Not a cuckoo

Stones of Dartmoor

Bank holiday weekend dawned with some warm weather and so we decided to pile into the motor and take a quick sojourn over the Devon - Cornwall border to the edge of Dartmoor, about 20 miles to the east of Middlewood. We drove up onto the moorland plateau under beautiful clear blue skies, accompanied by the sound of a tourist coach labouring asthmatically up the road in front of us and, more pleasantly, burbling skylarks above. Despite the sun it was still too cold and windy to take our little daughter(six months old) on a proper hike so we stopped in a layby just off of the B3357 to take a look at the Merrivale Stone Rows.

From what we could see there are three rows - two double jobs and a single. Both the doubles run east to west, but they are not parallel. The first one is fairly close to the road and it contains some 170 stones, including some very small ones. Further south is the longer row containing over 200 stones. Its eastern end is blocked by a large triangular lump of rock. The third row, the single one, is very short, not many stones and leading leading off to the south west.

Heaven alone knows what the rows are for, they are too low to be seen properly from ground level, although you could probably get a nice view from one of the nearby tors. One thing for sure, though, they were not designed for alien spacecraft landing strips, and anyone who tells me otherwise I'm afraid will be wasting their breath. I have read in a factual tome however that they may be aligned with the May rise of Pleiades, a group of stars the Greeks are supposed to have used to predict harvests, but whether that's true or not I don't know.

Nearby is one of the waymarking stones raised in the late 17th century when an act of parliament required towns at the edge of the moor to place markers to help travellers in bad weather. This particular stone is marked with a T for Tavistock/Ashburton.

Here endeth the history lesson....

Stones, stones, stones.........

Twenty Minute Deluge

As the title of this post suggests a sudden, and thankfully short-lived, flash flood hit Middlewood the other day. There we were just having eaten our tea and sat watching The Simpsons when an extremely heavy rain storm kicked off. Nothing too unusual in that, after all this is Cornwall, but within minutes the sound of gushing water had me looking out of the front door to see a dirty brown river flowing past our front gate. All sorts of crud was being washed down the road and the local drains, useless in anything more than an inch of rain were did nothing except sit and watch as the torrent swept straight over the top of their metal grilles. Farther up the hill a waterfall of alarming proportions had appeared out of nowhere and was channeling water down off of the moorland above, which then gathered extra power as it was shot down the road and into the middle of our little hamlet. Frenzied activity ensued as we all rushed out and tried to clear drains with spades, metal poles, brooms. Then almost as suddenly as it had appeared the waters subsided, reduced to a small trickle and then disappeared leaving a pile of stones and rubbish in it's wake. Drama over, we boarded up the front door in case of more water then returned to catch the end of The Simpsons. Nice.

Grizzly Bear Painting on the Go

Latest oil painting is coming along. I'm about midway through this one, plenty more work to go on the rushing water, the trout and the bear's fur. Good fun though, watch this space...
No home for this one yet, so if you are interested in purchasing feel free to contact me at joelmerriner@hotmail.com

Hitchhiking Wildlife

There we were driving back from the bright lights of Liskeard(!) the other day when out of the corner of our vision we spotted a small four-legged red chap poised at the edge of the road - a stoat. For a few seconds he loitered there, maybe thinking of thumbing a lift to Bodmin moor, or maybe just considering dashing across the road(dangerous), and then he turned super-quick, flashed his tail defiantly, thumbed his nose at passing motorists and disappeared into the hedgerow. Superb.

Follow in my footprints!

You can now Follow my bizarre ramblings on this blog by clicking on the handy little icon at the top of the sidebar

Ahh what more could you want.........

New wildlife art website on the way

I'm in the process of designing a new website which will showcase my past and present work, biography, creative process etc. I'm hoping to provide checkout facilities via paypal so people can purchase artwork direct from the site. Shouldn't be too long until it's underway and I will post links from this blog.