Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

I LOVE walking around watercourses in the early spring. At this time you get clear views which are not obstructed by trees.

This week I enjoyed two walks. The first was alongside the Bridgewater Canal at Worsley.

In the last few years a network of well marked footpaths has been set up and from East Lancashire, Worsley is easily reached because it is signed off the M62 motorway.

It is amazing how the sound of traffic is muffled by the woodlands in the area.

The canal itself was operating from the 1760's onwards and its waters look more polluted than they are.

The water is often quite red due to the rust-coloured iron salts. These are present in the soil and has run off from the old coal mines which once ran underground from Worsley almost as far as Bolton. Sometimes the River Calder around Burnley also has a red coloration.

These iron salts are not poisonous but both the Calder and the Bridgewater Canal are becoming clearer and are wonderful places to walk.

The woodlands around Worsley are dominated by birch which grows quickly, resists wind but does not live as long as larger trees such as oak and ash. There are two species of birch (called the silver and the common). When the bark of the silver birch is reflected in the sun it is one of the most beautiful trees in Britain.

Birch is not a good tree if you are on the look-out for the production of quality furniture but it has been used in strips to produce plywood.

The wood is soft and it therefore easily rots. It is therefore a wonderful tree to find fungus and insects. It is also one of the best trees to watch great spotted woodpeckers feeding and constructing their nests.

My second walk took me alongside a small tributary of the River Ribble not far from Sawley.

This is a wonderful stretch of water and is one of Lancashire's best fishing rivers with brown trout, sea trout and salmon all present.

Some, but not all, anglers welcome the birdlife on this stretch with goosander, heron and cormorant always present but especially between October and April.

The kingfisher, dipper and grey wagtail are all resident, and in summer they are joined by common sandpiper, sand martin and swallow.

I have already seen my first sand martin and other migrants will soon be with us. That is what makes springtime such an exciting time - it is a period of rapid change.

Why don't you change into boots and get out and about in search of our wonderful wildlife?

Reader's letter about farm litter

YOUR article "Precious Waters" (LET, March 10, 1999) mentioned discarded rubbish and litter.

While I totally agree with everything you wrote in the article about tin cans, crisp packets, fish and chip papers, cigarette packets etc, I think you failed to mention another source of litter which is just as great a threat to our countryside as "normal litter." On my walks on the footpaths across agricultural land and alongside rivers, I am incensed by the amount of black plastic hay wraps, plastic "feed" bags and plastic "feed tubs" which have been left to the elements by the farmers themselves. I have seen them impaled on barbed-wire fences, flapping noisily in the wind, under hedgerows and also either clogging the rivers or left stranded in the mud by the riverbank.

I know not every farmer is guilty of such wanton litter disposal, just as I know that every walker and member of the public is not guilty of such behaviour.

As well as targeting the public with "No Litter" and "Take Your Litter Home" signs and threats of financial penalties (which I feel is justified), I feel that the farmers themselves need to be reminded that litter is not just a crisp packet etc. but also the kind of agricultural litter which seems to be becoming the normal thing to see on a country ramble.

A little help and consideration from everyone will keep our beautiful countryside as it should be.

P M EDGAR (Mr), Longworth Avenue, Blackrod, Bolton.

RON'S REPLY:

I AGREE with every word in this letter. We would have a much better healthier and more attractive countryside if all walkers and farmers worked on compromise rather than confrontation.

It is a small minority of each group who spoil things for all of us.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.