Belties Eagle-Watch-Walk

 

My husband Stephen and I had been thinking along similar lines it seemed when it came to going out for a walk this morning.

The line of thought that we were sharing was something like this.

 

 

 

I am a White-Tailed-Eagle, we having been transported a great distance and released on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England along with two other breading pairs, by people who have experience in these matters and should know what they are doing. My wife and I should give a little time considering this new, carefully selected location. Having explored the island a little while, my love and I had flown to West Sussex, not very far away in search of somewhere else to set up home. Then following our inbred instinct’s, we flew away gliding on the prevalent south westerly wind soaring high above the pretty land and sea below, gliding in huge graceful circles taking in all that was going on far below us not missing a thing with our ‘Eagle- eyes’. Mmm River Arun…. Arundel Castle has a large estate of park, farmlands, wetlands and woodland with some pretty villages. The river Arun runs through it all and snakes through the South Downs.

 

 

Stephen and I have been obsessively striking out on Eagle-Watch-Walks since we first spotted the newest visitors to the area. We have got to know quite the land well in thirty years of running as training for our sport of triathlon and doing our best to avoid road running that neither of us is fond of. We saw the eagles first time completely by accident on the return leg of one of our exercise jog-run rambles. We do love the countryside and a bit of bird spotting goes down well, so it was very exciting to see these huge beautiful strangers soaring above us.

 

Today we were both on a bit of a mission and the training idea was less important that the Eagle spotting. We had both been searching our minds for where we might settle for as a home if we were a breading pair of Eagles thrown into a new landscape. We have seen them a fair number of times now on these rambles and thought we would stretch it out to search out toward the South Downs Way a little north on Burpham where we had seen them circling and also perched in a tree.  Maybe it was again simply a stroke of luck or if our own instinct had been correct, Lord only knows, but a little short of the old Roman, quite direct trail along the South Downs, there above us riding the air streams were the two vast birds that we were searching for. We stood transfixed long enough for five mountain bikers to climb up the very steep path behind us and in fact only one of these sturdy looking blokes actually made it anywhere near the top. We shouted encouragement at the first one to appear and he did manage to get to the top where it took him a few moments until he could breathe soundly enough to tell us about the groups trek from Portsmouth with an overnight stay on the downs before getting into our area. The other four all got off their bikes before they even came into sight around the bend in the stiff climb. We made then feel bad by telling them all as they arrived that only one of them made it. They all felt better when we pointed out that the old maxim, ‘The harder the climb the sweeter the prize’ was only too true by pointing to the pair of eagles above them. 

 

The circling spectacle over our head started to move back toward the River and Burpham where they have been hanging out of late. We managed to get a couple more good sightings before we finally picked up the van in the car park by The George Pub at our start point. As we stood there gazing around, I was so happy to see my first swallow this year. I turned to Steve and quoted

‘One Swallow doesn’t make a summer’, but did not get past that before another one darted by to make it official. Summer my friends is upon us.

 

Shortly after we got home there were the two White-Tailed-Eagles circling overhead above our home in Littlehampton, just two miles south of Arundel. I hope they are not going to return to the Isle of White which at their height in the sky, they can clearly see from that position.

 

Another of our funny little habits is to take a quick sweep around Arundel before driving home and I have to say that far from continuing to be half sensible, the world has gone quite mad and people a swarming everywhere shoulder to shoulder as if the pandemic was already over. Not in my book it isn’t. I can see that it has been a horrible time and nobody wants to go through anything like the last year and a quarter again but I do think that with arms all around each other, hugging and kissing all your mates and behaving in nothing short of festival mode is a little bit premature or to put it another way immature.

 

I contrast to this freedom hysteria, the behaviour of the Queen and her family at the very formal but perfect funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, was far more sensible and in keeping with the official advice that still stands. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ups and Downs Strike Again,

 

                                                                   White-Tailed-Eagle

I have got to the point where I am wondering, if the latest round of aches and pains threatening my training programme, are more a simple case of the underpinning getting weak, after so much stress and strain under the Covid cloud. Don’t bother to remind me that I am a little long in the tooth anyway and I cannot expect anything else. Well, I do expect better of myself actually because for the most part, I do really put my money where my mouth is.

 

Over the years Stephen and I have always advised triathletes to allow injuries the rest time and treatment they need to recover. My current naughty back problem, feels like life itself has been a factor and not a question of working injured muscles to see if they are better, because they won’t be, if you keep on testing them with a ten-mile run. The comeback should be little steps and time is the best healer.

 

 

As well as resting off running this week, I have invested in a smart new heated jacket that once tried, Steve and I have been fighting over whose turn it is. I have put the warm heated blanket, that is disguised as a sort of gillet, on each time I have sat down to work on my computer which is perfect for a fidget like me; two birds-one stone.

 

So, my Duo-lingo Italian work practice is a heated affair, and because I find the course completely absorbing, I am not trying to stand up and get untangled from the jacket wiring system or trip over and break my neck trying to answer the front door during that time. Then part of my therapy is a rest and a learning project.  

 My other therapy is that I have been back at the Qigong sessions on YouTube. I did a double session of that this morning that ate into an hour and a half, after which I had gently loosened up my limbs without overdoing any stretching. In fact, the class has the student doing gentle swinging around the body during which I close my eyes to do it, because I know it well and hearing the tutor speak, I know when it changes to something else. There is also some whole body shaking to loosen out stress and some tapping and slapping all of which work well for me.

 

 

The other area of useful movement that we have both very much enjoyed over the last couple of weeks, has been Eagle Spotting Walks! These have been taken a little outside Arundel, here in West Sussex, which is only a 5-10-minute drive from home to the start point on any of several walks. There the big birds; White-Tailed Eagles, have been seen by local people recently. We saw them the first time, by pure accident, we stopped walking, as our jaws dropped to our chests when we were thunderstruck by spotting them, soaring just a little way above us. The birds are so large that they made the local resident buzzards and a Hen Harrier look like sparrows in comparison.

 

Yesterday having thought that it was a no-show day from the big birds, we wandered on from where we had seen them a couple of times before. We wandered along past a big farm in Burpham and then down to the wetlands closer to the River Arun. We took a photo here and there with Steve getting to grips with the new baby zoom attachment for his phone. Since we are not proper photographers but still get some nice shots simply using our mobile phones that are thankfully far more sophisticated than our olds ones, years ago.

 

Having turned back along another path, we were alongside a smaller inlet from the river itself. As we strode along, chattering away as usual, Stephen suddenly threw an arm out to stop me moving, as he said quietly, “Oh my God, is that it”?

 I followed his gaze to a tree just the other side of the inlet and there sitting sunning itself on a big branch, midway up the tree, was indeed an Eagle. It looked huge even with its wings folded neatly down, but unlike other smaller birds it appeared to have shoulders like a night club bouncer and a wicked looking hooked beak and a stare that made Paddington Bear’s fictional hard stare look pretty mild.

 

Steve tried to hurriedly to get his phone out of one pocket and then the little mobile zoom out of another. As it happened, he had no need to hurry at all because the big bird was taking a break it seemed.

 

It sat and looked this way and that and even saw us when it turned around but seemed to be unimpressed, even though I had a bright green jacket on and we were standing in the open. We stood in that spot for almost an hour waiting for the impressive creature to take flight but that did not happen,  

the most he did was preen now and again and change position slightly. We thought that he or she must have a meeting arranged with the partner later, for the pair.

Steve must have taken a hundred shots of the Eagle on the grounds of that way we must get one good one. It was still a good way off from us and since we did both have other things to be doing after all, we had to give up bird watching for the morning. We were however, seriously happy with our encounter with one of the new visitors to the area. Eagle watch walks will continue hopefully. Having goggled the birds, it does seems like a good location for them with the river, the wetlands and the surrounding hills and woodland.

 

Easter Sunday Run Joy

 

 

Well anyway, today is Easter Sunday.

A special day that we have looked forward to.

If only for the ice-cream that we gave up for Lent and would get our spoons out for today!

To celebrate this feast day, my dear husband Stephen and I woke up a little before 6 am.

After our lifesaver coffee, we slipped into our running kit then drove off to the start point of our Sunday run.

It was, as forecast, quite cold when we started off, ten minutes before our running friend of many years would start off behind us.

We have not been able to meet together for sometimes and that all needs no explanation any more.

She is a slightly faster runner than us, and in the past has always caught and past us somewhere on the route.

This means that we soon start glancing back now and again to see if she is in sight.

 

Today was a really special run and not just because we were going back to old habits.

Doing the run the opposite way round to usual, meant that we would be starting with an uphill section

that is more often, a heavenly downhill toward the end of the run.

 

After only abut fifteen minutes we saw a white deer watching us as openly as we watched it.

It stayed stock still, slightly up the slope to our right at the edge of a wooded area.

Steve and I are totally besotted with the deer that roam freely in the Angmering Park Estate.

 

 

They seem to have been a little thin on the ground during a period when many more people than usual have been going out in the country side.

Some for a breath of fresh air or simply to amuse the children, when there has not been any school or jobs in the for the parents.

For a while we thought the estate had had a cull and the lack of sightings was because of that.

We even asked some of the estate workers but they said that the animals had simply gone deeper into the woodland because of the huge increase in walkers and mountain bikers.

So it was in the light of everything that has happened during the Covid days, that we were so delighted to see loads of deer this morning.

 

 Just after the half way point, when our friend had still not caught up with us, though we had seen her in the distance once or twice, that we were stopped in our tracks.

There a little way below us down the slope of the hill were a large group of deer huddled together, again at the edge of a stand of trees.

There were five white ones at the back of the group closest to us and many more of different types, colour and size.

We had stopped to take photos since it was such a startling sight.

At roughly the same spot two hares went bounding by which is equally unusual.

 

We dragged ourselves away even though the herd had not dispersed, because we were after all supposed to be out run training.

The Easter treat was not even finished after that encounter, since during the last two miles running to the west along The Monarchs Way,

we still saw more groups of three or four small deer bounding through the woodland to our left.

We saw some dog walkers who had also seen lots of deer this morning and were as happy as we were.

I am not saying that our spirits were lifted by this heavenly run today but even after a couple of stop and stare moments

our run was still faster that any time over the last few months, though the fact that much of the mud had dried up must also have been a contributing factor.

 

Our old running mate however, who has entered a virtual half marathon for next weekend, did not catch up with us until almost at the runs end when we had stopped to speak to other friends that we had not been able to speak to for some time.

Treats galore of this special bank holiday weekend.

 

Our morning did not end there because we drove to the spot where we had seen the White-Tailed Eagles a few days ago but they were not around this morning.

We always take a spin in the van around Arundel centre after our run and the town was already looking like the tourist town it always was which was our cue to go home.

 

 

Dark corners

 

Flower in Concrete

 

Unbelievable to see that it was even there

growing freely, but tight in the concrete stuck.

All around it, in great strength where

regularly drives an articulated truck

travelling the busy town thoroughfare.

 

question always, how this can possibly be,

a tiny plant that one can press and squeeze.

Such inexplicable strength one here can see,

we cannot pass through stone if we so please

yet minute flora sets itself wildly free.

 

It teaches, through all tribulations severe      

to remember you’re no loser until you quit.

When everyday difficulties to us appear,

face life full on to fight for every little bit.

everyone is a winner if they persevere.

 

Through it is years since I write these words, I still very much feel like this tiny flower.

I am still trying to push against the impossible forces that surround us in everyday life.

Struggling to maintain my fitness through all the setbacks of the last year or more.

It has been an almighty battle.

There have been times when I have thought that it was a hopeless task.

There have been troublesome nightmares and times when tears fell.

 

The mind can be a dark cavern where who knows what lurks in the corners,

or hide in the deep cracks there.

They were most annoying thoughts in those moments where depression slid in uninvited.

The many facets of my life that I struggle to give equal time to, also work against me a lot of the time.

 

The most often question asked of me during my 30 odd years in the sport of triathlon,

has always been, and very often the first thing people ask me is,

“When are you going stop doing all this”?

“When are you going to start acting your age and not your shoe size”?

The other remark, that is often a parting shot has been “You’re mad you are”!

This last one is sometimes said with a smile but quite often muttered seriously.