Pangolin Issue 75

This month we will be listening, like the radomes at Menwith Hill, a distant backdrop to many of my favourite walks. I was going to take my own photograph yesterday, after we were out guerrilla tree-planting again (ten tiny oaks this time), but the light wasn’t good enough. Listening is a skill, nurtured and developed […]

Pangolin Issue 73

Pam was weeding the allotment a week or so ago when she unearthed this. She tells me it’s not the first season she has found one. I had wondered about the alfalfa-like plant with the bright green leaves. Folks, we have groundnuts (a.k.a. peanuts) surviving and self-seeding in Leeds. Yes, groundnuts, whose natural habitat is […]

Pangolin Issue 72

Here’s Petronella (Pet for short, said in a Geordie accent) watching our street last week. My new alter ego, carefully crocheted by one of my daughters, arrived in perfect time to keep me company during Covid-induced isolation. This pangolin has something of the Clangers about her, as she watches over our five-way junction and all […]

Pangolin Issue 71

Firstly, my apologies for the late arrival of this month’s Pangolin. There are some bits of unhelpful code lurking in my WordPress site which the excellent folk at HostPresto are working on. Perhaps I need to understand more about how to configure a rich snippet, a baffling phrase that pops up when I try to […]

Pangolin Issue 70

I may have mentioned in a past bloglet that I was once an orienteer. Past tense. Towards the end of our recent holiday in the Brecon Beacons we decided to go to a waterfall and plunge-pool which our daughter-in-law recommended. After a couple of miles contouring round a densely-brackened hillside on wayward sheep-tracks in hot […]

Pangolin Issue 69

After a long cool Spring, we have finally emerged into summer in Yorkshire. We rediscovered this place the other week and I tweeted the anonymous scene with the hashtag #bestkeptsecret doing the work of an adjective and an instruction. This month, Pangolin 69 is going to play with names and naming. There has been an […]

Pangolin Issue 68

This is a White-tailed Eagle. Would you believe me if I told you that I saw three of them above Leeds two weeks ago? That sighting inspired a rare poem from me. I’m not 100% certain because I had no binoculars, no camera, no other witnesses. When sharing my insecurity about the validity of my […]

Pangolin Issue 67

Local readers will recognise this packhorse bridge over the Washburn, a landmark which we have recently been able to revisit as the UK lockdown eases. The bridge fits into the landscape so well, it’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t there, or won’t be in the future. An unexpected traffic diversion forced us […]