Merry Hill Walk
The land contained by Attenborough's Fields up to Merry Hill and then down to Little Hartsbourne Wood is my nearest and most common stamping ground and it affords me various permutations on a four-or-so mile walk. It's a moderately large area, but bounded by urban development, eventually, on all sides. Pressure for development is relentless, though the popularity of Attenborough's Fields in particular has ensured equally strenuous resistance. All the same, the closure and sale of a local riding school and stables has meant a moderately large chunk of adjacent land has now been lost to developers, with a similar—but sadly larger—result caused by the even more recent sale of a golf course (there is, of course, no shortage of other golfing facilities nearby, so the golfers are okay). Building has yet to get passed local planning but the die is cast.
I fear for a large parcel of land adjacent to Merry Hill. Once a dairy farm, the business closed a few years ago. So far there has been no sign of plans for development (and long may it remain so). In summertime I trespass and sit in the long grass to watch kestrels (and, once, a red kite) hunting. It would be too miserable if it was lost.
The area about here is a twitcher's paradise as the birdlife is varied and plentiful. Merry Hill is alive with birdsong and it's a tonic to sit and listen. A recent novelty is parakeets. Obviously not native, they are presumably the offshoot of a growing colony that started from escaped captive birds in West London. They have been spreading to the north and west for over a decade and have finally arrived in Hertfordshire. As cheerful as they are, as with many invading species, they have a somewhat adverse effect through competition with other local birds. Notwithstanding, there are good numbers of most common birds, with barn owls, little owls, skylarks, various woodpeckers and other less seen species in evidence. In winter, our garden plays host to a large colony of British redwings, relatives of the song thrush.
Merry Hill also has a good variety of colourful insect life, with plenty of butterflies. Usually, the earliest to be seen are commas, tortoiseshells and peacocks, to be followed by brimstones, orange tips (the latter are thought to be very common hereabouts, though I have never seen large numbers myself) and various whites. Later in the year there are red (and white) admirals, meadow browns, speckled woods, gatekeepers, various skippers and very large numbers of marbled whites. Once in a while, I can see a Burnet moth or cinnabar moth (there's plenty of ragwort around here—despite the keeping of horses and cattle—and these moths are particularly fond of it).
A photograph taken in Little Hartsbourne Wood seemed to me to invite being painted so, taking a leaf out David's book with a view to experimental manipulation, I electronically rendered the image in Impressionist style.