Tawny Owl, Buck Wood

After further thought and feedback, I've changed the main image to my Tawny Owl shot, which most are agreed is quite special. I've included a link to the original picture below.

As I approach the end of my work's holiday year, I've had a few odd days to use up. Today was the last of those, and I decided to explore an area of woodland a mile away on the other side of the Aire valley.

Although I've lived here for more than five years now, I'm still only scratching the surface of what the locale has to offer. I normally head for the moors, so today it was a bit counter-intuitive to walk downhill through the village, losing 190m of height, to the banks of the Aire.

Buck Wood in Thackley was my main destination, but on the way I spent a bit of time at Denso Marston Nature Reserve, on the banks of the Aire at the bottom of Baildon. I'm sure that will deserve a blip of its own at some point, but it is a lovely place tucked away behind the Otley Road industrial plants.

From here, it's just a few hundred metres to the cast iron footbridge across the river, then a swing bridge across the Leeds-Liverpool Canal leads you into Buck Wood.

Thanks to a recent community archaeology project there is a wealth of information about Buck Wood on the web. This helped guide me to some features of interest today, although sadly I didn't manage to find the 'Toothache Tree.' I though I might see woodpeckers, but I just heard occasional drumming. I tripped over Robins wherever I went, eschewing their solitary habits at this time of year, and also saw Jays, a Nuthatch and lots of regular woodland birds, along with my first Peacock Butterflies of the year. The highlight was an encounter with a Tawny Owl I just caught the silhouette out of the corner of my eye and spent a good half an our watching it, while it watched me.

from a lofty perch ~ solemn gaze ~ of a Tawny Owl ~ waiting ~ for the night

The picture that I originally chose came from a fairly open patch of woodland with some ancient trees that were swarming with squirrels. This patch reminded me of the New Forest, and I never thjought I'd say that about an area of Bradford. This is also the location of a large earthwork that was recently excavated, uncovering some Iron Age artefacts and some previously unknown neolithic cup-marked rocks.

This was a memorable first visit to Buck Wood, and I'm sure I'll be returning before too long.

ancient woodland ~ twisted trunks ~ squirrel maze