A storm strikes; Derwentwater grim, dark, covered in violent waves. The hills on the opposite side (Silver Hill, Swinside etc.) disappear in low cloud cover; nothing more than vague shades over the lough; and a new place suddenly exists, wiped clean of its previous identity.
Greylag Geese gather behind the narrow protection of a wooden jetty where the old-fashioned pleasure launches are moored, straining at their tethers. Trees are screaming with it all; even the stout, proud conifer over the way is being rocked dramatically. I watch it warily for fear of branch fall or the whole being uprooted dangerously close -
The storm bellows: a deep, growling boom that comes off the hills, forces its way over and around things; pushing, challenging, moaning with the strength of its own power. The responsibility of potential destruction.
The Greylags do something which might seem utterly foolish in all this chaos, collectively heading out toward the most exposed part of the lake; undaunted by the choppy waters, huddled together in a close knit passage right into the face of the storm - 60 or so birds just riding it out - a number of stragglers are swept in the opposite direction and become separated from the main body of the flock. One of them flaps its wings and calls, rising up out of the water in some desperate signal - Why on earth don't they fly to shelter? On cue a pair of Mallard rise up from the nearby shoreline and are immediately swept sidelong without any capacity to challenge the direction, which answers my question - they don't have the strength. Swallows are pummelled wildly, thrashed here and there, thrown off course - even these supreme artists of the air are out of their element tonight - and smaller birds have no chance; I see a sparrow forced into the wall of a granite outhouse at the water's edge, flight taken away, become as nothing in the onslaught -
The rain comes in harder now; horizontal slashes running directly north, striking my face with needle-like accuracy and stinging cheeks cold. I am stranded for a while in a small stone shelter just above the shoreline, waiting for a lull which may never come.
The Greylags gather, 'coagulating' in the centre of the lake where the water is most violent and white-capped, a Herring Gull coming in low above their heads. Surely they can't all be going out there to feed in this; gorging on food churned up by undercurrents? No. They stop at a fault-line on the surface where the lee of nearby Derwent Isle has created a shelter, a softer current, and where its furthest edge meets the most exposed currents and largest waves. There the birds stop moving, resting now for the duration; and the stragglers seeing this from way back, push on, guided now by the successful others, following the exact same course through the water, a latent map of currents passed on by the pioneers. These few make good speed, intent on the group majority 'safe' in the isle's shadow. The effort, courage and seeming foolishness it seems was worth it - they, of course, knew what they were doing all along. The stragglers now succeed in joining the rest, gathered beneath an overhanging tree, close by the isle's muddy bank and there they remain, bobbing calmly on that patch of softer water as the maelstrom intensifies toward dusk.
I, however, don' t have the nerve to step out of the shelter, even though I am getting hungry and twilight is setting in - the storm shows no sign of letting up - an hour may pass, but I'm not going anywhere.
Later, after the storm has subsided, sunset fire over Bassenthwaite; great shifts of cloud lit in all manner of inferno orange and red in preparation for the solstice - and behind that they crack wide open revealing a pearlescent expanse of virginal sky - the cloud cover moves quickly over Skiddaw, rolling back in thick globs until it has gone and the dark matter of the scree is left visible at the fell top -
Derwentwater, Cumbria 20/6/06
The storm bellows: a deep, growling boom that comes off the hills, forces its way over and around things; pushing, challenging, moaning with the strength of its own power. The responsibility of potential destruction.
The Greylags do something which might seem utterly foolish in all this chaos, collectively heading out toward the most exposed part of the lake; undaunted by the choppy waters, huddled together in a close knit passage right into the face of the storm - 60 or so birds just riding it out - a number of stragglers are swept in the opposite direction and become separated from the main body of the flock. One of them flaps its wings and calls, rising up out of the water in some desperate signal - Why on earth don't they fly to shelter? On cue a pair of Mallard rise up from the nearby shoreline and are immediately swept sidelong without any capacity to challenge the direction, which answers my question - they don't have the strength. Swallows are pummelled wildly, thrashed here and there, thrown off course - even these supreme artists of the air are out of their element tonight - and smaller birds have no chance; I see a sparrow forced into the wall of a granite outhouse at the water's edge, flight taken away, become as nothing in the onslaught -
The rain comes in harder now; horizontal slashes running directly north, striking my face with needle-like accuracy and stinging cheeks cold. I am stranded for a while in a small stone shelter just above the shoreline, waiting for a lull which may never come.
The Greylags gather, 'coagulating' in the centre of the lake where the water is most violent and white-capped, a Herring Gull coming in low above their heads. Surely they can't all be going out there to feed in this; gorging on food churned up by undercurrents? No. They stop at a fault-line on the surface where the lee of nearby Derwent Isle has created a shelter, a softer current, and where its furthest edge meets the most exposed currents and largest waves. There the birds stop moving, resting now for the duration; and the stragglers seeing this from way back, push on, guided now by the successful others, following the exact same course through the water, a latent map of currents passed on by the pioneers. These few make good speed, intent on the group majority 'safe' in the isle's shadow. The effort, courage and seeming foolishness it seems was worth it - they, of course, knew what they were doing all along. The stragglers now succeed in joining the rest, gathered beneath an overhanging tree, close by the isle's muddy bank and there they remain, bobbing calmly on that patch of softer water as the maelstrom intensifies toward dusk.
I, however, don' t have the nerve to step out of the shelter, even though I am getting hungry and twilight is setting in - the storm shows no sign of letting up - an hour may pass, but I'm not going anywhere.
Later, after the storm has subsided, sunset fire over Bassenthwaite; great shifts of cloud lit in all manner of inferno orange and red in preparation for the solstice - and behind that they crack wide open revealing a pearlescent expanse of virginal sky - the cloud cover moves quickly over Skiddaw, rolling back in thick globs until it has gone and the dark matter of the scree is left visible at the fell top -
Derwentwater, Cumbria 20/6/06
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