Author Archives: Martin WW

You may remember that last winter we planted a lot of willow to try and stop some of The Cluster ending up in the North Sea? See here…https://heggscastlecluster.org/2022/03/11/how-was-your-day/ After the floods three years ago, a large land slip started which with every proceeding flood caused more to be washed into the Arkle and more landContinue reading “Woolly jumpers”

But why does it have to be 5 1/2 inches in just over three hours? Three years ago today we had a bit of a shower which caused huge amounts of damage to both The Cluster and the surrounding area. TV crews flooded in (sorry) to the area to document and incorrectly report what wasContinue reading “A little rain must fall…”

It rained! Seriously. It did. Honest! It was therefore a bit muddy as we removed another few hundred meters of wire and posts from the Castle end of The Cluster. This fencing was erected some years ago to keep stock out of the alder woodland but floods and erosion had severely damaged it to theContinue reading “A moist update.”

You wait ages for a blog to come along… Just a reminder that we try and enter records of things seen on The Cluster (or indeed anywhere else) on https://www.inaturalist.org/home Its a simple to use app which has a feature where it attempts to identify what you’ve photographed. Anything that is recorded on The ClusterContinue reading “Buses”

“A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” ~ Sophia Loren Saturday found a group of volunteers assembled on The Cluster in cloudy but warm conditions to bang things and pull out things. The ‘banging’ involved making sure that some of the trees we planted earlier inContinue reading “Would Sophia Loren approve?”

Last Thursday saw a team of volunteers from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust get their feet wet in search of our native White-clawed crayfish. Some old faces re-appeared from last year’s day surveying with the Wild Trout Trust as well as some newbies to The Cluster. The lower the river the better when searching for crayfishContinue reading “In Search of Ronnie and Reggies*”

Many many years ago, before Covid even thought about humans, even before the Arkle beck threw its toys over its banks in spectacular fashion, a couple of folk had an idea to renature their bits of Arkengarthdale. “Let’s do some habitat restoration”… “Lets plant some trees”…Let’s…” (well you get the idea) and so The ClusterContinue reading “And we’re OFF…”

“Night, her sable dome scattered with diamonds” I arose from my Couch of Death just before seven. A good nights’ sleep. The oystercatchers were as noisy as usual come chucking out time but there was little else to trouble my fleeing consciousness.  There was a hungry wind as dawn broke, but by the time IContinue reading “Night the Second”