Kestrels over Pendle, a jaunt around the ‘Nick

Posted byNorthwest nature and historyPosted in#Lancashire, #WalksTags:, , , , , , , ,

Here’s a few photos from a little jaunt around Pendle yesterday, we walked from the Nick ‘O Pendle across to the fell above the Wellsprings, to the quarry and then downhill to Sabden past Churn Clough reservoir.

The Wellsprings and Pendle Ski club can be seen in the centre of this shot
Looking across the Ribble valley towards Kemple End and Parlick
A Kestrel came to visit us whilst we explored the old quarry on the ‘Nick
Pendle is popular with paragliders
A very lichenaceous signpost
I counted at least 10 species of Lichen, I’ll have to return with a guidebook to identify them properly

The path down to Sabden, shortly after taking this shot we saw a Kestrel flying overhead, it may have been the one we saw before, a minute later we saw it swoop and then fly to a fencepost clutching a vole in its talons.

Kestrel eating a Vole, it was about 50 yards away and frustratingly hard to focus on so apologies for the shaky camera work!
You can see a bulge in the Kestrels throat as it swallows the Vole

Unpalatable squidgy bits were discarded;

Vole stomach
Vole intestine
Gorse in bloom

A sun-dappled Sabden sat below us
These concrete blocks are a common sight throughout Britains countryside, they were used for loading milk churns (see image below) onto wagons
Here you can see where the impact of full milk churns has worn away the concrete over the years
We didn’t have time to visit Churn Clough, maybe next time?

A B-H

(Feb 2025)

Published by Northwest nature and history

Hi, my name is Alexander Burton-Hargreaves, I live in the Northwest of England and have over two decades of experience working in and studying the fields of land management and conservation. As well as ecology and conservation, in particular upland ecology, I am also interested in photography, classical natural history books, architecture, archaeology, cooking and gardening, amongst many other things. These are all subjects I cover in my articles here and on other sites and I plan to eventually publish a series of books on the history and wildlife of Northern England.

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