Life returns to the bog
by Ed Douglas from on (#1040Z)
Leash Fen, Derbyshire I've often seen birders parked up on the road watching the short-eared owls that nest here
After days of rain, the fields either side of Spitewinter Lane were soaked, the heavy clay soil of those more recently ploughed liquid and greasy. Raindrops bounced off the asphalt. Thick cloud skimmed the top of Big Moor. I shrank inside my jacket, thrust hands deeper into pockets, and splashed along.
This is a good place to contemplate the limits of development. The fields here, a thousand feet above sea level, are the last of what is known in the Pennines as intake land (taken in from the moor for cultivation). Just beyond their boundary of crumbling drystone walls and modern wire fences is Leash Fen, one of the biggest mires on the Peak District's eastern edges, a bulging saddle of peat heaped on the gritstone beneath it.
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