Country diary: the heather is a burnt burgundy, the grass yellowed

Rombalds Moor, West Yorkshire: We can't blame the heatwave for this desiccated landscape - we've spent decades deliberately drying out our peatland habitats

The moors are a tinderbox. Parched and crisped by weeks of dry summer heat, the heather is a burnt brown-to-burgundy, the moorland grass yellowed. The bracken looks all right - still a deep pea-green (it takes a lot to bother bracken) - but finger-wide cracks have opened in the colourless peat of the footpath. It's early morning; the day hasn't yet been fully cranked up, and the broken sky is a messy palette of blues and greys. A loose flock of a dozen meadow pipits forages for caterpillars.