It was good to see and hear curlews and lapwings while out on the moors this week. The curlew’s call, even if a little haunting (!) is a welcome sign of early summer around here. What I am surprised at though, for the time of year, is the lack of water. Streams are just a trickle in many places or have disappeared out of sight into their underground channels in the limestone. Even the major rivers seem lower than normal. Many householders in our village are supplied by a small private reservoir and they have been asked to preserve as much water as possible as it is at an unusual low for early June. My house is supplied by a bore hole which has not been known, in living memory, to run dry – touch wood. As I write, the skies are darkening and the forecast is for short showers so maybe some much-needed rain is approaching.
The photo was taken on Friday and shows the dry riverbed in Deepdale in north-west Yorkshire.