Why cockerels dreaded Imbolc

At the time of the Celts, today was known as Imbolc but its impact faded with both the arrival of Christianity and events associated with the Christmas period.

Gradually, the spread of Christian activities, including the celebrations for St Bride's Feast Day (today) and Candlemas Day (tomorrow), caused Imbolc to fade into insignificance, although some of its ceremonials persisted, if only in folk memory. It may have been that the festivities of Christmas somehow became intertwined with those of Imbolc and that the formal end of Christmastide eventually became associated with remnants of the previous celebration of Imbolc.

One of the celebrations of Imbolc was the sacrifice of cockerels. It was done to prevent the activities of evil spirits but also to celebrate the return of the sun which, at this time of year, is beginning to make its presence felt a little more as each day lengthens. We must not be lulled into a sense of false security, however, because tomorrow, when we celebrate the feast of Candlemas, is not the beginning of spring, but merely the half-way stage of winter.

WE took a brief excursion to the North York Moors, both to enjoy the brisk fresh air of those heathery hills, and to gain some practical exercise after the sloth-inducing indulgences of Christmastide. Our chosen destination was the highest point of the North York Moors; this is known both as Round Hill and Botton Head but Round Hill is the correct name. It stands on Urra Moor at 1,490 feet above sea level. In fact, Round Hill is a third of a mile or thereabouts to the south-west of Botton Head - and Botton Head is not to be confused with Botton Hall, which lies in Danby Dale some six miles to the east.

Finding Round Hill is comparatively simple because it lies along the route of the well-signed Cleveland Way long distance footpath and our route began in the car park at the summit of Clay Bank, itself a location with glorious views. Clay Bank, along the B1257 road, overlooks Bilsdale to the south and Middlesbrough to the north and this well-sited car park was once a Bronze Age burial ground. Bodies were discovered here during its construction in 1969.

The trek to Round Hill begins with a heart-thumping climb then, instead of following the Cleveland Way directly towards Round Hill, we followed a right-hand route which leads along the edge of a massive earthwork above the village of Urra. Clearly shown on Ordnance Survey maps, this earthwork stretches for about three miles above Urra, Sieve Green and Chop Gate and offers wonderful views of Bilsdale. The earthwork is known as Park Dyke and Harry Mead (author of A Prospect of the North York Moors and other books) believes it is not prehistoric as most people believe, but the boundary of what used to be the deer park of Rievaulx Abbey.

Before reaching the southern tip of Park Dyke, we turned left near East Bank Plantation, climbed past Medd Cragg, and followed a broad track which led to the north-east beside some recently-erected grouse butts. Round Hill was almost opposite the end of that track where it rejoins the Cleveland Way, and it is clearly marked with an Ordnance Survey pillar or trig point.

Although it is claimed there are fabulous views from Round Hill, the site itself is somewhat unprepossessing, not at all like reaching the top of Helvellyn or Skiddaw, but we missed all that promise because dense fog wafted across the moors and swallowed everything, ourselves included, in its dense whiteness. The route back to Clay Bank via the Cleveland Way was easy to follow in spite of the dense fog but we missed more glorious views on offer during the descent via Carr Ridge.

A walk of this kind, across the treeless heights of the moors, so rich with heather and unpopulated apart from grumbling grouse, is an ideal means of appreciating the wonderful countryside freely on offer in our region. And doesn't a cup of hot soup taste scrumptious after such a trek?

FOLLOWING my notes about elm trees and Dutch Elm Disease, I have received an erudite letter from a reader living in Oldstead, a delightful village lying almost beneath the famous White Horse of Kilburn. He comments on the hybrids and wide variety of elms which populate our countryside, some exhibiting differences which are so subtle that precise identification can be very difficult. He believes that most elms near his home are hybrids or varieties of the wych elm.

He does say, however, that the tree we often call the English elm is really that which grows more in the South and Midlands than in the North, whereas those which are more numerous in this region may be wych elms, as seen in the illustration which accompanied this column on January 11. The wych elm is a more hardy type which is able to tolerate the northern climate; it will even grow near the coast and seems able to cope with industrial pollution.

Around the village of Oldstead, he has counted some 200 elms which have survived Dutch Elm Disease, possibly because they have been regularly trimmed. He feels that trimming removes the diseased parts, and allows new, uninfected shoots to grow, and he knows of many saplings and small trees in nearby woods which have either grown from seed, or from suckers from the roots of dead trees.

Most interesting, however, is an elm tree in the grounds of his former home which died from Dutch Elm Disease in the early Thirties, grew again from the bottom to become a 40ft specimen by 1960, which was killed again by the disease in the Seventies, but which sprung another sucker which is now 20 feet high. This particular sucker was itself affected by Dutch Elm Disease some ten years ago but has since completely recovered.

He believes our elms will survive, perhaps flourishing until a new strain of the disease comes along, but he also believes they have been coping with this kind of problem ever since they first appeared upon our landscape. I thank him for his interesting letter.

EVERY year, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds organises its Big Garden Birdwatch, which is the country's biggest and longest-running garden bird survey. The idea is wonderfully simple - participants watch the birds in their own garden, however large or small it might be, and they count all the birds spotted during just one hour. If they do not have a garden, then a visit to a park or anywhere else frequented by wild birds will suffice.

This year's Big Garden Birdwatch was held last weekend (I learned about it too late to mention earlier) but if last year's event is representative, then more than 50,000 people will have taken part and all will furnish the RSPB with their findings.

This year's findings have not yet been processed but the nationwide figures for 2001 showed that the starling was the bird most often seen in our gardens. The house sparrow was second and the blue tit third, followed by the blackbird, chaffinch, greenfinch, robin, great tit, collared dove and wood pigeon.

Although those figures are nationwide, there were regional variations. In North Yorkshire, for example, the house sparrow was the most numerous of the garden visitors, with the dunnock, otherwise known as the hedge sparrow or hedge accentor, coming in at No 10, and the wood pigeon not featuring in the top ten.

The Birdwatch is proving most useful in determining bird numbers throughout the country. It was this survey, for example, which highlighted the decline of the song thrush - and so it is of great value to the RSPB.

Further information about the RSPB's work can be obtained from the RSPB Regional Office, 4 Benton Terrace, Sandyford Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne NE2 I QU (tel 0191 212 0353).