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We had a rather unwelcome visitor over the last couple of days. We weren’t entirely sure what it was, but some creature in the night was taking our chickens, including our beloved Mary Berry and leaving them headless. Our first clue was a five fingered footprint and some bite marks on a survivor of the attack.

We’ve seen a mink roaming around close to the chicken coop a couple of times, we always thought it was just stealing the eggs. These have 5 toes and do attack chickens, apparently they like to drink the blood like vampires. We didn’t know how it was getting in the coup so we set our trail camera up.

Instead of a mink, of course it was a plain old fox.

We can’t be too angry at mr (or mrs) fox, they’re only trying to find food to feed themselves or their young. But hopefully we’ve secured the coop so he wont be returning anytime soon.

There is a kingfisher nesting site along this section of the river Wharfe. The lightning blue flashes of this beautiful bird can often be spotted heading up and down the river bank anywhere between the bridge at Linton and the footbridge crossing on the Collingham to Wetherby footpath.

Each year the nest gets washed away by the winter floods, and each year the birds return to rebuild their home in the bank. I often wonder if they ever think of moving home to a safer place, or maybe they just like the fresh start each year.

Unfortunately our wildlife photography skills leave something to be desired, so if anyone has been able to capture sightings of these birds we would love to feature them.

Along with the kingfisher’s nest, the yearly floods erode large sections of the bank, undercutting and taking close to 1m at a time. It’s a constant reminder that although the river and it’s water is a great source of life, it’s also an incredibly destructive force. This ‘Ying and Yang’, the good and the bad, the light and the dark is a theme found throughout nature and the universe. 

Working with animals and nature is a constant reminder of this balance. The joys of birth, new lambs, baby chicks, budding leaves, the opening of flowers all slowly give way to dealing with the inevitable demise from old age, the sacrifice of one life to provide sustenance for another or through the destruction from nature itself.

Welcome our newest member of the flock. Harry the Herdwick! He’s only 7 months old so is still quite young as a ram, but we’re hoping he’ll do his job with our ewes this year. As he gets older his chocolate coloured fleece will fade to a majestic grey, hopefully complemented by some stylish horns.

The ewes pictured here (Carrie, Annie and Fannie) with the black heads are part Herdwick themselves, owing to their thick legs and sturdy hooves. Crossing with a Suffolk breed gives the distinctive black faces. It will be interesting come April to see what genetics our lambs take on.

Suffolk’s being a meat breed are known for having large lambs with big heads. During lambing in previous years this meant hand delivering those that got stuck. Herdwicks on the other hand living out in the fells of the Lake District are supposed to give birth by themselves quite easily.

Fingers crossed for the beginning of April 🤞🐑

We would just like to say a massive thank you to this amazing team of young people who came to help restore the riverside footpath to its former glory. Shown on maps since at least the 1850’s this footpath linked St Oswalds church at Collingham to Wetherby. Heavy flooding in recent years however, meant the old footpath had become blocked and littered with fallen branches, downed fences and had generally just fallen into a state of disrepair. The explorer scouts came to the rescue and dedicated an evening of their time clearing the overgrown bushes and marking out the old walkway. This now means locals and visitors of the area can access the old walking route and view much more wildlife along the riverbanks. Some species you can see along this section of the river include otters, kingfishers, little egret, heron, goshawks, buzzards, red kites, sparrowhawks and kestrels. If anyone has any wildlife images along this section of the river they would like to share we would love to hear from you.

What a wonderful afteroon! It was great to hear Collingham band play and see the Glebe field come alive during the coronation weekend. Free cake! Bell ringing! Flower arranging and face painting! What’s not to love! Naturally our chicks and lambs had to come along and join in the picnic festivities.

Welcome back! We hope everyone has had an amazing summer! I think we can all tell the seasons are starting to change, the darker mornings, the cool breeze and the damp drizzle. Summer might be over but I think nature tries to ease us gently into the autumn months with the bounty of fruits. What better way to start the term than an apple and blackberry crumble with heaps of custard!

Tomorrow marks the start of June and I’ve just realised we havent had a single blog post yet this year! So here we are. We have the broody chickens patiently sitting on their eggs, we’ve already had a couple of chicks hatch but there are a good number of eggs left in their nests.

Our students also got their first hands on experience shearing sheep and bottle feeding lambs!

What an amazing year we’ve had here at The Ark.

Last January we set ourselves the challenge of blogging our way through the year. Well we (mostly) made it and now we get to look back on all the fantastic things we got up to!

It doesn’t end here though! We have plenty of exciting new projects and hopefully a couple of new animals on the horizon. We cant wait to see what 2022 brings and we look forward to seeing you all in the new year!

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.

We hope you all enjoy a fantastic festive feast and we will see you in the new year!