Moonrise over Sugar Loaf
2nd November
Dippers from time to time, low and fast over the flow of water, their strident song cutting through the lower pitched endless rapids of water.
A kingfisher hunting its stretch of river, perching and diving just opposite, hauling its catch briefly to a low rock for consumption, then returning up to a higher perch to search and dive again. Its hunting and success seemed effortless, a foregone conclusion as he repeatedly dived and caught, working his way upstream steadily – until another, a second kingfisher, arrived.
They became noisy, their high-pitched drawn out whistle, as they flew off together among the upper trees. A dispute.
Above the Grwyne Fechan valley in the late afternoon, as the moon rose bright and clear above Sugar Loaf, the sounds of the valley rose loud and clear, up from the dark shadowed land. Strongly farmed, the sounds combined sheepdogs working, loudly yelled directions from farmers, and quad bikes, as sheep and cattle were moved around for the night.
By nightfall and darkness, these sounds had ceased, and up from the valley dark rose only the call of a tawny owl, loud now in the quiet of night, the roar of the Grwyne Fechan itself, flowing fast over rocks, somewhere down along the trees.