Buzz off .....Tues.

The forecast wasn't too promising so cancelled photo. day out and decided to exercise the legs with Jeff. As it turned out the weather held although it looked like it could pour down at any time. Today our outing would take us to Yeavering Bell from Browns Law taking in Commonburn House on the outward journey and Tom Tallons Crag and Gains Law on the return. Parts of the walk would be on St. Cuthberts Way, my first time. The final stats coming in at.....10.47 miles travelled, total ascent 431 metres and max. elevation 367 metres. Not a very high walk by recent standards confirmed by the fact that as we decended Yeavering Bell a class of schoolchildren, who we had encountered distantly on 3 previous occasions during the day, also climbed to the top . Nice to see the kids out and about like this, god knows what health and safety issues they had to overcome to do it!
The avian highlights of the day were a couple of Whinchat families on the way to the summit of Yeavering and while up there we had another family, this time 3 Kestrels all hunting on the hillside but below us so we could see the lovely markings from above. Makes a nice change seeing the Kestrel from this angle, last time was on Cabinet of Curiosities blog, photographed from the cliff tops by Phil.
The real standout of the day however was whilst coming back. We came off track for a time and while we did this rather loud droning sound was suddenly noticeable. I mean, it was a bit freaky as we were in the middle of heather and gorse with nothing else but a few sheep in close proximity, and i ruled them out straight away. Carried on and dropped back on to the path and a few kilometres later rounded a small wooded area to find 50 beehives. We spent 15 minutes in the area listening to the bees, at a safe distance of course, then as we continued kept checking on the GPS how far we were away from the hives before we could no longer hear the drone. I haven't a clue how many bees you can get in a hive but it was over 1.25 miles before we could  hardly hear the sound!
 Again, i only had my compact so didn't manage to capture the Kestrels in flight ( i hate those screens) but did capture something else airborne.

      We'll fly high in the sky....

    

      Hives in the middle of  nowhere