Last Saturday with the family we headed up to Upper Teesdale under a blue sky with clusters of candy floss clouds and arrived at Cow Green reservoir car park 45 minutes later. This was the day to finally investigate Falcon Clints a 1 mile long gorge like feature with the River Tees running smack in the middle of it! Walking down to the reservoir dam we saw many skylarks larking about attempting to mate and many of them were running around the ground as well. Just before the dam we saw the top part of the Whin Sill and we knew this because the limestone was all sugary looking and white due to it being melted 295 million years ago when the Whin Sill squeezed and inserted its way between the level limestone layers. The force needed to do this is pretty unimaginable. Around the Cow Green Reservoir area the Whin Sill is 75 m thick. The lower part of it is at the bottom of Cauldron Snout a massively stepped waterfall which is completely made up of the Whin Sill all nicely eroded into angular platforms. It was great watching Fiona clambering down the rocks and thank goodness it was dry or else I'm pretty sure she would have done one of her falling down routines! One day this is going to go bad but so far she has survived! At the bottom of the waterfall we followed the River Tees to Falcon Clints which is just a couple of hundred metres downstream. In the cliff just up from the path you can see the bottom contact point of the Whin Sill with the limestone which is all melted, sugary and almost powdery looking. We were actually stood underneath the Whin Sill because there was a huge outcrop and looking at some of the 2 m square boulders that were near the River I sincerely wondered when this outcrop was going to fall and hoped not when we were underneath it! Seeing the contact point was very exciting. When we turned round to look back upstream we could see the old route of the River Tees in other words the pre-glaciation route and for once I could see how the geologists had worked this out quite simply because there was a V-shaped rock outline with a lot of clay and turf between it which was obviously an old waterfall that had been plugged up by the glacier. Moving further down the Pennine Way clambering around the rocks which were right next to the River I suddenly saw a blackbird sized bird with a white collar around its neck which I immediately recognized as a Ring Ouzel. Unfortunately, I did not have my binoculars out so I was scrambling around my rucksack to get them and in that time the flaming thing shot off up and over the cliff and I could not see it any more. Grrrrrrrr! Very frustrating because the Ring Ouzel is one of the birds I really want to spend some time looking at having never seen it before other than in my bird book. The good news is we are going back up there again next week and they nest in the cliffs so there is a good chance I will see this bird again. There were also lots of Kestrels and Curlews gliding around very close to each other obviously going through mating behaviours. One pair of curlews flew almost touching each other for about half a mile. Very beautiful because Cronkley Scar Fell was behind them which made a very nice backdrop. After a mile and a half of clambering around the rocks moving very slowly and with Cronkley Scar on our right across the river we came to the Moorhouse National Nature Reserve headquarters the cutely named Widdy Bank Farm looking over a huge meadow which is actually full of birds like lapwings, oystercatchers, curlews and believe it or not Redshanks the only time I have ever seen Redshanks have been on the coast but they come inland to the Moors to breed. As we just got to the road we saw a pair of Redshanks which was totally amazing because they look really out of context on moorlands turf particularly as I have only ever seen them sticking their beaks into sand and mud flats. These two were perched on a fence and were not bothered that we were there unlike the Ring Ouzel which shot off as soon as it saw us. From this point there was a nice continuously uphill 2 1/2 mile walk back to the car which we did in 40 minutes which was proof positive that both Miles and Fiona have got over their illnesses and are in good fettle. A supremely geologically and ornothologically interesting walk variations of which we will be doing many of over the next few months right through to August when the hay meadows are in their prime as well as lots of the plants and ground nesting birds that Fiona and I want to see. Next week we are going to the same place but starting from the Moorhouse National Nature Reserve headquarters and then walking up and over Cronkley Scar. Can't wait!