I saw a spectacle that shocked me so much this weekend I nearly crashed the car.

My eyes stared wide into a nearby field.

For several seconds, I forgot I was at the helm of my green Nissan Micra and the Frog, as it is lovingly known, narrowly avoided a dive into a Yorkshire Dales hedge.

The subject of my gawping gaze was stood less than 50 yards away, plain as day.

A baby lamb.

Not that surprising, you might think, given the current baby animal epidemic going on across the region.

However, this lamb was different.

This four-legged fleece wasn’t standing on a little tuft of grass, or a rock, or in the April mud.

This lamb was standing on a sheep.

I steered my car’s course from its dinner date with the ditch and told myself what I had witnessed was a mere consequence of the field’s odd perspective.

Maybe I’m tired, I thought. It was early.

I focused on the A65 and drove on.

But less than five minutes later I saw the same spectacle again – another baby lamb standing on top of another sheep.

They were like strange woolly totem poles.

I was sure no one back in Derby, where I’m from, would believe this. I wondered if the Gazette staff would think I’d finally lost it – that the cheese was finally sliding off of my proverbial cracker.

At best I expected a wide-eyed response. I wasn’t expecting the reaction I got, which was this: “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that. They do that.”

“Yeah, sheep. They like high ground.”

“Yeah. All the time. Sometimes you see the ewes have straggly wool on their backs and I guess that’s why.”

Nevertheless, it’s the strangest thing I’ve seen since moving to the county last September – and that includes dance moves I’ve witnessed in Kendal’s nightclub The Loft.

The Woolly Totem Pole Phenomenon must be seen to be believed. My advice to you this weekend is look to the hills. Unless you’re driving.