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 Pansies beside the River Wear In Upper Teesdale in April, I forgot to look for the rare Teesdale violet. We did find some lovely pansies on the grassy banks of the River Wear. Given their variable colours and propensity to hybridse, they are likely to be mountain pansy (viola lutea) hybrisided with heartsease, wild pansy ( viola tricolor.)
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 Confluence of River Tees and Harwood Beck Spring comes late at altitude, and in the North Pennines. Season and weather interact so the template is familiar but each spring is unique. It’s a time of transition, of departures and arrivals. Each morning, we hear fieldfare heading north to their summer breeding grounds in Scandinavia. Only now, this last week in April, come reports from south-west England of a steady passage of sand martin, swallow and house martin, most heading north east. We see our first swallow at Orton on 22nd April, hear our first cuckoo on Hadrian’s Wall four days later.
 Viola tricolor, wild pansy, heartsease As a nature writer, I like to study an OS map for the natural history embedded in place names and landscape features. A history of natural history.
Looking back on the day, I match our findings with what the map tells of habitat and species. Bents Sike is a burn flowing through boggy pastures of rush, sedge and rough grass. *Bents Head is the last intake bordering Moss Moor. Lapwing call all around us, in display flight descending with an audible clapping of wings. Snipe rise from sedges in zig-zag flight. Curlew are calling and a pair perches on a ruined sheepfold outlined against the sky. When they fly, a meadow pipit takes the stand. Songs of spring surround us.  Long-tailed tit on the handle of the kitchen door Sunrise at Ghyll Burn Cottage 22nd -29th April 2021 Ghyll Burn is a tributary of the River South Tyne and the cottage is a peaceful and secluded spot. It was an old stone barn, a lofty space with thick walls. deep embrasured windows and wooden beams. A flight of stone steps leads to the entrance and the kitchen on the first floor. The cottage sits within the shelter of the ghyll, with hawthorn rich in lichens and taller trees beyond; ash still in winter guise, sycamore close to leafing, birch and sitka spruce.  Male redstart displaying his tail feathers In shimmer and display, the male redstart fans out his flame-coloured tail feathers to impress a female. On spring migration, redstart always arrive here late April and often display from whitebeam, still in bud and rising above the escarpment cliff. He wants to be seen. And heard. The energy he puts into his song shows in his stance, his wide gape. He turns his head to broadcast his song. He flits from his display perch, tries another in the territory he hopes to secure, and back again.
Once I've found a redstart I stay some time, looking and listening. It's an immersive experience, redstart song and lambs bleating.  Buzzard in a holly tree Lambs feed at their mother’s teats, tails waggling. Crossing Kendal Race Course, with a lively escort of lambs, I meet Angela and Chris, friends and former neighbours who have always supported my work as a nature writer. We miss them. Chris has a tale to tell and he’s been waiting eighteen months to share it with me. Alone and heading off Scout Scar, he heard a grunting coming from over the out-take wall and saw a large rabbit in the grip of a mustelid. Stoat or weasel he was unsure but a small mustelid had sunk its teeth into the back of the much larger rabbit’s neck, paralysing its hind legs. What a drama!
 Toothwort, Lathraea squamaria The last time I saw toothwort was 9th April 2014, in Howe Ridding Wood, And the flower was found by our guide Joe Murphy of Cumbria Wildlife Trust.
Today, we discover toothwort for ourselves, which is even better. So, an interlude of looking closely to consider this parasitic plant's habit and habitat. What we see emerging from a thick and deep cushion of mosses strewn with dead twigs is merely the plant's flowering. New flowers appear close to the trunk of the host tree, disguised in mosses.  Jenny Brown's Point from Warton Crag Strong sunlight illuminates the quarry face. Jackdaw are vocal in the tree tops nearby. And bass notes of raven sound as birds fly above and about the quarry cliff. Overhangs create shadows across the rock-face, clumps of gorse and vegetation grow on sheer rock, jagged with shadowy crevices and niches. When I find the raven's nest the surrounding rock throws shadows rather like the black raven itself.
 Rough Fell ewe and her lamb Sunrise gilds the Kentmere tops and down in the dale the puddled track is iced over. To be in Kentmere once more feels like a home-coming. It is lambing time and the rhythms of pastoral feel remote from the world beyond the dale. By Kentmere Hall, a farmer drives his quadbike through the pasture to deliver feed to heavily pregnant ewes.  Male linnet singing I heard the lovely song of linnet, just where I always find them. He sang high in an ash, by thick gorse and juniper. He was in full sunlight and through my binoculars I could see the crimson on his breast. My camera does not pick up the strong colour I saw, it's a question of how the light falls. A tiny bill and forked tail distinguish linnet, and his song.
Willow warbler are returned and I've heard them the last couple of days. Chiff chaff have been singing a while.  Male catkins and opening leaf buds, Downy Birch On a cold and bright April morning the male
catkins of Downy birch are almost open. Leaf buds are opening too. On Helsington Barrows, there's a stand of Downy birch, trees of different ages. Young trees have glossy bark of purple red which slowly matures to white with papery layers. Horizontal lines show on the bark of young and mature trees. Dark branch scars show on the white trunk of a mature Downy birch, with the younger branch showing purple red. The strong morning sunlight shows these features clearly.  Flowers of Larix decidua, European larch On a sunny Easter Saturday here;s a European Larch, Larix decidua, with an abundance of flowers. A leaf bud bursts to reveal fresh green needles, behind it a crimson female flower. To the left of the twig, the smaller, greenish male flower. The larch is thick with pine cones from last summer, and possibly from two summers past. The light is perfect so I show the detail of larch flowers, and their distribution in the tree.  Tussocks of Blue Moor Grass have steel=blue flowers that give pollen at Easter Tide. It's a plant of limestone grassland, rare nationally, abundant on Scout Scar. With days of warm spring weather its blue flowers open to pollinators. It's an early flowering grass, with blue flowers on anthills, little tussocks in a weave of vegetation. Later in summer its stems will grow tall. Temperatures are so high this week I'm looking out for butterflies, although there are few flowers to offer them nectar. Blackthorn begins to flower. Yew tree flowers have pollen too. Synchronicity is key: the coincidence of flowers with insects to pollinate them.  Wild daffodils, Brigsteer Wood After Sunday’s incessant rain and Mondays rain showers there were floodwaters in the Lyth Valley. Low cloud over floodwaters, with pools of glimmering light over The Howe and Row, toward Whitbarrow. The sun slowly dispelled cloud and the morning grew warm. Tuesday 30th March, the hottest day of the year, so far.
We're on the cusp of spring, another wierd pandemic spring. of hope and foreboding.  Witches' broom on birch (left). Willow catkins ( right). Foulshaw Moss is a lowland raised mire, coastal, close to Morecambe Bay. Late last century, this landscape would have looked very different, a plantation including Scots Pine. Osprey nest in Scots Pine, amongst dead trees that spike the mire, telling of that time. There’s a zone of birch carr, skeletal and decaying, succumbing to fungal rot. Like trees shattered by war: a landscape in a Paul Nash painting. Then the sun gleams and glistens on the watery mire which burgeons with life.
 Siskin at Foulshaw Moss A morning with a chill wind and blue skies. Birds are in breeding plumage and looking smart and brightly coloured, like this siskin. Redpoll were lively and vocal in the tree- tops. I could hear them in the shelter of tall trees behind the feeders, but few came down to feed. Tree sparrow, green finch and gold finch showed.  First winter fieldfare ( left) adult (right) Larksong fills the air.
Pink-footed geese, fly North, out of the sun and above me. Distant pee-wit call of lapwing, and curlew. A flock of starling in full voice, they’re noisy neighbours. Their dark forms show in the bare branches of an ash.  The Langdale Pikes in silhouette As a naturalist, when I invite a friend to accompany me I hope for wildlife sightings. Will skylark sing this morning, can I conjure the hare I've seen recently, and the elusive lapwing? If not, will the sun shine to make magic of the fells. And there comes an eyelet of blue and the Langdale Pikes are silhouetted against a glow of warm colour and gleaming snow.
 Welsh Black cattle grazing on Scout Scar near the cliff-edge A sunlit morning on Scout Scar yesterday. Welsh Black cattle grazed close to the escarpment cliff, the snow-clad fells beyond. These cattle are docile, even when under threat, as I was about to witness. I was photographing the peaceful scene when a family with three dogs approached. The dogs went for the cow, harassing her, then two of them ran slavering and barking at me. I asked them to control their dogs. The man asserted, 'they are in control.' I was taking photographs, here's the evidence.
 Looking north, from Scout Scar escarpment Fresh overnight snow gleamed off the Kentmere Fells, to the north.
' I'm surprised to see snow, It's all around when you reach the top. It's like a gift.' I like her way of seeing, and warm to her. Looking north, sunlight gleamed off snow. Floodwaters down in the Lyth Valley, after days of rain. Pools of water on the escarpment too, unusual for fast-draining limestone. |
AuthorJan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.) Archives
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