Today is the summer solstice, the longest day.  Sandscale Haws is the perfect place to celebrate with MIdsummer Day falling on 24th June. 
Across the Duddon Estuary lie the Lake District Fells. The sand dunes unfurl  carpets of summer flowers  before us, with changing species and patterns.  When the sun is at its zenith the dune flora responds with a release of nectar and a wonderful herbal fragrance.                   

'You should be on Scout Scar,' he said, meeting me by chance. He's a runner and it's a favourite location for him too. Neither of us should be in town on such a day.
There was bright sun with a hint of fair-weather cloud- perfect for photographing veils of flowering grasses and the flora of the cliff-edge. Quaking grass is tremulous and intricate.  Dropwort has  pink buds opening into white flowers. I found them intermingling, with yellow hawk-bit and a shower of quaking grass seed-heads against the sky, the hazy fells in the distance.  

 The roe deer flew by me on a South West wind.  He came out of nowhere, as if he had leapt up the cliff-face to alight by the hollow where I  lay picturing flowers of grass against a blue sky. Momentary and magical.   A buzzard mewed and raven soared on the wind. 
This is the season of flowering grasses.  Ox-eye daisies grow along the cliff-edge and the wind shook the  flowers of quaking grass to and fro about their white petals. Lingering in my mind's-eye, the fleeting moment of roe deer, the wind-trembled grass of the cliff-edge. 
At this season the flora of the Scout Scar escarpment is glorious, and fast-changing. Fragrant white bed-straw and purple thyme mingle with common rock rose. Hoary rock rose has seeded, and vanished.   The deep pink buds of dropwort open into a froth of white flowers. Squinancywort appears, its white petals streaked with pink. 

In spring and summer I hear and glimpse redpoll in flight  whenever  I walk on Scout Scar. Groups of them flit amongst the scrub and small trees, rarely settling.
To study them, I come to Foulshaw Moss and immerse myself in the experience.  We settle into the hide and wait quietly.  A great spotted woodpecker calls,  a brood has left the nest this morning.  One appears on the far side of a feeder, only the tip of his head and tail visible.  Redpoll feed, heads dipped into the feeders and backs toward us.  

 
​What you'll first see when you find fly orchid  is several dark flowers on a slender spike.  Flowers are deep violet-brown, the sepals green, the plant  tiny.  It's found on calcareous soils sometimes in the shade of trees on rough, grassy ground.
Fly Orchid, Ophrys Insectifera. 'The fly orchid relies solely on insect pollination, so it mimics an insect in appearance and emits pheromones to lure the male into thinking he’s found a female. Trying to mate with the flower, he transfers pollen in pseudocopulation.'  Cumbrian Contrasts.   Lie on the ground and look closely into the flower and you'll begin to see how interesting it is.  Fly orchid mimics an insect,  specifically the female Gorytes wasp. I haven't seen a fly orchid being pollinated and wouldn't recognise the Gorytes wasp.

Below Scout Scar escarpment, down in the Lyth Valley. the farmer is taking a crop of grass for haylage. Patterns appear as he works and, from the cliff-top, I look out across a patchwork of pastures in shades of summer.  Rain is forecast for tonight so there's a sense of urgency. 
​The cliff-top is at its loveliest at this season,  the first week in June.  Hoary rock rose is its speciality,  abundant on the rock-face,  its lemon flowers only opening to bright sunlight.  Common rock rose lasts longer and is scattered more widely over the escarpment.

Odin’s ravens are poised  to fly  at dawn and scour the world to bring back news to the All Father.  We sit on Odin’s throne beneath  his ravens, Huginn and Munnin,  Old Norse for thought and memory. We’ll need both in contemplation of the Galloway Hoard displayed at Kirkudbright Galleries.  We’ll need curiosity and a willingness to consider afresh how Anglo-Saxon and Viking cultures interacted  in Galloway in  turbulent times.  

A morning of sharp showers and billowing sunlit cloud over Mersehead. Alone in the hide at the visitors' centre, we watch birds feeding at tree-stumps spread with seed. Come to the dining table.
Yellowhammer call somewhere in leafy  hedgerows merging with  banks of vegetation  spilling down to the path, providing  the cover the birds need in the breeding season.  Feeding the birds shows them in close-up and in detail. There are greenfinch, chaffinch, tree-sparrow and a stunning male yellowhammer.

A small boat lies out in the river, inviting us to venture over to the island and ruined castle, to explore and  immerse ourselves in the beauty and tranquillity of the morning. ‘I could swim out and fetch the boat, if you like,’ he offers. Jackdaws fly into niches high in the tower,  patterned like a dovecot.  A peregrine flies over the ruin, perhaps her nest is in the tower.  Doves wouldn’t last long with a peregrine about. 

​Mary Magdalene shows on the Ruthwell Cross, washing Christ's feet.  Surrounding the images is a Latin text and Anglo-Saxon runes.  In 700 AD Ruthwell was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria.   We drove to this out-of-the-way little church to see the stone cross but I confess I was distracted.
The morning was sunlit with an ambience of lushness and May flowers.  The church looks out onto green pastures and the churchyard was alive with house martins who had built their nests up against  the corbels beneath the eaves.  We walked amongst the lichened tombstones, half-hidden to the birds which flew in low, calling all about us.   We watched them busy about their nests,  mending them, tending their broods.  Ruthwell is a low, little church and we were so close to the birds.

From a secret place looking down into the cliff face I have a perfect view of a male redstart.  Each morning in early May I listen for a cuckoo and, not finding him yet, I return to sit and contemplate this handsome male redstart.   I hear him singing across his territory and wait for him to return to his favoured perch.   I can't work out  whether he knows there are females listening to him, or sings simply in the hope of attracting them into his territory.  Then he flies from his perch in display and alights again, showing his colours in a fresh perspective. It's a bravura performance.

Early purple orchids  and cowslips appear in the grass.  Wych elm is thick with flowers, showing against a bright blue sky on a morning calm and still.  We note the tree, thinking to return in  July and look high in its crown for the white-letter hairstreak.  The wych elm overhangs a sheltered woodland fringe where we found  silver washed fritillary last summer. 
Swallows perch on a wire by Park End Farm, the sun discovering a sheen of blue on the throat and a warm flush on the breast.   Light shines directly onto the swallows, bringing out colours of their fresh breeding plumage in all its loveliness.
​

 Wear something bright, I'd requested. I wanted  a cover-shot for my new book with  my friend looking out toward Piel Castle.  She wore a cherry-red fleece but it was so cold she kept her jacket to hand. The wind did not drown-out the cooing of eider duck  returned to South Walney in their best breeding plumage.  Male eider are pistachio green on the nape, a flush of pink on the breast, and black and white plumage spectacular in sunlit flight.
21st April 2022 Eider are returned to South Walney.  How will weather, tide and season come together? 

 A year ago to the day, we discovered toothwort deep amongst the mosses cushioning the ground in Warriner's Wood.  So we hope to find flowers of toothwort today.
  Walking the ridge of Scout Scar I hear redpoll and see them in flight. I'm almost certain I'm hearing redstart too.   It's a warm and hazy day with humidity bringing forth slugs where drops of dew are poised on blades of grass.  As the morning grows warmer we might come upon a basking adder, as I did last year  in mid-April.  

A peaceful scene with avocet elegant and serene on their nests.   So it might seem.
Open the  windows of the Allen Hide and the raucous screeching of black-headed gulls hits  in a wave of sound.
The closest avocet pair is constantly tending the nest,  tidying fragments of vegetation with  long, upturned bills.   I reckon they're turning their eggs before fluffing up their plumage to sit and incubate.  When they both stand I glimpse four mottled eggs in the nest and the waders place their long silver-blue  legs and webbed feet with care. 
An electric fence protects the site from foxes. But that nest looks dangerously close to the water's edge, if water-levels should rise.

'What are catkins?' he asked.  
The best questions are often the seemingly simple ones. 
Each spring, I  answer with studies of tree flowers; hazel,  willow,  larch, bog myrtle, hornbeam and birch.  They're all about us, if only we look. Finding them close to home is an opportunity to follow  them through the seasons.   Male catkins are usually the more striking. But the female flowers  will bear fruit; hazel nuts, alder and larch  cones. And samaras,  the small nuts of hornbeam which hawfinch love.

​Frost sparkles on the ground where petals of cherry blossom lie fallen.
From Helsington Church, we see snow cresting the distant fells.
A morning of bright sunlight and tree- flowers:  blackthorn, cherry blossom, willow and maple.  Bees throng about the hives in the orchard of heritage apple trees.
Veils of hail shimmer  through sunlight and white pellets lie on the ground  with the white petals of tree- flowers.

 Rain struck the roof of the veranda outside Sizergh Cafe where we gathered to look for hawfinch.  They come seeking hornbeam seeds, now scattered below trees adorned with  catkins.  Our guide Rob Pocklington told us that sometimes, if it's quiet, he can hear hawfinch cracking the seed with their heavy bills.   We saw male and female hawfinch but the rain persisted so light levels were low.  You need a telescope or strong sunlight for good sightings.
Subsequently, we walked to Brigsteer Park and the rain had almost stopped.  How different from the warmth and bright sun of Saturday!  Not a butterfly in sight.  

Wild daffodils bloom in the upturned root-plate of a tree brought down in a winter storm.   This is the season for the flora of the herb layer,  before leaf-buds open and the canopy shadows the woodland floor.   A twig of cones  has snagged on a slender tree as the conifer came down.  Creepers spiral round and round branches.  Ivy berries give food for birds and we come upon a spectacular ivy tree, the host's bare branches peeping through a garment of ivy.
Sunlight pours down into Brigsteer Wood where mature trees have been felled and we can see the pools at Park End Moss from high in the wood.