Blog Archives

Perspectives on Smardale

28/7/2024

Packhorse bridge and Scandal Beck, Smardale

Through a drift of flowers, a perspective opens up to Scandal Beck spanned by a medieval packhorse bridge. There's a disused sandstone quarry and once there was a pub. The beck is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, within the Eden catchment. Eden, a peaceful scene now but over the centuries when sandstone and limestone quarries were active and the railway was being built it must have been very different. Above Scandal Beck, up on the fell, the OS map says Gallows Hill. If malefactors were hanged up there the sight would have been a warning visible to all who passed this way.

Foulshaw Moss and Meathop Moss Flora

26/7/2024

Fruit of Bog Myrtle, Sweet Gale, Myrica gale

Bog myrtle is abundant at Foulshaw Moss, fringing the board walk and on the peat bog. In late July its fruit shows as a greenish nut. I searched for the plant at Meathop Moss and found none. But the flora of the peat bog at Meathop is superb. First impressions are of Bog asphodel. And White-beak sedge, Rhynchospora alba, mingles with Cross-leaved heath in a delightful show. Cross-leaved heath, Erica tetralix, is often found in peat bog. Pink flowers fade to an attractive orange and dead stems linger long.

Latterbarrow and White Scar with Butterfly Conservation

21/7/2024

Six-spot Burnet Moth on Betony

Latterbarrow is special for the flora of limestone grassland with woodland fringes where fritillaries may appear. In July, agrimony and betony show well. There's angelica and Brian points out burnet saxifrage. And tells which moths favour golden rod as a food-plant. There has been overnight rain and fine grasses are drenched with raindrops. The morning is cloudy so few butterflies are on the wing but Chris knows the site well and tells how it's managed for butterflies and shows us micro-habitat favoured by particular species.

Meathop Moss Flora

21/7/2024

Cranberries in sphagnum moss

Ripening cranberries over-spread sphagnum at Meathop Moss. Each berry has a red stalk attached to a stem with tiny evergreen leaves. Cranberry creeps over sphagnum moss of golden--green or wine red. A tapestry rich in colour and detail. If I zoom-in on an image I find more and more berries. some immature, no bigger than a pin-head. Carnivorous sundew lurks in the moss, blood-red in hue. Each filament is tipped with a sticky dew that attracts its insect prey. When an insect is caught the sundew leaf closes around it, trapping the insect and digesting it.

Westmorland and Furness- a great place to live, work and thrive?

19/7/2024

Brigsteer Bridge, 8 June 2024, barriers now re-enforced

Council Plan
'Our natural environment provides opportunities for improving health and wellbeing and we will work hard to maximise those opportunities and to ensure that we protect our natural resources, striving to become carbon net zero and addressing biodiversity loss.
Most importantly we are committed to working to ensure that Westmorland and Furness is a great place to live, work and thrive.'

Silver Washed Fritillary and Brigsteer Wood

17/7/2024

The woodland fringe where SIlver Washed Fritillary show

Hearing that Silver Washed Fritillary had been seen, we went to look for them. A large, orange butterfly they can be seen flying against the deep shadow of the woodland fringe, over sunlit bracken and flowering hemp agrimony. Today, they were active and rarely settling. Emerging from the shadows, they favoured flowers close to an ash.
Look centre of this image, just left of the tree trunk and there's a Silver Washed Fritillary, its wings poised at an angle, half-open. I cropped the image to show it more clearly but then it's almost out of focus.

Flora at High Borrowdale Upland Hay Meadows

11/7/2024

Great Burnet, Marsh Valerian and seeding grasses

Through summer, fresh flowers appear and early species set-seed. Yellow rattle shows flowers and inflated seed-pods. Grasses grow rank from days and days of rain.
Today, there are fresh flowers of Marsh Valerian and Great Burnet amongst grasses of a pinkish hue. Borrow Beck runs high, we wade puddles along the track and everywhere the sounds of water in the landscape. I have childhood memories of the River Derwent and the other Borrowdale in the rain. This year. cloud and rain prevail.

Common Blue Butterfly - an image of summer

6/7/2024

Common Blue with thistle and seeding grasses

A Common Blue, Polyommatus icarus, rests on a thistle mingling with seeding grasses. Purple flowers are tipped with pollen and after so much rain you can almost see sap rising. Lush summer bracken dissolves in a sea of green with glimmering points of light. Sunlight on vegetation but the track is deep in puddles. A sunlit meadow fringed by woodland shadows and pools of darkness.

Buff-tip moth and Dark Green Fritillary

6/7/2024

Dark Green Fritillary

The Buff-tip moth fascinates as we pass around egg-boxes and marvel at camouflage. It’s a night-flying moth, with cryptic colouring and design that resembles a broken-off fragment of birch twig. Wings held close to the body, a twig with legs. George tells of being out last night on Foulshaw Moss and Latterbarrow until well after midnight, placing traps for moths that won’t emerge until the early hours. The Buff-tip is common and widespread but I can’t recall having seen it before and it's unforgettable. The evolution of such a creature is remarkable. Survival of the best adaptation, says David.

Whitbarrow 2nd July 2024

2/7/2024

From up on Whitbarrow, a glimpse of fells to the north

I feel on top of the world up on Whitbarrow. The cloudscape is wonderful and sunbursts highlight golden grasses. Carpets of purple thyme and yellow lady's bedstraw border the track. When the sun breaks through bright white cumulous there's a herbal fragrance and the sound of grasshoppers that fall silent if I step too close. I hear skylark faintly, then higher on the ridge their song is louder. Soon they'll fall silent, their breeding season accomplished. Meadow pipit sing and families of stonechat call in the scrub.