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Cunswick Fell on a winter's day

26/12/2022

Golden light at sunrise

Sunrise comes with a low, gleaming light that colours the trees where ravens call to each other in bass notes. The morning is still and rain holds off- wind and rain will see out the year. Daylight hours are short and the light changes dramatically through the morning.
Sunlight plays over the Langdale Pikes, contesting with shadowing cloud. The call of ducks reaches up to us from Cunswick Tarn.
To the north, Red Screes appears clad in snow. To the east, the Howgills.

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Spotlight on Fieldfare

15/12/2022

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December orchard

'Look at all those birds! '
The low winter sun casts a raking light and long shadows. A hedge and trees thick with ivy give shelter and a roost when darkness falls, and night comes early on a winter's day. Yesterday the temperature never rose above zero. Today it's 1 degree and bitterly cold out of the sun. Our shadows peep above the stone wall as we peer amongst orchard trees leafless and bare of fruit. Rosy windfalls lie in a sprinkling of snow and birds feast on them. What are all those birds amongst the fallen apples?

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Hoar Frost at Sizergh

15/12/2022

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Lyth Valley and the Coniston Fells

Clear, cold nights with temperatures well below freezing are conditions for hoar frost to form. A pale moon lingers in a morning bright and still and the Lyth Valley lies before us, a beautiful winter scene. Frost highlights the patchwork of field and hedgerow and in the distance the Coniston fells look wintry.
And so to SIzergh where reeds beside a lake flagged at the approach of winter and today they glitter with hoar frost. Beyond the reed bed there's an alder, its crown thick with catkins of deep purple.

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Bullfinch and rowan berries, Sizergh Castle Gardens

15/12/2022

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Rosy-crowned willow and an ice-blue lake

Sunlight sets the frozen lake ablaze at SIzergh. Spikes and tufts of frosted water-plants stipple the ice and birds' footprints are etched into it. The crown of a willow glows rosy. The morning is still and bitterly cold. A clear blue sky tells of winter weather from the North, an intense blue fading to pallor all mirrored in the icy lake. Hoar frost casts a spell on the landscape with wondrous patterns on shrubs and seed-heads, wherever frost crystals take hold. Now for the berried trees and shrubs I have photographed through the autumn.

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Frost and snow on Scout Scar

14/12/2022

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Looking west toward the Coniston Fells

Snow highlights the pattern of field walls down in the Lyth Valley. And from Scout Scar escarpment you could see how snow cloud had come from the north, held back over the Langdale Pikes, then shed snow on Crinkle Crags and the Coniston Fells.
Up on the ridge all the ant hills had a crest of white, the north-facing side white with snow, the south side green.
It was warm in the sun, freezing out of it.
The snow had fallen a couple of days ago so there had been thaw and refreeze.

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Hornbeam at The Ghyll

12/12/2022

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On a bright winter's morning the sun beams down into The Ghyll and lights the mature hornbeam that grow beside the underground water-course. The trees have shed their leaves but last summer's seed-heads remain. Each papery fruit resembles a lantern and hangs from a fine wiggly stem. I find pattern and design compelling This is the tree in its winter aspect but there are signs of spring. Dark buds cling tight to stems, catkin buds and leaf buds fully formed to overwinter in the harshest weather.
There's an echo of our own lives in this capturing of time past, time present and time to come. We might think we live in the moment but our minds flit back and forth over time.

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Footway from Brigsteer Road toward Scout Scar

12/12/2022

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Left, an isolated stretch of pavement to Brigsteer Rise

A stretch of pavement from Brigsteer Rise downslope toward Kendal has recently been opened. To serve walkers bound for Scout Scar it needs to link with two further stretches, one above and one below.
We request that the new pavement is extended directly to the access road to Stainbank Green, uphill on the left of the image.
This week we are invited to comment on application SL/2022/1077

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Sizergh in winter splendour

8/12/2022

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Rowan, Sorbus vilmorinii, at SIzergh gardens

On this sunlit December morning Irene and Richard were walking to SIzergh'to buy a pint of milk!' We had met in June, sharing a find of fly orchid on Scout Scar. I suggested they look out for Sorbus Vilmorinii with its splendid crop of berries.
An Arctic front brings a heavy overnight frost and freezing temperatures. But the day is still and the sun shines so there are wonderful frost-effects at Sizergh gardens.

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Cunswick Fell on a winter's day

Spotlight on Fieldfare

Hoar Frost at Sizergh

Bullfinch and rowan berries, Sizergh Castle Gardens

Frost and snow on Scout Scar

Hornbeam at The Ghyll

Footway from Brigsteer Road toward Scout Scar

Sizergh in winter splendour

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