Barbon with painted ladies and sheep folds

Sheepfold beside the River Kent, Kentmere

The last week-end of July saw a break in the heat-wave, with days of steady rain. Cloud  filtered sunlight, with  a breeze to invigorate  us on the first day of August.   Seed-heads of bluebells in the woods above Barbon Beck, its waters low but flowing. A joy to hear the sounds of water in a landscape. Rowan berries ripen and heather comes into bloom.  Sphagnum moss has soaked up  rain and rehydrated,  no longer looking distressed. A pleasant temperature for walking. And that’s news!  Talking of weather is not banal, not inconsequential. This coming  week-end, Spain and Portugal may reach almost 50 degrees.

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On the ascent  to Hoggs Hill, on the open fellside, there were  flowering thistles shot-through with sunlight  and I glimpsed a painted lady butterfly. A second nectared on knapweed.  Lunch on Brownthwaite Pike, overlooking a heather slope with vistas to the west.  The fells looked golden, the fields revived a little by the rain.  We reached a green lane with  pinkish flowers of achillea followed by drifts of white sneezewort.  Then knapweed, purple flowers of knapweed that attracted bees, hoverflies and painted lady butterflies.  Migrating from Africa, the painted ladies lay their eggs and as the larvae grow they create a tent of curled leaves to protect the forming chrysalis.  Butterflies appear in August and this brood must be newly emerged, with colours rich and fresh.  With the onset of autumn they will die, or migrate to Africa.

We had walked beside drifts of knapweed for some while, finding single painted ladies. Then came  some half-dozen. their beauty captivating, as they nectared on flowers of knapweed.  More than a single image might show.  The pattern on the underside of the wings is paler, with metallic-blue eyes.  
White butterflies wove a web about bramble flowers by the wayside, with occasional peacocks. Green sloes on blackthorn and green rose hips in the hedgerows.

A treat to see so many  painted ladies  along a tranquil green lane. On another day I might have been  distracted by Andy Goldsworthy sheepfolds following the green lane called Fell Foot Road as it heads north toward Barbon.  A small sheep fold enclosing a boulder so large there's no room for sheep. A sheep fold evokes the lonely life of shepherds in the fells, traditions lost.    I prefer to discover   forgotten sheep folds,  on the bank of a beck, overlooking a washing pool, remote and falling into ruin.  Like one we found in a gully in the Howgills when snow was on the ground in March this year. Forgotten sheep folds are scattered through my photographic archive, through years of exploration.
Butterflies and camaraderie marked the day.  A cloud of painted ladies, come and see.  I love it when friends come running to tell me they have something special.   For some, painted ladies were entirely new.  Who knows how long we stood in wonder.   Sun dazzled the screen of my camera phone, I accidentally hit selfie-mode, a pin code sent me into screen-lock, over and over.  But the butterflies had found a rich source of nectar and they were in no hurry.
Back at Barbon, we relaxed in the garden of the café and gentle rain set in on the drive home.

13 November 2016.  Who knows where?  Rich russets of November bracken, wine-red cotton grass by open pools in blanket bog and crimson sphagnum moss. A lonely sheep-fold by a tumbling beck, a washing pool when sheep were gathered here.  Enfolding walls, stones lichened. Lithophyte, fruit bodies bursting out of rock.  Mist creeps up the fellside.