Blue Moor Grass on Helsington Barrows

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.

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It is delightful to see lambs back on Kendal Race Course. Twins lie in the sun, close to the public footpath where runners and dog walkers go by- hopefully with dogs on leads all the way- as skylark and pipit, ground-nesting birds, are settling to breeding.   Larch trees come into leaf, with lovely crimson flowers.

In close-up, the open flowers of blue moor grass are intricate and beautiful.  They're a motif of Easter, often flowering at this season.   And they're easily overlooked, the dark blue flower heads hidden low in winter grasses, the open flower showing as a pale gold.  Over time,  I've realised the flower shows best against a foil of limestone, the geology which sustains the plant.   The morning's hazy sunlight suited well. Strong light over-exposed both rock and flower. 
Birch catkins are not spectacular but I love everything about birch.  The patterned silver trunk, the younger branches a rich red-brown which gives the winter trees their warm colour in the woodland canopy. And the slender catlkins which will open to fresh green.   I photographed amongst a cluster or birch, one with catkins and leaf buds closed tight, another with leaf buds on the point of bursting forth.