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Scout Scar with spindle berries and sloes

22/9/2021

Dew on sloe

'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun'

Robins sing in the silence and stillness. Mist hugs the fells and the sun will break through and burn it off. This could be a moment for sloes in the foggy, foggy dew. I haven't long.
The green fruit on a spindle bush ripen to rose. If its leaves last they could be autumn gold when the pink fruit split to reveal orange seeds. Mellow fruitfulness comes fitfully. Coincidence of weather and season sometimes bring wondrous effects, if you look, if you choose the right moment, the right year.

Otter and Bearded Tit at Leighton Moss

17/9/2021

Bearded tit

‘Go now. Hurry. Bearded tits have come early and they’re showing at the Grisedale Hide. ‘
Bearded tit, or Bearded reedling as sound-recordist and naturalist Chris Watson suggests. The reed bed is their habitat. They make their nests of its reeds and purple flowers, feed on its seeds in winter. Birds are calling from the dense reeds, a call ‘ like the clink of a cash register.’ We watch as they fly across the mown space and into the reeds.

Autumn gentian, Felwort, Gentianella Amarella

30/8/2021

Autumn gentian with eyebright

‘Have you found a four-leaved clover?' he called.
‘ We have something rare. Come and see, if you’d like to.’
On a south-facing slope In the short turf at our feet the flowers of Autumn gentian amongst dark linear leaves. Not spectacular like Alpine gentian. but small and intricate and – being hard to find- the more precious. Felwort, a plant of the fells. Flowers seek pollinators so when light and temperature fall low, like today, their strategy is to close up petals to safeguard nectar and pollen until it's brighter and insects are out foraging. ‘Dull purple, blue, pink or whitish’ writes botanist Marjorie Blamey in her ‘Flora of Britain and Northern Europe.’

Scout Scar in late August

28/8/2021

Ripening blackberries, and heather

Goldfinch on sunlit thistles on Kendal Race Course are calling to each other, plucking out thistle-down in the search for seeds. A few swallows gather in the trees.
High pressure during the last week of August, still and hazy sunlit days. So warm the colour of sloes deepens each day, from green to blue- the bloom fresh on them.
There are pockets of heather, trailing strands of bramble leaves and ripening fruit. With bramble late to flower, then a heat-wave, flowering was over quickly so the crop is poor. Sloes are abundant although, down in the Lyth Valley a cold snap hit the damsons and there are none to be had.

Smardale, a heather fell

17/8/2021

Heather in bloom, Smardale Fell

‘ Smardale gives the best views in England. You have to come every week, to appreciate it.’ If only ---
Less than a fortnight since our last visit and the alchemy of season and weather brings change. Cloud is low with fleeting illumination of distant fells, the Howgills, High Dolphinsty and Wild Boar Fell. Starlings gather along wires. Hirundines feed low, skimming about us, the light too poor their flight too fast to be sure whether they’re swallows or house martins. The first flowers of Grass of Parnassus appear low on the skirts of Smardale Fell.

Smardale with kestrel chicks and Scotch argus

4/8/2021

Great Burnet, Sanguisorba Officinalis

Sunbeams illuminate flowers on the embankment. The white plume of a parachute seed-head is arrested in flight. Sunlight and overnight dew reveal strands of spider silk strung between the flowers of great burnet, its petals of deep crimson bright as blood, great burnet, Sanguisorba Officinalis. An evocative name. Along the embankment of the disused railway there are drifts of great burnet and field scabious and vistas of the packhorse bridge over Scandal Beck.

Scotch Argus and conservation at Smardale

3/8/2021

Scotch Argus on Knapweed

Who comes to Smardale and what do they seek?
On a Butterfly Conservation field-trip there are visitors from Haworth and South Wales, eager for their first sight of Scotch Argus. It is almost peak-flight time for the butterfly. A man from Richmond tells of kestrel breeding and he’s seen a kingfisher. A red squirrel is seen and there’s a nest of wild bees. It’s gratifying to share our day with our experts Peter and Chris, and with those eager to make discoveries.
The weather is perfect. On Tuesday 3rd August the day is warm and still with sunshine and cloud so Scotch Argus are in flight and they settle too. The next day is hotter and brighter so they’re rather more lively.

Sylvan with Silver Washed Fritillary, Brimstone and Comma

26/7/2021

Brimstone diaphanous in sunlight 26 July 2021

Sunlight beams down through cloud and illuminates a woodland glade and all the butterflies seeking nectar from flowers. Delicate feet are poised amongst florets of hemp agrimony and a proboscis curves down deep to sip nectar. Intent on feeding. the butterfly is vulnerable to predation. Diaphanous in sunlight, the brimstone resembles a leaf, in the shape of its wings and the delicate green of the female underwing. A cryptic colouring and shape enables the brimstone to blend into its surroundings.

Sylvan with Silver Washed Fritillary

24/7/2021

Silver Washed Fritillary on Hemp Agrimony

Mine is a sylvan quest through a heat-wave in July. Deep shadows of the woodland fringe are the habitat of the Silver Washed Fritillary. On butterfly watch, we linger over flowers until the Silver Washed Fritillary flies from the shadows on wings of bright gold. When temperatures soared I fell in love with sylvan fragrances, with cool shadow and sunlit glade, and a woodland flora on the spring-line where water mint grows,

Silver Washed Fritillary, in the picture

21/7/2021

Silver Washed Fritillary, at first glimpse

From the first, the morning was hot with scarcely a breath of air. The wood was calm and still. Only the call of a great-spotted woodpecker, the mew of a buzzard, the whine of hoverflies. Grasshoppers were silent, until the sun rose higher and sunlight flowed into shady glades. Then the grasshopper chorus began Tall grasses and flowers were drenched in refreshing dew that brushed our bare ankles and made cobwebs visible Here was a morning of sensuousness.

Witherslack Woods, Howe Ridding Wood and High Brown Fritillary

18/7/2021

Northern Brown Argus on Common Rock Rose

Peregrine were calling over Chapel Head Scar and a pair circled above the crags on Whitbarrow.
Our target species for this butterfly field-trip was the High Brown Fritillary as some had set out at dawn, travelling across the country in the hope of sightings We assembled by old farm buildings and the morning was already hot with a gauze of white cloud. Temperatures were set to reach 25 degrees centigrade. Butterflies would be animated, lively, more of a challenge. Our leader Chris had come prepared.

Quest for Silver Washed Fritillary: butterfly foray 4

17/7/2021

Red admiral on bramble

Perfect weather for butterflies, including Silver Washed Fritillary. Bright sun with a high of 27-28 degrees and, sometimes, a whisper of breeze stirs in the canopy.. Butterflies love it, how will we fare? A herd of cows shelters beneath the trees where we plan to park and we share their shade.
To the greenwood. Here is sunlight, dappled shade and banks of shadow. And all the mysteries of a mid-summer woodland to discover, out of the shadows come butterflies.

The Wild Places: Sizergh with Silver Washed Fritillary

12/7/2021

A fresh Small Skipper

Are there wild places in Britain, asks the poet Kathleen Jamie? Someone at sometime has been there before us, shaping landscape since the advent of farming in early Neolithic times. We yearn for wild, although it’s illusory.
My destination of the day is not named on the OS map. Our butterfly field-trip is timed for silver washed fritillary. Its peak flight-time is imminent and hemp agrimony, a favoured nectar plant, will soon be in bloom. The silver washed fritillary likes a sunny day. The forecast is for high humidity with an 84% chance of rain! So unpromising.

Lingmoor and Little Langdale: a nature diary

9/7/2021

Bog asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum, Lingmoor Fell

A calm and still day with haze over the fells. Bog asphodel is spectacular with drifts of starry yellow flowers beside water-tracks and in boggy cols. Bog pimpernel is elusive and we search to find it. The familiar track rising to LIngmoor is gone, overwhelmed with high summer bracken, the map out-dated. So we slog up through bracken, spiny thistle and thorny rose. When we emerge beside a water-track with bog pimpernel we feel we have earned the flowers.

Bog pimpernel, sundew and butterwort, Kentmere

30/6/2021

Deer on a Kentmere crag

Wildlife watching in Kentmere, we're being watched. Deer pause on a crag topping a fell-side of foxgloves. Their short tails suggest they're red deer. A large, pale bird flies over the crags and away. A kestrel hovers above Tongue Scar where Rough Fell ewes and mature lambs seek shade beneath the trees and in the shadow of the barn wall as the mid-day sun beats down on us all.
In water-tracks, in ditches and in wet fell-sides are the bog plants and mosses I love,

Starry saxifrage and the marsh forklet, Kentmere

30/6/2021

Kentmere, where water-tracks drain down the fell-side

Life begins at the spring-line, where water bubbles up from the earth. There are nameless water-tracks where seep and trickle sustains an intricate flora. Micro-habitats whose ecology is become familiar. How will today match what I’ve found here before at this season? Where water drains off the fell-side, down into the River Kent, here I hope to find the flora I love. Becks run dry, the sun scorches plants growing on hot rock but where there are water-tracks fed by springs a weave and tangle of flora flourishes.

Hay meadows at High Borrowdale

27/6/2021

High Borrowdale hay meadows

On Friday it rained all day and, two days later, there are puddles along the track beside Borrowdale Beck, although water in the beck is low. Tall thistles come into flower, topping lush grasses. There are small heath butterflies and chimney sweeper moths. A stonechat is clamorous, flitting from perch to perch where saplings are planted.
The High Borrowdale hay meadows are beautiful as the sun burnishes drifts of flowers.

Late June 2021, Scout Scar

23/6/2021

Swifts fly low about me, thrillingly close above my head. Insects must be flying low this morning.
A sole patch of dyer's green-weed has come into being almost overnight. I've been looking out for it..
Roses bud and bloom. Thistles are budding. Brambles are green, budding but with few flowers. I'm hoping for butterflies, searching for them. A few common blues, small heath, dingy skipper. Walk through tall and seeding grasses and small moths rise but where are the butterflies?

Cinnabar moth, South Walney

17/6/2021

Cinnabar moths mating, South Walney

A bright and sunny day on South Walney, with a fresh breeze. I had hoped to see cinnabar moths and we were in luck, a brood was on the wing and some were mating. Their striking scarlet and black colouring warns predators not to eat them, they contain toxins. The moth lays its eggs on ragwort, the foodplant of its caterpillars who ingest its toxins safely and so the moth inherits them. The moth flies by day and at night. Cinnabar moth, Tyria Jacobaeae. Ragwort's Latin name if Senecio Jacobaeae.

South Walney in June

17/6/2021

Perspective toward Piel Castle, South Walney

Something shifts the moment we cross Jubilee Bridge onto Walney Island. We leave behind Barrow in Furness and fast roads, the pace slows as we drive beside the salt marsh, heading for South Walney Nature Reserve. Birdsong reaches us through the open windows (these are Covid times.) Cistercian Way, said the OS map. Now it's designated the England Coastal Path. These were the domains of Furness Abbey and Piel Castle looms in the distance. Mid-June is a season I'm not familiar with on Walney Island, so there are surprises in store.