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Rue-leaved saxifrage, Saxifraga Tridactylites

26/4/2025

Rue-leaved saxifrage, Saxifraga Tridactylites

Rue-leaved saxifrage has tiny white flowers borne on red stems. Parachute seed-heads of dandelions seem to be caught -up amongst its flowers.
Saxifrage, of broken rock, the name tells.
I remember scouring the limestone clitter of Scout Scar searching for the flower and then finding it growing in the top-stones of a wall bordering an old orchard on Queen's Road, Kendal.

Bluebell, brimstone and orange-tip butterflies

24/4/2025

Brimstone nectaring on bluebell

As sunlight pours down woodland rides and illuminates glades the butterflies respond. Dancing together through sunlight and shadows, sometimes they alight on a flower.
A brimstone clings inside the bell of a bluebell, its proboscis seeking nectar,
Butterflies are volatile and when they settle to feed camouflage protects them from predators. The brimstone wing resembles a leaf in shape, with veins like a leaf. That wing-shape can often be a sure identification feature, since colour changes with the incidence of sunlight.

Wheatear, a new arrival

23/4/2025

Male and female wheatear

I'm here, where are you?
or
I'm here, clear off.
That's the message birds transmit from their display posts, and in song. Males seek a mate and they claim exclusive rights to their territory. Today, a female wheatear joins her mate.

Nature Notes: Easter on Scout Scar

19/4/2025

Vista to the north along Scout Scar escarpment

A bright and breezy day of scudding white cloud against the blue. There's clarity and from Scout Scar escarpment the western fells are distinct. There's violet. wood anemone and I find my first early purple orchid. Larch come into leaf, looking fresh and bright. Juniper has last summer's berries and new shoots.
Stopping to admire gorse in flower close to the escarpment cliff I hear lambs bleating down at Barrowfield Farm, and the call of green woodpecker.

Wheatear

13/4/2025

Male wheatear with black bandit mask

He’s back. He perches on a fence post claiming his territory, his summer residence. He knows his place, and so do I. I’ve met generations of his fore-bearers, his lineage. I'm delighted he is returned to the neighbourhood and I hope his female is here, or will join him shortly.
My encounter with this smart wheatear is cut short by the farmer who drives out to check on his sheep. Good luck to the pair if they can raise a brood here. This isn’t the solitude of a mountain redoubt where I delight in finding wheatear.

Osprey in April at Foulshaw Moss

10/4/2025

Osprey at Foulshaw Moss

Roadside signs tell of osprey at Foulshaw Moss and by late-morning the car park is packed with eager visitors. Rarely breeding in Britain, says my Collins Bird Guide published in 1999. And out of date because osprey is a success story in the UK. A fish-eating raptor, the osprey nests in the top of pine trees on Foulshaw Moss.
We see Marsh Harrier too. I've been watching a pair nesting at Park End Moss for the last week or so.
It's great to see osprey but, for me, the moss itself and the ecology of the raised mire is full of interest, its aspect changing through the seasons.

Warriners Wood and Park End Moss

7/4/2025

Male wigeon

Wigeon are in their finest breeding plumage at Park End Moss. Accompanied by teal. Earlier in the year we saw a large flock. Today there are far fewer wigeon but good light enhances fine vermiculation patterning flank and rosy breast. Long black upper-tail coverts are emarginated in white. And with that richly coloured head and throat it's a stunning water-fowl.
Three marsh harrier are active and lapwing are displaying, calling in flight.

To Park End Moss

1/4/2025

White Scar from Park End Moss

A lapwing alarm call tells that marsh harrier are on the wing, gathering reeds and sticks to build a nest somewhere in the reed-bed. Bull-rush gleam in the sunlight, a dab chick swims across the pool, passing an egret and gadwall. In the distance the light catches the limestone cliff of White Scar.
Down in the Lyth Valley the damson trees are in blossom. A male brimstone is on the wing, and several whites. Rosy bees seek nectar in comfrey flowers. There are violets and celandine in mossy banks.

A return to seek frogs at Sizergh

28/3/2025

Telling of mating frogs at Sizergh, proved irresistible and so I returned with a friend eager to see such a spectacle. The castle was beautifully reflected in the water where mallard chased each other. No sign of frogs and there seemed less frogspawn. Maybe mallard gobble it up.
Water trickles through pools in the rockery garden where we found frogspawn. Then on a gravel path we spied frogs before us. Two appeared, approached each other, went briefly into amplexus where the male grabs the female with his nuptial pads and hitches a ride.

Frogs in the lake at Sizergh Castle

24/3/2025

Sizergh Castle

A lovely spring day in the gardens about Sizergh Castle. Daffodils are resplendent, chiffchaff are calling. Charlie the cat comes to greet us and seeks a lap to rest on. All is peaceful. We look for frogspawn and kingfisher and do not find them. There are kingcups and bull-rush and the ground is strewn with willow catkins in the season of tree-flowers. In a long dry spell I think some flora is held back, waiting for refreshing rain. Wandering the shore of the lake below the castle, we look for frogspawn in the shallows, amongst fallen leaves and the fronds of aquatic plants.

Foulshaw Moss with Bog Myrtle Catkins

18/3/2025

From Foulshaw Moss to White Scar and Whitbarrow

Over the wobbly wooden bridge we go, up to the high platform to look down across Foulshaw Moss toward White Scar and Whitbarrow. In the foreground there's a pool of open water, with seed-heads of bullrush. Then birch carr, downy birch in the peat of the moss. Slender silver wands reach up through a blaze of bog myrtle, twigs and catkins a haze of rich ruby. A frosty morning quickly grows warm in bright sunlight, illuminating the weave of plants in the moss, enriching colour. The Burning Bush was bog myrtle, my friend exclaims, fragrant and ablaze.

Alder beside the RIver Kent

14/3/2025

Alder is a motif along the RIver Kent, favouring riverbanks and wet ground. In winter, the crowns of mature trees are dark with cones, and catkins awaiting the coming of spring.
In Kendal. a mingle of alder and hazel grows in a sliver of river bank beside the walkway. Hardly trees, there's little soil for them to grow to maturity but a couple of days of perfect light when catkins are at their best gives a rare opportunity to study them close-up. All the image lacks is siskin, redpoll and goldfinch feeding on seeds as last-summer's cones burst open.

Leighton Moss in early March

6/3/2025

From Lillian's Hide

All eyes were intent on snipe, closest to the hide but camouflaged in reed-stubble. Water-birds were hunkered-down, roosting and preening. A peaceful scene, then whoosh- up they went in a moment of panic. Alighting on the water, they became distinct. Courtship pairs in their best breeding plumage; pintail, gadwall, wigeon, shoveller and mallard. White feathers drifted on the water where it met the reeds, discards from preening.

Kentmere on the first day of spring

1/3/2025

Male hazel catkins with a deep red female flower

Hazel catkins herald the coming of spring in a drift of gold. The woodland track is fringed with coppiced hazel, slender shrubs with catkins that are perhaps the earliest tree-flowers. Where yellow male catkins are ready to release pollen we look for red female flowers, tiny and fewer. A glimmering light reveals a hazel growing along a fence-line bordering Kentmere Tarn, a shapely tree unlike the wands of woodland coppice shrubs. Its limbs are green with moss, its crown glorious with golden catkins. A play of sunlight and mist shows the hazel deep bronze, then pale gold against the still waters of the tarn. It's enchanting.

Spring comes to Kentmere

1/3/2025

Green woodpecker and raven call from the wood, with small birds piping. Tracks are puddled and muddy after a mid-week downpour. Sunlight and mist gives a glimmering and constantly changing light. With most trees bare of leaves our focus is on lichens and mosses, on the herb layer. A clump of wild garlic has been swept downstream and lies uprooted in a beck. The first leaves of wild garlic show, and opposite- leaved golden saxifrage. Winter storms have brought down trees and the track has been cleared and made safe for walkers.

Temperature Inversion from Scout Scar escarpment

28/2/2025

Temperature inversion from Scout Scar

Skylark are singing and the laughing call of Green Woodpecker comes out of the mist, out of the stillness. Mist suffuses the woods below the escarpment and a dense white pall fills the Lyth Valley. Wisps of white cloud drift above its western fringe with a hint of the fells with illuminated white cloud above, then clear blue sky. The weather forecast had suggested the sun would burn off the fog but it did not. By mid-day the blue was gone and mist came down over Scout Scar. A runner passed by, ' just clag, isn't it?' But what a glorious few hours had preceded it.

Skylark on Scout Scar

22/2/2025

Skylark 21 February 2021

Through wind and showers I thought I heard skylark over Kendal Race Course but could see nothing. Not the full song but a contact call I recognise. Then the sun broke through cloud, a hint of blue appeared and I headed for skylark territory. The moment I reached the spot I had predicted a male skylark rose in full song, a year to the day. Not a chance encounter, I had hoped and prayed and here they are on cue. My first skylark of 2025 and spring is in the air.

Scout Scar, Saint Valentine's Day and more

14/2/2025

Mole hills over Kendal Race Course

If this image were not mine, if I had to date it, I'd say February. It's the beginning of the breeding season for moles and pastures are patterned with mole hills, those mounds of fine soil that mark the course of their tunnelling underground.
By mid-February there are snowdrops and daylight hours grow longer. Looking down over the trees fringing Nobles' Rest there are hazel catkins fully opened. Toward Scout Scar catkins bide their time and it will be some while before the first tree flowers show.

Return to Scout Scar upon the reopening of Brigsteer Bridge

1/2/2025

1st February 2025, a return to Scout Scar

On Scout Scar escarpment a lone figure stands looking west over the Lyth Valley toward the fells, south toward Morecambe Bay. Wait a while, perhaps he’ll share the moment and what it means.
Peace, often we seek peace.
Here is Eden. a lady told me once. She had come to Kendal to care for her mother and would take home to her a benediction from Scout Scar.

South Walney 29 January 2025

29/1/2025

Flocks roosting on South Walney salt-marsh

High-tide and the salt-marsh is inundated, ribbons of green submerged beneath the blue. After a good feed, flocks roost on the shore-line. They're indistinct but Knot, probably Knot. In the middle-distance Brent Geese continue grazing. A dark mantle looping beneath pale bellies gleaming in sunlight, a caparison of black on white. Through January, I've contemplated Brent Geese so in good light I can tell at a glance, afar off. Toward the horizon, a mystery flock shows in flight over the deep blue of Piel Channel with Barrow in Furness transformed in sunlight.