Hare's-tail cotton grass in Foulshaw Moss Foulshaw Moss is looking green and an exceptionally wet winter and spring has made vegetation grow luxuriant. Ospreys are nesting and two eggs have hatched, a third is awaited. From the hide, we look out toward the osprey nest over bog myrtle to a mass of cotton grass. Foulshaw is a raised mire and I love its flora. Bog myrtle has early catkins, in April, and now they're shrivelled and brown before they become seed-heads. Downy birch has green catkins yet to open.
Strands of cranberry thread across sphagnum moss. The images are unremarkable but I'm delighted to find the red stems and leaves of cranberry here in Foulshaw Moss. I take images from the boardwalk fringed with bog myrtle, heather and cross-leaved heath. Sphagnum with trailing cranberry is out in the bog. When I first came to the nearby Roudsea Mire an ecologist friend warned me to keep to the boardwalks because there are old peat-workings out in the bog. I found cranberries last autumn and was pleased with myself for recognising the exact place this spring and seeing trailing leaves.
I hear redpoll and reed bunting but do not see them. The light is poor and the trees are in full leaf. Shrubs of birch and bog myrtle screen a mass of seeding bullrush and suddenly I realise I'm looking at bogbean. The flowers are almost finished but the triple leaf-structure is clear and the plants float in water. It's a plant I have not found here before and it's pleasing to know it thrives here.
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