
Coming off the summit we made for the col between Sheffield Pike and Glenridding Dodd and stopped for a mouthful of fruit cake, fortifying on a chilly day. The rocks at our feet showed a lichen with scarlet fruit-bodies. A kestrel was hunting, hovering, scanning, over Glencoyne Wood. A hint of sun caught the chestnut plumage of its mantle. In the headwaters of Mossdale Beck the ground glowed golden with grasses and cross-leaved heath. The jagged Black Crag emerged as we descended, and Heron Pike. We made our way down through rock and heather and sedges to the wall with a smoot or hog hole. Sheep only , thank you. There was a single flower of devil’s- bit scabious, and rosy bilberry leaves- a lovely autumn motif. At the col, we took the track which heads east by Mossdale Beck on the fringe of Glencoyne Wood
A different habitat and the magic of an autumn wood.