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Loughrigg Terrace on a golden day

4/10/2015

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PictureDevil's-bit scabious and Bog asphodel. 1st October 2015
​Where water-tracks  run off the fell-side there will be devil’s-bit scabious, bog asphodel and – if it’s not too late- grass of Parnassus.  I know this because I’ve been photographing this seasonal motif for years, on Lingmoor and on Loughrigg Fell. 1st October, a balmy, beautiful day.  Sunlight pours through the last of the flowers, down the fell-side toward Grasmere Lake.  The slope faces north-west so water-droplets will linger on spiders’ webs. What can I find?

​The dew highlights the spiders’ webs clustering around the flowers where insects search for pollen and the grasses are slung with hammocks.   A beautiful day in a long sequence of perfect days,  sunlit, warm and calm.  Everything is greedy for sunlight, busily storing up energy against the coming of autumn.  I love to come home and discover more than I’ve seen, once my images are on the computer screen. What is that strung along a strand of spider silk? It looks like a chrysalis, dark gold with darker shapes within.  I can almost see some inchoate form.  It doesn’t look like spider-lunch.  I can't quite focus-in close enough to make it out.
Picture
Spiders' webs festoon the grasses and strands of silk in the bog asphodel seed-heads show this is the spiders' domain
​Flowers of devil’s bit scabious amongst bog asphodel, the sun powering through them. This hover fly stores up late pollen. Eyes on stalks, look at them. Delicate creature.
I wanted to show the glory of sunlight upon these late-summer flowers.  The harvest moon shines bright and full but summer lingers on this day on Loughrigg.  An infusion of sunlight through devil’s bit scabious and bog asphodel.  I know where grass of Parnassus grows up on Loughrigg Fell but it was so serene and magical here above Grasmere Lake we sat on a bench in the sun.  To catch the sun through vegetation I needed to be down-slope, looking up, so Loughrigg Terrace was the perfect spot. 
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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

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