Deer on Scout Scar On 1st May, a cuckoo called from the territory where I found him in mid-May last year. He was screened by conifers and I could not see him but I followed his 'wondering voice' for some half-an-hour. Some things are de rigeur, a compulsion, and finding the cuckoo is like that. On my sixth audio experience I found myself being watched. Perhaps by the cuckoo I have yet to see but certainly by a deer, a lovely slender creature. So what might one discover at this season whilst not seeing that elusive cuckoo?
Mid-May and early June sees the flora of Scout Scar escarpment at its most beautiful. There are early purple orchids abundant in the grass and blue moor grass now tall and with seed-heads. The cliff-face is a mass of yellow flowers. The rarest is hoary rock rose which cannot cope with competition so grows on the rock where other plants cannot thrive. Its flowers only open in bright sunlight. Common rock rose grows in the short turf and is more widely distributed. Two images below show the larger common rock rose beside the smaller and more lemon-coloured flowers of hoary rock rose with grey-green (hoary) leaves. The tall seed-heads are blue moor grass- rare nationally but abundant here on Scout Scar. Leave no trace says the Countryside Code. I agree, not wanting signs of everyone else who has walked this way. But this sculpture, like a Romanesque arch in a dry-stone wall is something else. It's witty and its building called for considerable skill.
The woods below Scout Scar escarpment are transformed by the coming of May. Whitebeam is a speciality here and, whether or not it's the rare Lancastrian whitebeam, the tree is lovely. Whitebeam, the white tree (from Anglo-Saxon). It's so named for the pale underside of its leaves but at this season it also has white flowers. Some years the trees bear almost no fruit. In a good year whitebeam will have a crop of red berries.
On Kendal Fell there are a few plants of Herb Paris with its striking flowers. And shrubs of guelder rose are in bloom. It's years since I've seen the Duke of Burgundy and it's delightful to find several here. It's a small butterfly, to my surprise. Wall brown were lively and obligingly settled, for a few moments, on sun-warmed rock. It was good to learn about conservation work about Kendal Golf Course, in the rough areas.
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