Blog Posts

Super-moon at sunrise, with twa corbies

17/11/2024

Sunrise with three ravens?

'The twa corbies,' 'The Three Ravens' - a ballad I love, a folk song and a murder mystery. The body of a knight lies half-hidden by a field dyke. His lady grieves for her lost lover, or perhaps she’s complicit in his murder.
A super-moon is low in the western sky and in the east a rosy dawn heralds sunrise. Three ravens perch in the topmost twigs of the birch tree. Or are they twa corbies? Backs toward me and in a huddle, it can be hard to tell. Jackdaw sometimes visit, and a great-spotted wood-pecker.

Rydal on a bright November day

11/11/2024

Woods below Nab Scar

Welcome rosy-fingered dawn. A warm glow of rainbow colour appears on the horizon. A brief and beautiful sunrise. Welcome after that first week of November with sequential days of mist and murk.
On a chiaroscuro morning of darkness and light the southern shore of Rydal Water is chilly, deep in the shadow of Loughrigg Fell. A faint breath of north wind sends the last leaves showering down from the canopy, to lie upon a thick mulch which gives a scent of autumn decay.

Sizergh Castle to Park End Moss, with snipe

5/11/2024

Ancient chestnut and Black Bryony berries in hedgerows

A drizzle of fog saturates the still air. An imperceptible Force 1, a SE wind. Fieldfare and redwing should be about but we find only starling.
Sizergh double bank barn exhibition on ancient trees tells signs of age: girth, swollen bole, scars, gouges. A rich eco-system comes with age. Ancient trees host communities of insects, lichens, fungi and bryophytes. In winter, they may be darkly evergreen and heavy with ivy when their own leaves are lost. Ropes of red and rotting berries of black bryony thread through hedgerows, like scaffolding.

Walney 29 October 2024

29/10/2024

Piel Castle from Groyne Hide

Focused on grey seal and their pups, I followed a sunburst obliquely and saw Piel Castle from an unfamiliar perspective in a sudden blaze of sunlight. Over salt marsh to the castle outlined against the blues of the fells. From ethereal early fog to darkening skies to interludes of sunlight. In aqueous light, these photographs of Piel Castle have the look of watercolours. The dark castle, mud flats and salt marsh assume colour, and lose it again, all in a moment. So, a photo sequence of drawing with light.

Kentmere in late autumn sunlight

26/10/2024

Crags in sunlight and shadow above Kentmere Hall

A hint of blue appears and the sun peeps through early mist. A soft and glimmering light roves over the fells, illuminating crags, then passing and plunging them into deep shadow. Some trees show a skeletal presence, ready for Halloween. The earth has a rich carpet of fallen leaves with a scatter of tiny green crab apples. Each time a beck crosses our track , through Hall Wood, bound for the River Kent, we hear tumbling water. A cormorant, wings outstretched to dry, stands on the shore of Kentmere Tarn, as if it hasn't moved since our last visit.

South Walney in October sunlight

14/10/2024

HIgh tide floods the salt marsh fringing Piel Channel, intense blue under a clear blue sky. In the stillness, calls of redshank and curlew ring clear over the solitude of the salt marsh, its maritime flora warm gold in October sunlight. A curlew rises and disappears toward the open channel. Distant water-birds feed amongst the channels of the salt marsh. The coincidence of weather and season colours a lovely October day, the one fine day of the week. South Walney appears so rich and bright, the sea gleaming and streaked with pattern.

Sizergh to Helsington Church

28/9/2024

Now, my friend insisted. Now while the sun's on the trees. So we lingered about the lake as sunlight coloured the foliage of guelder rose and spindle. Glad to have seized the moment because cloud soon hid the sun and when we returned to the lake colour was gone from the shrubs. The lake is surrounded by beautiful shrubs and trees and we enjoy returning to see how they fare, through the seasons and year by year. Foliage of the large spindle bush has quickly assumed autumn colour but it has no berries. Now for that lovely rowan, Sorbus Vilmorinii.

Black Mire to Loughrigg Fell, and descent to Loughrigg Terrace

20/9/2024

Bog asphodel and cross-leaved heath

Black Mire was golden with the seed-heads of bog asphodel, sprinkled with pink flowers of cross-leaved heath. Not a long walk, but tough. We sloshed up the fellside through the mire of saturated peat, our legs tethered by stems of bracken grown rank through a wet spring and summer. We slogged through the solitude of Black Mire, loving the way sunlight coloured a great sweep of bog asphodel, intense gold, dull gold. I love thinking through habitat, considering the flora that could be here at this season, then finding cross-leaved heath and devil's bit scabious.

History and Natural History Mapped at Cockerham Marsh and the Lancashire Coastal Path

18/9/2024

Glasson Canal

All the right notes but not necessarily in the right order, so said Eric of Morecambe Bay whose statue frolics by the sea.
So, a litany of place-names on an OS map of Cockerham Marsh and the Lancashire Coastal Path evoking those who fished and farmed here and wildlife whose place they shared.

The right to roam Scout Scar and the Lake District National Park

13/9/2024

Opinion on closing the Brigsteer Bridge

SCAM. That's what many people think. A graffiti artist has painted the word, big and bold, on the barrier above massive concrete blocks preventing access to Brigsteer Bridge. Not everyone accepts that closure is either necessary, or lawful.
For today, I'm grateful that a friend drives us via Prizet Lane, shunting back and forth as vehicles jam a narrow and winding country lane now the only Scout Scar access for diverted traffic.
With bridge closures we'll see who has made it to walk on Scout Scar.

Smardale geology and trees

9/9/2024

Gateposts indicate geology at Smardale Gill

Heading off Smardale Fell, toward the packhorse bridge over Scandal Beck, we follow a stone wall rich in limestone fossils. Gateposts indicate the geology here, one being of limestone, the other of sandstone. There's a disused sandstone quarry beside the packhorse bridge and another low on the fellside where we stop for lunch, looking out toward the double lime kilns and the limestone quarry on the northern side of the beck. Today, Scandal Beck flows fast and full and we hear the sound of a tributary beck running off the fell to join it.

Smardale Heather Fell in September

9/9/2024

Rough Fell sheep in the heather

Low cloud capped the fells and windscreen wipers cleared the rain. The ground was puddled, the track over Smardale Fell waterlogged. We squelched up the low fell-side where white flowers of Grass of Parnassus were beaded with raindrops. Later in the morning the sun shrugged off cloud and a distant light roved toward us and flood-lit the heather fell.

Butterflies in Sizergh Castle Gardens

7/9/2024

Brimstone

Brimstone is the butterfly of the day and they favour pink flowers in the herbaceous border. The morning is hot and at moments brimstones become translucent in strong sunlight, wings self-shadowing and body visible through the hind-wing. With leaf-shaped wings of cryptic design brimstones dissolve into green foliage. The quality of light is remarkable and a fine dark line bordering the wings is visible today. A flickering play of sunlight makes colour evanescent and in an instant a rich buttery brimstone is leaf-green or blazed white, all detail erased.

Ings to Kentmere, an ambience of fells

4/9/2024

Approaching Kentmere Hall

Late summer flowers are wayside at our feet and the Kentmere fells open up before us. A group of deer stares at us, then runs A buzzard circles, a cormorant stands on the shore of Kentmere Tarn.
Heather is in bloom, and cross-leaved heath. Devil's bit scabious is in flower and bog asphodel colours the marshy ground.

Kendal community amenities- when will that be?

31/8/2024

Beside the River Kent

When will access to the countryside on our doorstep be restored? Brigsteer Bridge, a key amenity, is closed.
It's worse than Covid lockdown, said a resident. Scout Scar was our salvation in the lovely spring of 2020, with wildlife sightings galore. With the Lake District National Park on our doorstep, we crossed that bridge to freedom.

Brown Hairstreak at Arnside Knott

10/8/2024

Female Brown Hairstreak on Hemp Agrimony

I have seen Brown Hairstreak and I never thought I would. This elusive arboreal butterfly mates high in ash trees where it feeds on aphid honeydew.
I may have seen caterpillars and eggs, and not seen them. In early spring, I look for the first flowers of Blackthorn on lichened twigs. In autumn, I go in quest of photographs when sloes are ripe and Blackthorn leaves are rich in colour. Prunus spinosa, Blackthorn of bitter plum. The Brown Hairstreak lays her white eggs on young Blackthorn shoots so chances are I’ve overlooked both eggs and green caterpillars that feed only on Blackthorn.

Perspectives: from Arnside Knott to White Scar

10/8/2024

From Arnside Knott over the Kent Estuary

From up on Arnside Knott I spy the Kent Viaduct, then Foulshaw Moss and White Scar. Here's a viewpoint to put in perspective different habitats about the Kent Estuary and Moracambe Bay. Sites of summer visits, from the disused limestone quarry and the terraced cliff at White Scar to the raised mires at Foulshaw and Meathop Moss and the limestone up on Arnside Knott. A cluster of sites to study flora and fauna and of strikingly different character. Arnside Knott is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, nationally important for butterflies.

Painted Lady at Arnside Knott

10/8/2024

Painted lady on Knapweed

Golden tops is spectacular this summer and pollinators love it. I rather like this name the poet John Clare gave to Ragwort. At Arnside Knott a talk on management for butterflies was complemented by the appearance of a Painted lady in a sunlit glade on the fringe of woodland. My first of this year, even Chris Winnick is only on his second and if they were about he’d have found them.

Being on Scout Scar

4/8/2024

29 July 2024 Scout Scar escarpment

At Helsington Church the car park was busy, for a Monday morning. Cars were parked close by on the Brigsteer Road too. With the Brigsteer Bridge closed everyone must have taken a diversion to drive here. All looked deceptively normal. What you don't see is the disabled, all who cannot take to their cars and drive. Some are not able to afford a car, others, for a range of reasons, cannot drive or choose not to. So those who most need a daily walk from their doorstep are excluded. It's discriminatory.

Perspectives on Smardale

28/7/2024

Packhorse bridge and Scandal Beck, Smardale

Through a drift of flowers, a perspective opens up to Scandal Beck spanned by a medieval packhorse bridge. There's a disused sandstone quarry and once there was a pub. The beck is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, within the Eden catchment. Eden, a peaceful scene now but over the centuries when sandstone and limestone quarries were active and the railway was being built it must have been very different. Above Scandal Beck, up on the fell, the OS map says Gallows Hill. If malefactors were hanged up there the sight would have been a warning visible to all who passed this way.