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Skeggleswater with adder

27/9/2016

1 Comment

 
PictureSkeggleswater 20 September 2016
Skeggleswater is not for everyone.   With  heather moorland fragrant and in bloom  a friend prefered  to walk high.   From our vantage point on Shipman Knotts and Kentmere Pike we glimpsed Skeggeswater but  the tarn and its heather surround appeared unremarkable.  
Skeggleswater is secluded, lying low .  On a late September day my friend Jill and I  lurched through tussocks of tall grasses  and boggy hollows beside Skeggleswater Dyke ,  through   flame-like seed heads of bog asphodel and cross–leaved-heath.   A heather knoll rose into view  and  a green haze of reeds reached out into the tarn. Summer vegetation overspread the water,  pond weed and water lily pads  soon to shrink back into the silts below.

 Bright sun and fair-weather cloud in a tranquil solitude.  Feathers on water lily leaves.  The glimmer of grazing sheep as shadow  swept over the fell -side. White cattle  about an ash tree reflected dark in a pool of liquid gold as sunlight poured over pale grasses. Fish rose and fell with a plop amongst the lily pads.  Somewhere to the north a flight of geese was calling.
Geese in the clouds, fish in the clouds.   Reflections made magic.  Everything was   out of the ordinary, in a new light, a rare light that could not last.  From the shore where moths flitted, I could stand on a rock and sky-dive down, down through the bright clouds, through pools of liquid gold pouring off the fell side,  through a dark  pool of heather reflected from the rocky knoll.
Skirting around the tarn, we returned through the heather.  I was on my knees photographing dark coloured sphagnum moss when Jill spied a movement, a tiny adder slithering through the grass.  Our shadows loomed above it and it coiled, then vanished into the heather.  Adder the colour of bog asphodel seed-heads, a juvenile adder. The females give birth to live young at this season.  What a find!
Juvenile adder and sphagnum moss.  Thanks to Jill for adder images.  
For Skeggleswater at other seasons, try Search- top right of blog page.
1 Comment
Glaramara
3/10/2016 11:04:53 pm

Wonderful gallery, thank you!

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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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