Sheep on Mardale Ill Bell Rising steeply above the deep corrie tarn of Blea Water are scree slopes and rock ledges where purple saxifrage is said to grow. It’s a zone of montane flora where sheep cannot graze. I love these solitudes, these mountain redoubts. Paths on High Street and Mardale Ill Bell follow the ridges, giving vistas. But life begins at the spring-head, where the first trickle of water sustains mosses and flowers at the headwaters of the River Kent. In such a habitat I always hope I might find ring ouzel, the mountain bird.
Ring ouzel was on my wish list when my friends Barbara and Austin came to stay. It was four years to the day since we had found a pair below Blencathra. Ring ouzel was singing on my computer when my friends got up next morning, a download from Tweet of the Day. Bill Oddie told us the ring ouzel call rings out over the mountains but he broadcasts rather well himself and almost drowned-out the bird. We set out for Hawes Water hoping the song would linger in our memory.
I heard the call as we climbed above Blea Water. There were several birds, calling, moving through the short grass amongst outcropping rock- a family of ring ouzel. A black bird with a white torque about its throat and breast, Turdus torquatus, the mountain blackbird. Its rarity and its love of solitary places confers an aura on the bird. The midges were biting but who cares. So we sat beside the rocky track and watched ring ouzel.
I heard the call as we climbed above Blea Water. There were several birds, calling, moving through the short grass amongst outcropping rock- a family of ring ouzel. A black bird with a white torque about its throat and breast, Turdus torquatus, the mountain blackbird. Its rarity and its love of solitary places confers an aura on the bird. The midges were biting but who cares. So we sat beside the rocky track and watched ring ouzel.
There are tiny tarns with cotton grass near the summit of Mardale Ill Bell and we lingered to take photographs. Off the track, the ground grew boggy and we followed a water-track at the source of the River Kent to find mosses and starry saxifrage. It’s a delicate flower and I observed the changes within the flower as it begins to fruit. Ecologist Jacqui Ogden confirmed that I’m seeing where pollination has occurred. The flower-stems rise out of basal rosettes of rosy leaves- it’s a beautiful plant in the perfect place.
A pilgrimage to the source of a river has mystery, a sense of the sacred. This theme runs through my new book Cumbrian Contrasts. It evolved as I wrote and it underpins the structure. It’s a riff on spring-head and watershed, the source of three rivers: the Kent, the Duddon and the Eden. When we found the starry saxifrage on the watershed it reminded me of the first time I’d left the ridge to seek-out the spring-head some years before. Leaving the stony, well-worn track to find lush mosses and flowers where water seeped and trickled down the mountain-side.
On the descent from the Nan Bield Pass to Small Water we found more water-tracks with starry saxifrage and butterwort. And the most beautiful moss, voluptuous with little green stars- the marsh forklet.
I remember water lobelia flowering in Small Water but we found little trace of the plant.
On the descent from the Nan Bield Pass to Small Water we found more water-tracks with starry saxifrage and butterwort. And the most beautiful moss, voluptuous with little green stars- the marsh forklet.
I remember water lobelia flowering in Small Water but we found little trace of the plant.
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