Another sunset from the Cove. (It must be ages since I last posted one?)
Another evening stroller commented as I passed: “Look at the Power Station – it looks like it’s on fire!”
Heysham Nuclear Power Station.
Sometimes even the ugliest of things can catch the light just right.
I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites
from A New England by Billy Bragg
Something else I don’t usually see in the village…
…Morris Dancers.
Woods near High Biggins.
Mid-May and the rugby season has apparently come to an end. Or at least, there was an end-of-season award ceremony organised at Underley Park (midweek training is set to continue, seemingly indefinitely*). The ground was extremely busy, with extra-parking laid on, large marquees and a number of enormous trailers on site, not because of the junior rugby awards, but because Hollywood was in town, filming a scene (or scenes?) for a new Dr Doolittle movie. We kept our eyes-peeled, but Robert Downey Junior and Antonio Banderas weren’t in evidence. Due to all the excitement, the awards were slightly delayed, but the assembled families picnicked, played a little rounders and enjoyed the fabulous weather.
The whole event was over by around two, and having anticipated this, I had decided to fulfil an ambition I’d been nurturing throughout the season: to walk home from Kirkby. In truth, this had not been my original plan, but when TBH made a last minute decision to join the boys and I, I hastily threw my rucksack, maps and a change of shoes into the boot. So that when I set off, I didn’t have a route planned, or know quite how far I would be walking. For that reason I chose not to start from Underley Park, but asked instead to be dropped off in Low Biggins, just across the busy A65 from Kirkby.
Cottages in High Biggins.
A short walk brought me to High Biggins, which seemed a very sleepy place and which I don’t think I’ve ever been through before.
A coat of arms in a wall. Linked to High Biggins Old Hall? (Which I missed somehow, I shall have to come back.)
Heading towards Hutton Roof.
Looking back. Gragareth and Ingleborough on the horizon.
Longfield pano.
The hill on the right here is Scout Hill.
Looking back again.
Hutton Roof Crags and Farleton Fell.
Hutton Roof.
I liked the look of this house, on the outskirts of the hamlet, nestled into the hillside and dated 1874 over the porch door.
On Hutton Roof Crags.
Looking back towards the Middleton Fells.
It was hot. Just before she left me TBH asked if I had enough water and I said that I did. I was wrong. This little puddle…
…,rather a surprise on a limestone hill, was no use to me, sadly.
Farleton Fell. Lake District Fells and Howgills beyond.
I’d climbed on to a path slightly higher than the right-of-way shown on the map, but the views were more than sufficient compensation.
Panorama.
Once I met the Clawthorpe Fell Road I followed that for a while, before picking up Snape Lane and dropping down to Burton-in-Kendal. I’ve walked this way more than once before, so was surprised to come across an entrance into the Lancelot Clarke Storth Nature Reserve which I haven’t used before. I shall have to come back.
Field just outside Burton. These shiny, plastic covered fields seem to be a growing phenomena. Is the plastic acting as a sort of cloche?
Burton-in-Kendal.
Sadly, I didn’t read this sign the first time I walked past it. If I had, I could have saved myself a rather pointless out-and-back.
M6 and Farleton Fell. Some people like these things apparently. Sorry there’s no junction, Andy.
Ash tree, finally coming into leaf.
Beetham Fell in the middle distance, Lakeland Fells beyond.
West of the motorway, there’s a tiny lump called Hanging Hill. I suspect the name probably signifies a grim past. The path doesn’t even cross the highest point, but this modest height has really expansive views.
Hanging Hill pano.
Lancaster Canal.
The map doesn’t show a towpath here, but clearly there is one.
I’d followed this DofE party…
…over Hanging Hill. I found out later that they are friends of A and had been lost, which I was wondering about, because it was quite late on a Sunday afternoon now for them not to have finished. The bright rucksack liners are colour-coded so that different groups from the same school can be easily identified from a distance, which seems like a good idea.
I passed through the tiny hamlet of Hilderstone and then through a section of the walk with very flat farmland and numerous ditches, sharply contrasting with what had come before.
I must have been tired when I reached the A6, that’s my excuse anyway, because I temporarily turned the wrong way. I was worried that the path leaving the A6 might not be very well-used, but I found the stile okay and it wasn’t completely overgrown. The first field though, turned out to be thoroughly water-logged, which didn’t seem to deter the Lapwings which I think were nesting there.
White Moss is relatively close to home and has some permission paths as well as the one shown on the map, and yet it’s many, many years since I last walked here.
I must make more of an effort!
White Moss.
Yealand Hall.
High excitement at the corner of Thrang Brow Lane and Storrs Lane…
I think I counted eight or nine emergency vehicles, some of which were unmarked. I don’t know what had happened, but I hope that everyone was okay.
Copper Beeches on The Row.
Incidentally, there were a few butterflies about, and plenty of birds to enjoy, but I didn’t take any photos, because I only had my phone with me, and anyway was trying not to hang about. The walk was a little over 14 miles, which took me a little over 5 hours, which is a good deal faster than I usually walk, but I wanted to get home in time for my tea. Which I did.
Given that I improvised the route as I went, I think I made some good choices. Next time I walk it, I think I will go over Hutton Roof Crags and down through Lancelot Clark Storth, but otherwise I would probably stick with this route. A pie and a pint in Burton wouldn’t go amiss either!
*Which is a Good Thing. No really, it is a Good Thing. What else would you do with a Wednesday evening in the summer, when the sun is shining and the evenings are long?
A post about the orchids on the Lots is an annual occurrence on this blog. It’s a celebration of sorts: spring is in full swing and there are lots of orchids on The Lots. More every year it seems to me.
I’d already been to check on the orchids a couple of times before this visit. The Early Purple Orchids had been flowering, but the Green-winged Orchids weren’t then in evidence. But now both were flowering abundantly.
In the early days of the blog, I had no clue how to distinguish between the two species, which now seems comically inept. In fact, looking at old posts I often, admittedly tentatively, misidentified both kinds.
These are Early Purples, less purple now than when the flowers first emerged. Even the stems are purple at the tops. They can vary a little in colour…
The Green-winged are a different shape, have spots on the flowers rather than the leaves and have distinctive green stripes along both sides of the ‘hood’…
Based on the evidence of the Lots this year, they are also much more variable in colour…
Though generally purple, there were also white and pink blooms.
Sadly:
“Only a few years ago the Green-winged Orchid was widespread, especially in the south of England, and not uncommon, but the drainage and cultivation of the old damp pastures it favours had led to a drastic reduction in numbers. Although still locally abundant where it does occur, it must now be considered a threatened species.”
Wild Orchids of Britain and Ireland by David Lang
By contrast, here’s an attractive weed which seems to thrive wherever we thrive…
Ten years ago, on the way to mistaking Early-purple for Green-winged Orchids, a commotion in the trees above the Cove alerted me to the presence of a Starling nest in an abandoned Woodpecker nest-hole. I’ve kept an eye on that hole ever since, but never noticed any birds using it again. But on this walk, I heard some raucous squawking from the trees and looked up to discover that it was an adult Starling returning with food to that same hollow.
I was every bit as delighted this time round as I was then.
This titbit is clearly some sort of worm.
But I couldn’t fathom out what the three neatly held morsels are here…
I do know that when the starling left the nest again, it was still carrying one of them, now unravelled into a ribbon of white.
I think that this bird knows that it’s being observed!
Both adults seemed to be making deliveries. Oddly, they made a lot noise as they approached the nest – you would think that they wouldn’t want to draw attention to the location – but became more and more circumspect each time, so after watching four ‘food drops’ I left them to it.
Starlings were once such commonplace birds that I think it was easy to overlook how stunning they are.
Welsh Poppies in our driveway.
I’ve just embarked on reading Richard Mabey’s book ‘Weeds – How Vagabond Plants Gatecrashed Civilisation and Changed the Way We Think About Nature’. I haven’t got very far with it yet, but I can tell that I’m going to like it. Apparently, many of our most familiar weeds are not indigenous plants, but arrived with our Neolithic ancestors along with the seeds of the crops they brought with them, and so are ultimately from Mesopotamia, the cradle of agriculture. Our garden is full of half-tolerated interlopers which have quietly invaded over several summers. The Bluebells which have colonised one of the beds are, I’m pretty sure, Spanish Bluebells, rather than the native variety, which have become a pest nationally because they are spreading to our woods where they hybridise with the native species, producing a highly fertile offspring which loses some of the characteristics of the native type.
Green Alkanet would, I suspect, happily completely take over our garden if left to get on with it. It’s a species introduced as a herbal long ago, but is now completely naturalised.
Bees in particular seem to love it. I think that this might be an Early Bumblebee…
…which seem to be enormously variable in colouration. Those pollen baskets are very laden!
Columbine is, as far as I know, a genuinely native plant, which has, happily, seeded all over our garden.
The flowers are stunning.
I can’t find this little chap…
…in my field guide, but she/he is an odd looking character.
Rounded Snail (perhaps?)
Blackbird.
Witherslack Hall – Lawns Wood – Knot Wood – Low Low Wood – River Winster – Stang Hill – Cow Head Wood – Way Beck – Crag Wood – Thorphinsty Hall – Low Loft Wood – Little Thorphinsty – Spannel Beck – Gateside Plantation – Rankthorns Plantation – Raven’s Barrow – Cartmell Fell Church – Hodge Hill Hall – Lobby Bridge – Broomer Dale – Coppy Beck – Pool Bank – Low Park Wood – Witherslack Hall.
Featuring: many wildflowers – fine old buildings – a sundog – a raptor attack – an ascent to a viewpoint – a tiny church – stained glass.
Make a cup-of-tea, it’s going to be a long one.
Whitbarrow.
It’s that wonderful time of year again, when the evenings are long, and even sometimes sunny, and my post-work walks can be further afield and longer than they are during the rest of the year.
On this evening, I parked in a convenient little off-road spot, close to Whitbarrow and Witherslack Hall. I wouldn’t be climbing Whitbarrow, but heading the other way, across the Winster Valley, where I remembered from previous trips, years ago, woods that would be brimful of Bluebells at this time of year.
Witherslack Hall and Witherslack Hall Farm (an equestrian centre).
Witherslack Hall. Built in 1874 for the Earl of Derby.
The path took me into Lawns Wood, where there were some Bluebells, but not in great numbers.
The path through Lawns Wood.
Unfurling ferns.
Hoverfly.
Near the edge of the wood though, the path was lined with that other great spring carpet-forming flower – Ramsons, or Wild Garlic.
The verges on the lane I soon reached, on the far-side of the wood, were rich in a variety of spring flowers. Here’s a sample of some of them…
Stitchwort.
Water Avens.
Jack-by-the-hedge.
Summer Snowflake.
This is a new flower to me, but the striking similarity of the flowers to Snowdrops made it relatively easy to find in ‘The Wild Flower Key’ and then, once I had a name to put to it, to check on the very comprehensive wildflowerfinder website. I get the impression that this is a plant more often found in the south of England and I wonder whether these might have seeded from a local garden.
I often tell my students that one of the things I love about mathematics is that there are always new things for me to learn*; usually after one of them has asked me an awkward question to which I don’t know the answer, or has just solved a problem in a novel way, or had some insight which is either genuinely new to me, or at least is sufficiently obscure for me to have forgotten about it.
I feel much the same way about the flora and fauna, geology, weather phenomena and local history which I encounter on my walks: there’s always something new to see, or to learn about, or at least to ponder on.
Low Low Wood.
Judging from the OS map, this farmhouse is genuinely called Low Low Wood and further north can be found Middle Low Wood and, better yet, High Low Wood. You couldn’t make it up! Although, having said that, Low Wood, or rather Lowood, has pedigree as a name in English Literature having been the name of the squalid school in Jane Eyre. (A photo of the actual model for that fictional school can be found at the top of this post.)
I’ve been watching for the emergence of oak and ash leaves this year, so that I can check the validity of the old saw…
“Oak before Ash, we’re in for a splash, Ash before Oak, we’ll have a soak.”
It’s been pretty clear that, on the whole, oak leaves have been emerging earlier than ash. So does that mean that we’re in for a hot, dry summer? Well, since the beginning of May, the weather has been unusually fine; in fact, last night I overheard a conversation in which a chap reported that, in fifteen years of living in the North-West, this had been the best weather he had ever experienced+.
Sadly, it seems that Oak leaves usually emerge before Ash, although there does appear to be some correlation between warm springs and the early arrival of Oak foliage.
The Winster Valley and Cartmel Fell.
The River Winster.
The map doesn’t indicate a bridge over the river, but I had a feeling that I’d crossed a bridge here in the past and, fortunately, there was a bridge.
The woods of the western side of the Winster Valley, on the slopes of Cartmel Fell, did not disappoint: they were every bit as crammed full of Bluebells as I’d hoped.
Cow Head Wood.
I took no end of photos, but, in honesty, they are all a bit of a letdown. There’s an amazing intensity in the colour of a wood carpeted with Bluebells; a smokey, purple-blue which my photos just don’t replicate. It’s always the way.
What the photos also lack is the heady scent of a mass of Bluebells at the end of a warm, sunny day.
Welsh Poppies.
A mown path through the woods!
Thorphinsty Hall.
Glorious old buildings litter this area. Thorphinsty hall is a Grade II listed buildings and the two cottages and barn nearby are also listed. Now that I know about the Historic England website (thanks Peter!), I can always find reliable, if somewhat dry, details about old buildings like this one. Not that I always understand what I’m reading. Thorphinsty Hall, for example, has a ‘catslide roof’ and a ‘heck post’#. The lintel over the door is marked 1708, but the according to Historic England the building is ‘probably earlier’.
A parhelion or sundog.
In Gateside Plantation I watched a Buzzard land in a nearby tree and then begin to screech in a way which is becoming familiar. I had a fair idea what was coming.
This time, I would hold my nerve and get a prey’s-eye view of a stooping raptor.
Well, I tried…
It was moving pretty fast and and I already had the zoom lens fully extended, which probably wasn’t ideal. Presumably, there was a nest nearby. This is the fourth time I’ve been ‘warned off’ by a Buzzard now. This one wasn’t anywhere near as alarming as the first, when a Buzzard made several, close feints at my head, but it was a much closer and more threatening approach than the two times it happened last spring: once near Crummack when the tiercel – it always seems to be the tiercel, the smaller male bird – flew towards me a few times, but on each occasion turned back before getting too close; the other time in woods above the Wenning Valley when both birds circled menacingly but didn’t get any more aggressive than that, a ‘warning’ so undramatic that I subsequently forgot to mention it in the relevant post.
That first dive having come pretty close I retreated behind the small Hawthorn…
…in this picture. Both Buzzards were now in the pines opposite. As I moved on the tiercel came back to make another, rather half-hearted swoop.
I’ve been admonished in the past, probably quite rightly, for being too specific about the location of Badger setts, so I shan’t say quite where, but I did pass some I haven’t seen before during this walk. I didn’t see any Badgers, but plenty of evidence of their recent presence.
Yewbarrow, Arnside Knott, Winster Valley, Cartmel Fell.
I climbed a little here, up to Raven’s Barrow…
This large cairn, which has a small seat built into it, doesn’t mark the top of a hill, but it is a magnificent viewpoint, despite it’s modest elevation.
Looking north to the higher hills of the Lake District.
Whitbarrow Scar.
Raven’s Barrow pano.
I’d originally planned to stop here to make a brew, but there was quite a cold breeze, so I dropped down to St. Anthony’s instead…
This tiny church is in a wonderfully peaceful spot. There’s a photo of it in this post, from a walk at an earlier time of day, when the sun was still shining on it. It must have been an earlier time of the year too, because the churchyard was still full of Daffodils.
Time was marching on, but I decided that I had a moment for a quick peek inside the church. It was built in 1504 and inside there’s a plaque naming all of the priests back as far as 1520.
This unusual, triple-decker pulpit…
…has been used by a few of those priests, having been added in 1698.
This box pew…
…is even older, having been fashioned from the chancel screen in 1571. Whilst this one…
…known as the Cowmire Hall Pew, is Seventeenth Century. I haven’t walked past Cowmire Hall, I don’t think, I shall have to add it to my list of places to visit.
It struck me that much of the stained glass looked very old.
Apparently, much of it is Fifteenth Century and originates from Cartmel Priory which also once provided the priests for this church. I haven’t been to the Priory for an age either, something else I need to put right.
The East Window.
The figure on the left of the East Window, who has a bell, a staff, a book and a small pig, is St. Anthony. Amongst other things he is the patron Saint of charcoal burners, an industry once very much identified with this area and perhaps the reason for the Church’s dedication. Apparently, the window contains some Coptic symbols associated with this desert hermit, but I’m not clever enough to pick them out. The figure on the right is St. Leonard, patron saint of prisoners and the sick.
I have a little book, “Lakeland Country Churches’, by Sheila Ricketts, from which I’ve gleaned much of the preceding information, but there are many other features which the book doesn’t mention.
This for example…
…which I assume is St. Anthony again. And his pig.
This…
…is Hodge Hill Hall, like St. Anthony’s, another listed building. ‘Possibly dating from 1560’.
I had had an overly ambitious idea that I might recross the valley and climb Whitbarrow, but I decided that I’d already packed enough in for one day. The sun was sinking fast and seemed to be in agreement…
At Pool Bank there are a number of superb old buildings, but they were in shade, so I shall have to come back some time to take more photos.
As I approached Witherslack Hall again, on the minor road through Low Park Wood, I came to an open field where a horse, presumably one belonging to the equestrian centre, was rolling on its back with what seemed to me to be obvious relish. A pair of Greylag Geese ushered their tiny, fluffy brood across the field and shooed them past the horse. Time for me to go home to check on my own brood.
Around 8 miles with 250m of ascent.
*This is an understatement of such magnitude that ‘understatement’ isn’t really a strong enough term to describe it. There’s a vast ocean of known mathematics, of which I have glimpsed into a tiny rock-pool, and beyond that there are presumably yet more, as yet unexplored and unimagined, oceans of new mathematics waiting to be discovered (or invented – there’s a debate to be had there, but not here and now). If this seems like false modesty, it isn’t, and you should bear in mind the fact that Henri Poincaré, who died in 1912, was dubbed, by the historian of maths E.T. Bell, ‘the last universalist’, i.e.the last mathematician who understood all of the mathematics which was known during his time.
+He has a short memory: we often have a protracted fine spell during the spring.
#I looked them both up, and sadly the actual meanings are rather prosaic – a catslide roof is a roof which continues below the line of the eaves of a house and a heck is a northern term for a short panel between the fireplace and the door, usually ending with a heck-post. Does this, I wonder, explain the origins of the phrase ‘flaming heck’?
During our walk up Lingmell, we passed some very promising pools in Lingmell Beck. As usual B was very keen to swim. On the way up , we didn’t really have time, and on the way down we were also a bit pushed: I gave B an option and he chose a barbecue without a swim over a quicker meal with a swim. So, it would be a good thing if we could incorporate a dip into our plan for Sunday. A meanwhile, has problems with her knee at the moment, and it had swollen up and was uncomfortable, so a day without a walk would suit her. Once we’d packed up our tents then, we decided to drive down to where there’s parking close to the shore of Wastwater so that we could have a leisurely picnic and maybe a brief bathe. Having heard our plan, J, C and M opted to join us. For the picnic anyway.
A and B chilling out.
We did a fair bit of loafing, picnicked, skimmed and threw a few stones…
I watched a pair of Merganser’s out in the lake, hoping that they would come close enough in shore for me to get some half-way decent photos. They didn’t. Also on an ornithological front: I forgot to mention that I’d already heard my first Cuckoo of the year at the campsite, which is becoming an annual event.
B and I did go for a swim eventually. Wastwater is England’s deepest lake, and the water was very, very cold. Still it was fun, if short-lived. It was instructive to paddle across the mouth of the stream which you can see in the photo above – the water flowing in the stream was noticeably, considerably warmer.
Meanwhile, the girls had decided to give J a makeover. She demanded that I take her photo for the blog to ‘make her famous’. So….
I’m not sure that J actually reads my blog, but all three followers and my Mum will now get to see her Pippi-Longstocking Got Married look. It’s sure to catch on.
B outside St. Olaf’s Church, Wasdale Head.
A’s DofE training finished earlier than I had anticipated and we were able to make a leisurely trip up to Nether Wasdale and still arrive with plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine and have a barbecue with some of our friends. Church Stile campsite was heaving, perhaps because of the excellent forecast, but we were able to squeeze in next to J and C and C’s schoolfriend M. It’s a good job that I’d decided not to bother with the trailer tent however, because the ‘large grass plot’ we’d paid for was far from large. Church Stile is a first rate campsite, but extra fields have been added and all of the fields were, frankly, over-full. It was still quiet and friendly, but hot water for showers or washing-up was hard to come by, there were too many people on the site for the facilities to cope with. Hopefully, this was a one off: we’ve been many times before and have always been impressed.
Anyway, rant over, back to the real business of this post: other friends of ours were scattered over the site, some in vans, some in caravans, although others were missing, and much missed. After a very leisurely breakfast, some of us gathered together to set off for a walk. Driving down to Wasdale Head proved to be a bit of a trial, with some real muppetry on display on the narrow lanes and idiotic parking at the end of the valley, but we managed to find spaces despite our very late start.
First port of call on the walk was the tiny church at Wasdale Head. The church is very old, these roof-beams reputedly came from a Viking longship.
One of the windows apparently has an engraving of Napes Needle, which I seem to have missed – I shall have to go back to investigate.
The post title pretty succinctly summarises our route. On the OS map, there’s a dotted line which follows the twists and turns of the edge of the deep ravine of Piers Gill. In years of visits to Wasdale, I’ve never climbed that path even though the prospect has always intrigued me. Time to put that right.
Great Gable from Moses’ Trod.
Great Gable would dominate the view all day, which is no bad thing.
Gable again.
Walking beside Lingmell Beck.
Crossing Spouthead Gill.
Great Gable again!
Crossing Greta Gill.
The deep cleft of Piers Gill ahead.
Greta Gill.
Piers Gill with Lingmell behind.
The ascent beside Piers Gill was steep and I was still suffering with a rattling cough, which is my way of saying that I was very slow and probably held the others up no end. But they should probably thank me for that: this is rough, inspiring mountain scenery which, in my opinion, has no equal, in England at least. I can think of hills in Scotland which are crag-bound and steep and as awe-inspiringly formidable as this area, but I can’t think of a match in the Lakes. There was even a little easy scrambling to be had – which was highly amusing, as the children were solicitously checking that the adults were ‘alright’.
The path beside Piers Gill.
Looking across one bank of the gill to Gable (of course).
B admiring the ravine.
The Adopted Yorkshireman on Lingmell.
We seemed to have numerous lunch stops, but I didn’t take advantage of any of them for a collective group photo. I think I was genuinely a bit worn out. Eventually, we made it to Lingmell.
Gable and Styhead Tarn from Lingmell.
Scafell Pike and Scafell from Lingmell.
Old Father Sheffield half-mooted the idea of continuing on to Scafell Pike, but his suggestion didn’t meet with any enthusiasm. Scafell Pike is always thronged, even on a rotten day, and today it looked like it was absolutely overrun. Besides which, A and B and I were up there relatively recently. And I was already cream-crackered.
Red Pike, Pillar and Kirk Fell.
The Screes and Wastwater.
A filling our bottles from one of the streams which feed Piers Gill.
By Piers Gill again.
Heading down the Corridor Route. OFS seems to have a hankie on his head. I think it was actually an Eddy Merckx style cycling cap.
Round How and Great End.
I suggested diverting to Round How and Lambfoot Dub, but then decided that was too much effort and left the AYM to do it on his own.
Looking back down the valley towards Wasdale Head.
Piers Gill and Lingmell from our descent route.
We came down a superb, well-made path, clearly very old, with nice easy zig-zags. I felt sure that I had been down this way before, perhaps it was with CJ when we stayed at the Wasdale Head Hotel.
Gable still dominated the view. Here’s some close-ups, using my camera’s zoom…
Napes Needle on the left. (I think).
Napes Needle?
A superb day. I’ve been walking in these hills, with these same friends (well, the AYM anyway), for over thirty years. I hope that this day will live as long in the memories of the four children who were with us as many of my previous outings have with me.
Later, back at the campsite, another barbecue. B and I had Church Stile’s own Herdwick burgers, which were delicious. Then, for the second night running, a chinwag around a wood-fire burning in the portable fire-pit which TBH bought me for Christmas. B tended the fire whilst I sampled some Ennerdale Brewery Beer. I didn’t know there was an Ennerdale Brewery until I saw some bottles in the camp site shop, but I can now report that their beers are very palatable. Marvellous.
Meadow Ant mounds on Heald Brow.
The Friday evening of the first May Bank Holiday weekend. TBH and Little S had tootled off to Dublin for their rugby tour. The team had had a surprise good luck message from “you know, that England rugby player, Dylan Thomas”, as TBH put it. Turned out to be Dylan Hartley, which is almost as impressive.
A and B and I were also going away, but A had a DofE training event on the Friday night and Saturday morning, so I decide to take advantage of the good weather we were having and get out for a local ramble.
The ‘force that drives the green fuse’ had been hard at work and Heald Brow was resplendent with trees bedecked with new-minted leaves and a host of wildflowers.
Primroses.
Cowslips.
Early Purple Orchid.
I walked a small circuit around Heald Brow and stumbled across an area carpeted with Primroses…
If anything, this is even more impressive than the patch nestled in the limestone pavement at Sharp’s Lot which I am always keen to visit each spring.
In amongst the standard yellow flowers were some variants…
In the past, I’ve always assumed that these colourful exceptions were garden escapees, but now I’m wondering whether it was simply mutations like these which led to the selective breeding of the diverse variants which are now available for gardens.
Bugle.
I dropped down to the salt-marsh.
Warton Crag.
Which, unfortunately, left me in deep shade for some time.
Scurvygrass.
Gorse at Jack Scout.
A Jack Scout shrub – shaped by the lashings of salty winds off the Bay.
Sunset from Jack Scout.
Eaves Wood – Waterslack – Sixteen Buoys Field – Hawes Water – Thrang Brow – Yealand Allotment – Leighton Moss – Golf Course – The Row – Hagg Wood.
Hawes Water.
A midweek evening walk from the beginning of the month.
Dryad’s Saddle.
I’ve haven’t been able to visit Hawes Water for some time: the paths have been closed whilst some tree felling is carried out.
The paths are still closed…
…but my patience has run out, and besides, I was pretty confident that nobody would be still felling trees well into the evening. Clambering over the fallen trunks was relatively easy, but the bridge over the stream between Little Hawes Water and Hawes Water had been blocked with a huge pile of twiggy branches, which was a bit more tricky to circumvent.
I think that I understand both why the work is being carried out and why some people are upset by it. I was concerned that the tree by the path which hosts Toothwort would be felled and it has been. But it will presumably send up new shoots and the Toothwort shouldn’t be affected. Time will tell.
A top-loading washing machine?
Time will also perhaps heal the huge ruts left by whatever has been used to haul out the timber. In the long run, we shall also see whether the stated aims of improving the water quality in Little Hawes Water and extending the area of grassland by the lake where Bird’s-eye primrose and Grass of Parnassus flower are achieved.
With these thoughts to mull over, I set off for Thrang Brow, hoping for a view of the Lakeland Hills. The sun was in the wrong spot – although I shouldn’t really complain about being able to see the sun!
I dropped down to Leighton Moss and before I left the road to gain the path there was pretty sure that I could see a Red Deer moving through the trees. There were Chiff-chaffs singing in the treetops too.
This warbler…
…I think that it’s a Sedge Warbler.
This part of the reserve is criss-crossed by tracks where the thick black mud is churned by a herd of Red Deer and I was hopeful of spotting some deer again. I didn’t have to wait long…
Two stags, whose antlers are just beginning to grow, unlike the Roe Deer bucks who have mature antlers at this time of year.
I dipped into Lower Hide briefly. I once saw an otter here, on a late visit, but this time I had to settle for a low-key sunset.
I realise that the felling of a few trees and the removal of a boardwalk is not the sort of change that the song refers too, but I heard the Sam Cooke version of this tune on the radio the other day and it’s been in my head ever since. I think that I may just prefer this Otis Redding take on the song, but I’m not entirely sure.
Honesty.
We arrived back from York late in the afternoon, but the sun was still shining, so I was quickly out again to take advantage of that fact.
Wood Anemones.
Primroses.
This was one of my little annual pilgrimages – this time to see the Green Hellebores which grow around the margins of the Caravan Park.
Green Hellebore.
The plants look to be in rude health, but at first I couldn’t find any flowers and wondered if I’d left it too late. This is any early flowering plant – apparently in the south of England it can sometimes be found in bloom as early as New Year’s Day.
Fortunately, I hadn’t missed it entirely.
The flowers are unusual rather than spectacular, but I’m always pleased to see them.
Blackbird.
Arnside Tower.
Goldfinches seem to be almost ubiquitous these days. I thought I could see a pair hopping about near the top of the walls of the tower.
Goldfinches.
The camera’s zoom helped to confirm my suspicions.
Silverdale Moss from Arnside Tower.
Middlebarrrow Wood.
Honesty on The Row.
I continued around the bottom edge of Middlebarrow wood to the quarry and then home via Waterslack and The Row. This hedgerow had an impressive display of Honesty. A splendid ginger bee (some sort of Carder Bee perhaps?) led me a merry dance amongst the flowers. It’s colour was perfect against the purple of the Honesty, but every time I took a photo, it moved, so that I have photos without a bee, or at best a blurred bee.
Beating The Bounds 