Not Quite Deja Vu

Where does this path go?

The expectation I might have created in yesterday’s post, of another walk around the coast and an ascent of Arnside Knott featuring in this post, was slightly inaccurate. I was misremembering. In fact, whilst I did climb the Knott, the walk around the coast I was thinking of took place the following weekend.

On this occasion, when I passed Hollins Farm and entered the National Trust land at Heathwaite, I noticed a path bisecting the two routes I usually choose between, one of which follows the edge of the field towards Saul’s Road and the Knott, whilst the other follows the other boundary, eventually reaching the large open area at the western end of Heathwaite.

Intrigued, I took the middle path.

Through a thicket.

Past some handsome Birches.

Cresting the slope.

To a bench.

To find that it took a direct, steep route to the bench which has a very fine view southwards along the coast. There’s a second bench, in a sheltered spot surrounded by Gorse bushes. Has that always been there, or is it a recent addition? It’s odd, but not surprising, that I can’t remember.

With a terrific view.

From there, I continued to the toposcope which I think of as the ‘top’ of the Knott, although it isn’t quite. The views were more extensive than they had been the day before. It was clear that the previous day’s showers had fallen as snow on the mountains of the Eastern Lakes.

The Kent Estuary and Cartmel Fell with snowy lakeland Fells beyond.

Arnside Tower.

I took a direct route back past Arnside Tower and through Eaves Wood.

Arnside Tower.

Flooded fields, Silverdale Moss, Beetham Fell and Farleton Fell.

Later, I hitched a lift with B, who dropped me at the junction of Storrs Lane and Thrang Brow Lane. From there, I walked home via Yealand Allotment, the meadows of Gait Barrows, Moss Lane and Eaves Wood.

Lime Kiln by Thrang Brow Lane.

Yealand Allotment.

Leighton Moss and a disappearing sun.

Cartmell Fell, Whitbarrow and Beetham Fell from Thrang Brow.

The view from Thrang Brow is excellent, but never seems to lend itself to photographs.

Freshly-laid hedge.

I thought I might get a clear view of the sunset from there, but the intervening ‘high’ ground, presumably Heald Brow, was blocking the view.

A sunset, of sorts.

Of course, if the sun sets when you are still a few miles from home, then you will be finishing your walk in gathering darkness, so there are no more photos.

Towards the Waking

Eaves Wood – Castlebarrow – Ring O’Beeches – Waterslack – Hawes Water – Thrang Brow – Yealand Allotment – Yealand Storrs – Leighton Hall – Summer House Hill – Warton Crag – Crag Foot – Quaker’s Stang – Heald Brow – Woodwell – The Green

The forecast for last weekend wasn’t dreadful, but it didn’t create much gleeful anticipation either – it was for dry weather, but cloudy and dull. Actually, on the Saturday morning (when I was busy) there was a bit of sunshine, but when I got out for a walk in the afternoon it was so gloomy that I didn’t bother to take any photos at all.

On the Sunday morning, neither of the boys were playing rugby and I had contemplated setting off early and heading out for a walk in the hills, but, given the forecast, decided to walk from home instead. I was still out quite early, in time to catch the sunrise from Castlebarrow, by the Pepper Pot, or so I thought, but perhaps due to the cloud low in the eastern sky, the sun didn’t actually appear until I was heading through the woods towards the Ring O’Beeches.

I suppose it was the low trajectory of the winter sun which enabled me to apparently take several sunrise photos, each from a new vantage point, with probably about 50 yards between them.

This was a bit of a surprise: pale blue sky and clear sight of the sun.

From the boardwalk by Hawes Water, Challan Hall was catching the early light. Two Cormorants were interrupted by my presence and circled above the lake, before roosting in their usual spot in the dead tree on the far shore.

Hawes Water and Challan Hall.

In the fields near Hawes Water, I was entertained by a pair of Buzzards, one of which eventually  flew across my view, tantalisingly close to my lens, but sadly the only photograph I was quick enough to take came out blurred beyond recognition.

I was a little concerned that the forecast had misled me into making a poor choice and thought that a short diversion to the minor hummock of Thrang Brow would give me a clearer idea. I haven’t been there for a while; it has a view of the Lakeland hills, although nothing to rival the view from Arnside Knott or Haverbrack. Or rather, sometimes it has a view of the Lakeland hills; on this occasion I couldn’t see anything much beyond Arnside Knott and even that was a bit lost in the haze.

Arnside Knott from Thrang Brow.

I’m glad I went that way though, because then I remembered a small trod which wends it’s way through the woods and limestone pavements of Yealand Allotment and which I haven’t followed for quite some time.

My original plan, when I reached Yealand Storrs, had been to follow the road for a while and then climb into Cringlebarrow Woods, but for some reason I decided instead to cross the road and follow the path across the fields towards Leighton Hall. I hoped that the fields might have dried out a bit after a relatively rain-free week, but actually the going was very heavy. My hastily amended plan involved turning left at Leighton Hall Farm to cut up to Deepdale and so to Cringlebarrow Woods that way, but I could hear heavy machinery in operation and, thinking that there was some tree-felling underway, changed my mind again. Past the Hall and up Summer House Hill it was.

Leighton Hall and Leighton Moss from Summer House Hill.

The view from Summer House Hill can be a cracker, but once again, anything at all distant was looking a little murky.

The field at the top of the hill had bluey-green, or greeny-blue….stuff…spread across the surface…

This…

…is the base of the former summer house which gives the hill its name. It had been very liberally…blued…

Does anybody have any idea what this is?

I’d just said hello to a couple who were walking with their dog, when I was surprised to see a Jay sitting calmly in a tree relatively close by. It’s not that I don’t see jays – I do – but that having seen them, I then usually almost immediately lose sight of them, because they are generally very shy and soon make themselves scarce. Since this one didn’t fly off, I thought I would play my customary cat-and-mouse game of edging forward with my camera and taking another photo every couple of strides. To my surprise, the Jay flew  toward me, down to the ground and then continued to hop in my direction before stopping to grub around in the leaf litter.

It was a shame that the sun wasn’t still shining: Jays are so unlike their monotone Corvid cousins, with their pink and blue plumage and their striped head.

Fortunately, the sun was soon shining again, if perhaps a little weakly in the haze.

Peter Lane Lime Kiln.

Lime Kilns are a bit of a feature of the area and I often pass them on walks, but rarely remember to take photos of them.

The same could be said of sheep…

…these few stood out because they are of an unusual breed for this area (I can’t work out which).

Warton Crag’s Easter Island Heads.

There’s been a fair bit of tree-felling near the top of Warton Crag, which I think will take a little while to get used to. The view from the top was predictably limited…

River Keer from Warton Crag.

More Tree-felling.

Quicksand Pool and Quaker’s Stang.

Brown’s House and the ‘smelting’ chimney from Quaker’s Stang.

For the last part of my walk the sun came out again.

Warton Crag and the salt-marsh from Heald Brow.

I like this time of year: it’s still winter, with the possibility of snow and ice, which is fine, but it also feels like we’re sliding inexorably toward spring.

When all sap lies quiet and does not climb,
When all seems dead, I cultivate
The wild garden rioting in my memory,
Count in advance the treasures which
The sleeping sap contains,

And winter runs from now toward
The waking of the sap and spring.

from Garland for the Winter Solstice  by Ruthven Todd.

The Insect Glade

Or: Fleeting Moments of Wonder V

Looking over Leighton Moss.

For Father’s Day TBH and the kids bought me ‘The Butterfly Isles’ by Patrick Barkham. I haven’t read much of it yet, but I’m fairly confident that I’ll enjoy it. It details an attempt to see in one year all of the British butterfly species. There’s a map and a list showing all of the places visited where butterflies were seen. Of the 35 sites listed 3 are in this immediate area: Latterbarrow, Meathop Moss and Arnside Knott.

Meanwhile I also read:

If you ask anybody where is the best place to watch butterflies in Britain, they will probably say ‘down south’ somewhere. Those really in the know would say that there are a few areas in the north that are pretty good too! East of the Pennines, the North York Moors have some excellent butterfly habitat and there are several good areas in Scotland, too. But to my mind, there is no doubt that the limestone hills on both sides of Morecambe Bay constitute the butterfly watching capital of the north.*

And yet I know that I have only ever seen a small fraction of the 35 species which live in this area. Reading Patrick Barkham, in the introduction to ‘The Butterfly Isles’ describing himself, aged 8, and his father scanning for butterflies with binoculars and then haring after them with their cameras has given me a new resolve to try to catch up with at least a few more of that elusive 35.

It was in part for that reason that I had changed my mind about following my usual route over the crag and was now heading into Yealand Allotment. And at the first opportunity I turned up one of the rides through the trees, kept open to provide a habitat for butterflies.

And before long I saw a butterfly, off to the side of the path, something orange, I thought perhaps a skipper. I left the path to try to get a closer look, but lost sight of it, partly because I was distracted by the great numbers of damselfly and grasshoppers which my every step was sending into the air.

I think that these are blue-tailed damselflies.

I think that this is…

..is an azure damselfly. Apparently, the key to differentiating this from numerous similar species is the mark on the second abdominal section.

A common green grasshopper. Perhaps.

Something large and blue whirred past – a male broad-bodied chaser, but was gone too quickly. Then another butterfly, orange and brown, which disappeared into the trees, but led me to these busy hoverflies…

I decided to sit down and eat a banana. Perhaps the wildlife would come to me. It didn’t quite happen that way, but I did see another butterfly on the path below me. I followed. It led me on a merry dance, but eventually I got some photos…

A fritillary!

It kept moving on – sunning itself, but off again if I got at all close. But then, as shade crept across the glade, it found itself a grass stalk, folded its wings and apparently settled down for the night. Do butterflies do that? It was quite happy for me to get as close as I liked…

I struggled, from my books, to work out whether it was a pearl bordered fritillary or a small pearl bordered fritillary, but it’s the latter – the patchwork of white on the undersides of the wings is the clincher. (Find an excellent identification guide here.)

I took lots of photos, since the spbf was being so obliging, but then caught another movement in the corner of my eye…

…a small skipper (I think).

One of the same hoverflies I saw before? Possibly helophilus pendulus.

The spbf hadn’t moved. I took no end of photos – I’ve never got close enough to any of the many fritillary species which are resident here to get photos before.

More grasshoppers…

A final word to Patrick Barkham:

A journey in search of every species of butterfly is about our need to celebrate and capture fleeting moments of wonder as we fly through our lives.

Leighton Moss again. (Like the top photo, taken from further up the hill than where I saw all the insects).

*Sam Ellis in ‘The Best Butterfly-Watching in the North’ collected in ‘The Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ edited by Terry Keefe

In The Woods

Last Saturday we had a short walk in Eaves Wood. There was much tree climbing – one of my cousin’s daughters is even more fearless than our kids. There was also a spot of den building – or more accurately den restoration.

On Thursday I was once again commuting home from Carnforth on foot. I suppose that may be the last one for quite some time – the clock’s go back, for a couple of Thursday’s I have to go back to Lancaster before going home and in the spring it seems I may no longer be spending my Thursday afternoons working in Carnforth – I shall certainly miss my walk home.

I didn’t take many photos – the afternoon began dingy and just got progressively more gloomy until I finished the walk in near darkness. The field path from Millhead to Warton wasn’t as flooded as it can be, but there was still a large area of water in one of the fields. I counted eleven swans in all on and around the water.

Much as I’ve enjoyed climbing Warton Crag I decided to ring the changes and instead walked through Hynning Scout Wood.  Almost immediately I found a couple of prickly sweet chestnut cases each of which had some green but good sized nuts. This was an unfortunate fluke because I then spent quite some time looking for more and after that I only found small thin nuts with no real substance to them. Besides which, when I tried one of the green nuts it had that distinctive chestnut taste (which I love) but was not sweet at all – quite the opposite in fact.

Beyond Hynning Scout I went on into the woods on Cringlebarrow. I couldn’t resist the diversion down into Deepdale – a steep–sided hollow which someone once told me is actually a crater resulting from a meteorite impact – I have absolutely no idea how true this is but I like the idea. There’s a pond at the bottom of the hollow – or at least there was – it’s green over and seems to be more of a bog than a pond now. There’s also a badger sett here – or what I have convinced myself is a badger sett: I’ve never seen the badgers.

I climbed back up to the main path. A signpost directed me to Yealand Storrs and Round Top. I don’t really know what the latter is – I’ve never found a top on Cringlebarrow, but when the path dropped off to the left I followed the fainter path which carried straight on. It didn’t take me to a top, but it did take me to a lovely route down the end of the ridge which eventually met a good path which doubled back to the right of way. Whilst I dropped through the trees here the sun must have dropped below the level of the clouds – I couldn’t see it, but the tree tops were suddenly lit a lovely honeyed gold.

The rest of my walk took me through Yealand Allotment, around Haweswater and finally through Eaves Wood. I walked for over three hours, almost all of which, after I entered Hynning Scout, was in woodland. Can’t be bad.

Yealand Allotment and Thrang Brow

Fields and their shape record ancient and less ancient history, and a map marking field boundaries will reveal very different patterns, including quite a few of the old open fields, each of hundreds of acres, which were particularly the rule in the Midlands. These great fields (two or three to a village, to allow for fallowing, i.e. for resting a field so that it regained its fertility) were frequently identified in name after the village they belonged to – ‘Yatesbury Field’, ‘Wootton Fields’ etc.

The Shell Country Book Geoffrey Grigson

Or ‘Yealand Allotment’. TBH had dropped me off on the road beyond Yealand Storrs, where the path through the allotment begins. I followed the right of way for a while, but then turned up hill on a permission path in an open ride through this mostly wooded area. The ride is kept open in order to encourage butterflies. I didn’t see any of those, but did see…

…this, which I assume is a crane fly.

On the train in the morning I had been speaking to two American ladies, who asked whether what we were experiencing was typical September weather: on Monday we had heavy rain and fierce gales and the weather hadn’t improved a great deal since then. Of course, that is typical weather for this area at any time – predictably unpredictable. By the afternoon the skies had cleared and the sun shone. From the top of the ride there’s a good view over the meres of Leighton Moss. From there the path climbs to Thrang Brow which has an excellent vantage of the Lakeland Fells.

 

My onward route took me across meadows to the open area by Haweswater where I recently photographed devil’s-bit scabious and grass of Parnassus. With the sun beaming low across the lake, I decided to have another go…

 

I finished my walk along Moss Lane and through Eaves Wood. When I reached home the sun was almost setting…