Cameo of the Lakes

Monday 31st May 2010.

               Last week we had 5 days up the lakes in this delightful corner of England. We didn't see anything  unusual but it was a delight to walk some of the valleys and summits in my favourite season of the year.

  We stayed in our motorhome on a site 3 minutes walk from this view

                This caught my eye ....The hawthorne in full blossom

                     Our first longer walk the climb up Great Gable

                          Bogbean in one of the mountain tarns

                                       The view down Ennerdale

                            Up the final scramble from Windy Gap

                                    The scramble to the summit

       It was worth the effort for the view looking S.W. down Wast Water

               Lunch break at Westmorland Cairn above Wasdale Head

                              Looking across to Crummock Water

                         The last of the snow on the Scafell range

                          The steep decent down to Styhead Tarn

                                        Beetle Larve..?


A few of the more unusual flowers we found on the walk

                           Butterwort... Insect eating plant

                                Sundew ....Insect eating plant

                                            Milkwort...?

                                A poor image of a Saxifrage....
                                I think it's a Starry Saxifrage?

                             A rocky decent through Taylor Gill

                                              Taylor Gill

A birds nest besides the path in Taylor Gill...... Some kind of Pipit?

            The dry riverbed at Seathwaite the wettest place in England


The Newlands Valley and Borrowdale

                                  

                                   A drift of whte Bluebells

The Vale of Newlands with its glaciated "U" shaped valleys

 

                                 Derwent Water from the Cat Bells

Borrowdale looking towards Castle Crag

And finally a scenic walk over Fleetwith Pike near Buttermere

           Buttermere from Fleetwith Pike with Crummock water beyond

                            Great Gable and further back Scafell

                                       The steep decent

                                                Looking back

                     Fleetwith Pike from the popular lakeside walk

                                     The Buttermere Pines

                          Yellow Pimpernel along the lake shore

                        Walking the sheep in Buttermere village

 And finally a Delicious Scone with Strawberry Jam and Clotted Cream

A new generation

Friday May 21st 2010.

         The first real warmth of Spring today 23c. Down Twiston and Ings beck the Ramsons and the Bluebells are at their best, this valley is one of my favourite haunts being only a few miles from where I live. Most of the spring flowers are at their best but that isn't the main reason for our visit.(If you followed my earlier posts last year around late October and  November we made several visits to see if we could see the salmon spawning . We were successful and I managed to record the events both with video and still photos but the image quality was far from satisfactory) Today the beck is running low and clear  and by creeping up to the side of the beck we could see dozens of newly hatched Salmon Fry (baby salmon) in the shallow running water at the sides of the beck.These small fry are between 3/4 and 1 inch long and are very difficult to photograph because of their wary nature, but by crouching down and remaining still a few did come into camera range and I eventually had a bit of limited success with my fairly basic camera. The small Fry already have the early markings of the next stage of growth, they will develop into Salmon Parr during the next 12 months and after 2-3 years they will change into Smolt and make their way back down the beck and then finally into the sea. After a few years they will return to the river of their birth to spawn and the whole cycle starts all over again.

                                              Ramsons

                                 The Bluebells at their best

       Nov. 2009 Salmon Spawning to the right of the dead flower stalk

         It's hard to believe that Salmon can spawn in such a small beck

                         The Salmon Fry just right of centre

                             Try as I might I couldn't catch one