Spring is bursting out all over

Sunday !7th April 2011

                          What a glorious spring day it's been today.  On our usual Sunday walk with our friends we've been into Yorkshire around Clapham, Austwick and Feizor and on our return route back around Crummock Dale skirting the Norber Eratics.We've done this walk several times but on a glorious spring day with all the spring flowers opening  it's a joy to be out.

                                            Primroses

I call this flower a False Oxslip a  multi- headed primrose, it's a cross between the Cowslip and the Primrose

the two flowers shown above.

     The first Early Purple Orchids opening on a south facing hillside

                                     Wood Anemones

                                          Pen-y-Ghent

       Overlooking the hamlet of Wharfe with Ingleborough in the distance

                          Clapper Bridge in Crummock Dale

             Through the Norber glacial erratics back to Clapham

Early April in N.W.England.

Wed 13th April 2011
                How quick spring has moved on in the last two weeks, we've been out and doing so many things that I've never had any time to go on the computer and catch up with everybody on their blogs.

    I've uploaded a few of the pictures that I've taken over the last two weeks of spring slowly developing in and around our area which for me is my favourite season of the year.

First a few photos of the new fish pass in the local pennine valley where I spent most of my childhood playing along the riverside.

       For the first time in 200 years the rivers that flow through N.E. Lancashire are clean enough for the passage of Sea Trout And Salmon. This small moorland stream has always held wild trout but to have salmon returning to these headwaters seems quite unreal.

Another Walk up our beautiful Pendle Hill, this time taking another of our grandchildren up to the summit for his first climb.

 

                    on the  summit..... Daniel three last month

We never tire of the beautiful area around Arnside and Silverdale on the  northeastern shoreline of Morecambe Bay

                                  Arnside Knott with our friends

                                   My dream cottage

                 The first of the many wild orchids pushing through

 

                         The wild daffs have already gone over

               Some of the early spring flowers growing along the coast

                            Sunset over the estuary at Arnside

Springtime in the Ribble Valley down Swanside Beck

                                Germander Speedwell

                         one of my favorites ... Wood Anemones

                 The old packhorse bridge over Swanside Beck

  A Virgin Express on a diversion  through Swanside onto the Settle Carlisle Line and then onto Scotland

Around Tosside

                                             Lunch Stop

                                           More spring flowers

         Always dominating the scene our local landmark ... Pendle Hill

  

Extended Season

Tues. March 30th 2011
           On our usual Sunday walk our starting  point was Malham Tarn at 1250ft, with this altitude increase in the Pennines it's noticeable how the growing season lags behind. In the woods surrounding the tarn the snowdrops were only slightly past their best, so for us folk who live in the Pennines the snowdrop season as covered over 7 weeks. I've been following some blogs from the southern part of England and their bluebells
are already in bloom in some favourable locations.

     

   Back to our walk perhaps it was a little disappointing, this upland area showed very few signs of spring. We followed the Pennine Way up through high farming country to the summit of Fountains Fell a flatish Gritsone fell of 2200 ft. It's not very interesting compaired with it's adjacent neighbour Pen-y-Ghent which is a Limestone fell with a Gritstone capping which is far more interesting botanically.

                           Nearing the top of Fountains Fell

Frogs spawning in the mire, back home in our garden pond the spawn has already hatched

     Looking across to a hazy Pen-y-Ghent  featured in my previous post

                        Amongst the spoil from the old coal mines

  And finally the Cow Berry a plant of the acidic moorlands in the Pennines