Three of the best

Wed . 19th May 2010
         Spring is moving along so quickly that I haven't had time to upload any posts in the last few days because we've been to various locations to see the marvel of springs regeneration as it progresses through the season, miss a week and thats it it's past it's best and your having to wait another year.
    The first of the three walks was on Sat May15th in Upper Ribblesdale in the of the heart of the three peaks, Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborourgh, up here in the high Pennines there's a tiny Primrose that blooms in the limestone grassland It grows in several locations in the dales but it is far from common. Todays walk is a circular walk of about 9 miles starting from Horton in Ribblesdale.

                                  Pen-y-ghent from Sulber Nick
In the Limestone pavement area the two main flowers that were in flower were the Early Purple Orchid and the lovely Birds Eye Primrose.

                                          Early Purple Orchid

                                     Bird's- eye primrose

Across the valley the egg shaped mounds formed by the movement of ice overiding deposited rocks and boulderclay in the last Ice age.

                                        Limestone wall country

                  The River Ribble only a few miles from its source                                                      

                       Only Bullhead and small Trout were surviving in
                       a few pools in this dried up river bed

                                               Frost damage

                                      A high Pennine hill farm

                             Walking back on the Ribble Way

                         More Drumlins near Horton in Ribblesdale

Sun.16th May 2010
       The delights of a Limestone wood near Feizor.
       This was a shorter walk with our friends

 

                                      Early Purple Orchid

We found some Hybrids....False Oxslips this is the result of
Cowslips and Primroses cross pollinating

                                             False Oxslip

                          Wood Anemones flushed with Pink

                  Just a few of the hundreds of Early Purple Orchids

Mon.17th May 2010
    An early start this morning because we travelled up country to Teesdale. On this walk we were joined by Eric and Peter.We caught the bus up to Langon Beck to the start of the 10 miles walk along the banks of the Tees back to Middleton in Tesdale.Along this walk are some of the rare wilds flowers of Northern England including the Spring Gentian.What was most noticable about the area was the season was a good 2 weeks behind and we'd only travelled about 80 miles north but this is a high cold dale.In the upper part of the dale the Spring Gentians were at their best but lower down the dale the famous spring flowers needed another 3 weeks to be in their full glory. This was a long day it took us 7 hours to complete the walk because we were there also to shoot a film, it's surprising how long it takes to line up all the shots and do most of the commentry to camera,  It was a long but brilliant day.

                                      Along Langdon Beck

                                              Spring Gentians

                                                High Force

                                     Mountain Pansies ?

                                        Globe Flowers

                                       Wood Anemones

                                            Low Force

                               The end of a brilliant days outing