On our way to a family bbq, on the bank holiday Monday, we stopped off at Hodbarrow RSPB reserve to see the Terns. It was an incredibly hot day, so the heat haze made it difficult to take good photos....
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| Walking along the coast to the reserve. |
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| Bird's-foot Trefoil. |
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| Grizzled Skipper. |
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| Northern Marsh Orchid. |
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| Plenty of activity! |
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| Eider Duck creche. |
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| Keeping cool... |
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| Little Terns - in the foreground. |
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| Sandwich Terns with a Mediterranean Gull - with its white-ringed eye and bright red beak. |
As promised a few more pictures from last weekend...
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| Butterwort. |
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| Spring Gentian. |
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| Milkwort. |
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| Globe Flower. |
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| Mountain Pansies ...and below. |
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| Bird's-eye Primrose. |
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| Alpine Bistort. |
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| And moving on up to Cow Green.....Mountain Everlasting. |
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| Spring Sandwort. |
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| Plenty of Bird's-eye Primrose... |
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| ..and couple of white ones. |
We always like to go to Teesdale in early to mid May, but we were away this year, so we didn't get over until the Whitsun bank holiday weekend. We knew that the Spring Gentians were fabulous about three weeks prior, so we were pleased to find one perfect one fully out, ironically at a lower altitude than the more abundant ones at Cow Green Reservoir. A splendid walk and Rocky even manged the Cauldron Snout scramble - we just avoided the one really 'bad step'. A more plant-based blog follows...
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| Still the house I would like to live in! |
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| A lucky find - a Spring Gentian still out. |
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| Globe Flower with the Whin Sill behind. |
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| Marsh Marigolds. |
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| Spot the tiny dots of the many Mountain Pansies. |
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| Bird's-eye Primrose. |
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| Alpine Bartsia. |
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| Looking back down the Pennine Way from Falcon Clints. |
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| Falcon Clints where we saw the pair of Ring Ouzels. |
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| Cauldron Snout... |
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| ...and proof that Rocky managed it, with Cow Green Dam in the background. |
A final early start, (not for the locals after Bulgaria had won the Eurovision Song Contest last night). We headed back to the marshes before catching our flight home. What a superb holiday! The company we went with was Heatherlea, based in Nethybridge. They organised all the logistics including pre and flight hotels, flights, transport - a dedicated Bulgarian driver who was excellent, a Heatherlea guide and a local guide - both of whom were brilliant. All meals were included and everything went swimmingly - until of course we got near home and there was a points failure at Penrith! There were 10 in the group. I couldn't recommend Heatherlea more. Anyway a few final pictures ...
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| Montague's Harrier. |
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| Toothed Orchid. |
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| A visitor! |
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| Wryneck. |
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| Over Sofia... |
One of the benefits of the rain was that in the afternoon, when walking through a Beech wood, we found Fire Salamanders wandering around.
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| Blue Ground Beetle. |
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| And back to the hotel, Where there was a Long-eared Owl. |
