Portnahaven lino cut

Well it won't be long until we are back up ....but in the meantime I'll have to do with printing off a linocut!

Dob's Linn graptolites

A cold trip out to Dob's Linn, near Moffatt. This is a classic locality for graptolites - various species - made famous by the work of Charles Lapworth.

Quoting from www.birmingham.ac.uk/facilities/lapworth-museum/about/lapworth

Lapworth recognised the importance of the graptolite fossils within the rocks of the Southern Uplands, and how they could be used to zone and correlate the sequences across the area. He realised that in order to record individual rock units, and associated graptolite biozones, the area had to be mapped in great detail. He pioneered the use of detailed, large-scale geological mapping, which proved vital for the interpretation of the geological structure and history of the region. His work resulted in the Geological Survey having to re-map and re-interpret the entire area, and producing in 1899 the great Memoir on the Geology of the Southern Uplands of Scotland which has been described as 'a monument of the man [Lapworth] who made it possible'.

The photos below show different graptolites that we found linked to their stage in graptolite evolution. These are likely to be Number 1: Dicellograptus, No 2: Climacograptus and No 3: Rastrites.

Carrifran Wildwood

An interesting walk up this hanging valley. It was cold, but spectacular. The valley has, thanks to evidence from pollen analysis from peat cores, been replanted with over a half a million trees - native species. The aim is to restore the natural habitat that once existed, before man felled and over-grazed the habitat. More details are given on the Carrifran website: www.carrifran.org.uk. I look forward to going back in warmer conditions when the flora and fauna will be more evident. The clouds were atmospheric as they rolled in and out of the valley!

Port Charlotte hand-coloured lino cut

Today I finally got round to labelling and packing these up!

Kynance Cove oil painting.

It wasn't as sunny as this when we were there, https://juliagarner1.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/predannack-wollas-to-kynance-cove.htmlbut here's a 60 x 60cm oil painting of Kynance Cove. The view is from the Mullion side of the cove.

Add caption

A walk along the river Caldew from Caldbeck.

A glorious, sunny and spring like afternoon so we walked along the river from Caldbeck. It's still well behind floristically for the time of year with: lots of celandines; just a few wood anemones; one or two garlic buds; one or two bluebell buds; a violet; some moschatel; opposite-leaved saxifrage and no sign of the herb Paris at all. Lovely to see peacock butterflies though and a small tortoiseshell butterfly.

Top left - opposite-leaved saxifrage; top right - dipper.
Bottom left - beech mast candle snuff ( an under-recorded fungus); peacock butterfly.

Coltsfoot in flower.

We suddenly noticed a patch of yellow in the field below us ....in fact on closer inspection there are several fields with patches of yellow coltsfoot. Not in the usual spots though this year!