Beautiful spring

With a continuation of the glorious weather, half a day gardening and then a walk down by the river at Hesket Newmarket. We happened to finish our walk at opening time for The Old Crown - what a shame!

Rocky heading off - he knows the way!

The Wild Garlic - a few more days and it will be at it's best.

I love the shadows.

Wood Anemones, Bluebells and Garlic.

Meadow Saxifrage.

Toothwort.

Herb Paris.

The river is drying...

Wood Anemones.

Wood Anemones..

Here he comes....

And plenty of Bluebells...

Walking in the Caldew

As it is so dry, there was an opportunity to explore the river Caldew, in rather a different manner... The bedrock is limestone, so there were lots of scoured and eroded blocks - a strange kind of limestone pavement and a few fossils too.

Limestone riverbed blocks....

Scoured ....

..and scalloped.

Reflections.....

Fossils: solitary coral, colonial corals, Brachiopod and Crinoid cross sections.

Spring on the Caldew

A quick walk down by the Caldew from Hesket Newmarket. Floristically rich with: Toothwort, Goldilocks Buttercup, Herb Paris, Wood Anemones, Ramsons, Bluebells, Primroses and more ...gorgeous...

Toothwort...and below.

Herb Paris.

Goldilocks Buttercup.

Wood Anemones.

The first Bluebells. 

Meadow Saxifrage.

Ramsons - Wild Garlic.

The Caldew.

Herb Robert and a snail! 

High Pike lichen monitoring

A break in the rain, so off up High Pike to see how the Thamnolia vermicularis or White-worm Lichen is fairing. 

We had heard that there had been some illegal off-roading on the top of the fell and that could have easily destroyed the entire lichen population, so it was with some concerns that we made our visit. 

Carrock Fell.

The track before heading off up the fell. 

The summit vegetation has been trashed. 

The summit cairn pulled apart and the metal trig plate removed. 

Thankfully the seat remains...

As does the Thamnolia ....

...which continues to do well. 

Basic monitoring photogrpahs were taken which will be repeated on an annual basis.

The sun came out briefly the fells are flushing purple...

..and there was blue sky! 

Nosey Swaledales!

Pushing myself!

 I'm trying to develop ideas towards a piece of work - I have no idea what form the work will take, but it is going to be loosely based on Carrock Fell. So I started by playing around with manipuating photographs - this led me to find the three things I tend to focus on are - the iconic silhouette of the fell; the rare  'Thamnolia' lichen click here for more information - otherwise known as the white-worm lichen; and frost covered Nardus grass.  This then led me into a printing session - using a gelli plate - that will form  the next blog....where that then leads me - who knows?