It was great meeting up with members of the Arnside Nat which included many old and new friends.
The day was arranged for us to visit the orchids and other nice plants we could find on the sides of Burton Fell and Lancelot Clark Storth. It could not have been better in regards to our butterflies, lots of emergence had took place, probably on that very morning which included for the first time this year, Dark Green Fritillaries (several), Ringlets, Graylings and Meadow Brown. We were also fortunate to see Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Speckled Woods, Common Blue, Small Heath, Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary and Large Skipper.
We toured some of the broken pavements in search of Dark Red Helleborines and Broad Leaved Helleborines, of which lots were found, although the majority of the plants had not actually come into flower, the delay to the norm was that the plants had not received enough water during their early build, although it is hoped that things will be OK now that we have had some rains and they seem to be progressing nicely. Still we did see a few which had odd flowers opening.
When it came to the Broad Leaved Helleborines we saw plenty of superb specimens which looked really good and it was obvious they were going to be really good spectacles when the time arrives.
The ferns were everywhere especially the Rigid Buckler Fern and the Limestone Fern (or limestone polypody), we also had the Wall Rue, some rarer Ceterach (Rusty Back Fern) plus Hard Shield Fern, Harts Tongue Fern and of course everyones old favourite Bracken.
After lunch we made our way over to Lancelot Clark Storth and it was great to see the Hypericum montanum (Pale St. John's Wort). We also had the remains of the rare Angular Solomons Seal although you could see were the larvae of the sawfly were there in attendance attacking the leaves and before long all you are left with is a "skeleton" of the leaves.
Other plants recorded today included: Heath Milkwort, Heath Speedwell, Ploughmans Spikenard, Wild Thyme, Heath Bedstraw, Limestone Bedstraw, Ladies Bedstraw, Fairy Flax, Rue Leaved Saxifrage, Hawkweeds, Self Heal, Eyebright, Tormentil and remnants of Lily of the Valley.
Although the birdlife is usually busy, only odd birds were noted today which included: Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Green Woodpecker, Whitethroat.
Also it was mentioned that members would have liked to see how the pavement looked from a drone and I referred to a piece we did with Granada a couple of years ago which I have now dug out of the archive for you. If you do want to check it out please click here (please turn your volume on for this feature)
Although the orchids were not in flower, the following PHOTOS ancient as they are gives you some idea of how they have looked in past years or the way we hope they will turn out over the coming weeks.
They are just a few examples from what I stopped at and we talked about on site yesterday.
Starting off with 33, its one of the plants I have always queried against hybridization, but is special in that it is a bicolor but also in the fact that it does have a white epichile (lip)
We later moved over to Specimen 66
We moved over to check out a special "Pallens" variety
and we also checked out 15d which is the one I said had 62 flower buds in its heyday....
This is just a few of what we had yesterday, but if you want to check out the full list of the plants we have please click here and scroll down.
also today we had the following:
Hypericum montanum - pale St. Johns Wort
Something really special a dark stemmed helleborine?
Angular Solomons Seal
Pale St. Johns Wort
Pale St. Johns Wort
Dark Red Helleborine
Dark Red Helleborine
Dropwort
Dark Red Helleborine
Carline Thistle
Bush Vetch with critter
Ploughmans Spikenard
Pale St. Johns Wort
larvae of sawfly attacking Angular Solomons Seal
Fairy Flax seen today, but photo taken last week.
Click over the Shortcut Links below:
12th Feb 2021 - Just starting to see new growth etc
Thr 11th February 2021 - Early movement and Spring Bird Migration over Burton In Kendal.
Tues 9th February 2021 - Intertwined
17th Dec 2020 - Finding a new Polypodium cambricum on HRoof Crags
Thursday 19th November 2020 - Nice stroll or wander with fabulous wonders and my December copy for the local magazine - SEE BLOG BELOW THESE LINKS.....
CHECKING OUT SOUTHERN POLYPODY AND BLACK SPLEENWORT PLUS FUNGI, FUNGI AND MORE FUNGI - Click here
Another recent blog on"The best moments of vis so far this year - click here
2020 Visible Bird Migration records
"Strange Polypodium Interjectum found in Burton (17th Oct 2020)
Cloud and Sunrise photo blog - click here
More Autumn Gentian photos (2020) can be seen here
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