The hummocky ground layer of Bilberry Wood is carpeted, as its name suggests, with bilberry which is dripping with globular pink flowers, a few of which are beginning to set berries. It has flourished in the years since the wood was fenced off to prevent sheep grazing here.
Recently red squirrels have moved into the wood. They have been caught on camera attracted to feeding boxes (see link below).
Bumble bees are busy in the wood but on the strips of acid grassland around it small heath butterflies are the most conspicuous insects, flitting about over damp sedgey ground pockmarked with the hoof-prints of sheep and cattle. Two green-veined whites have paired up and come to rest among the grasses, giving us a chance to take some close-up macro shots.
In a calm section of Oughtershaw beck, large red damselflies, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, are laying their eggs, perching on a leaf of pondweed, Potamogeton.
Link: Red Squirrels in Bilberry Wood
Red squirrels at a nut feeder in Bilberry Wood, Nethergill.
Lovely photographs of Nethergill, Richard, particularly like the milkwort.
Thank you Sue, when we go next year I’ll double check whether that is the common or heath milkwort. Always something new to learn!