My November ‘Dalesman’ article: ‘Quest Coxley’, an intrepid search for the source of Coxley Beck, filmed on Standard 8, April 1966, with my friend John, armed with a 19th-century cavalry sword, in the Indiana Jones role.
Quest Coxley
Category: Woodland
Stoneycliffe Wood
The wild garlic is at its most deliciously pungent this morning at the top, marshier end of Stoneycliffe Wood Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve.
Wild garlic, also known as ransons, Allium ursinum.
A tattered peacock butterfly, Nymphalis io, pauses to feed on the flowers.
Roe Deer Slots
Our neighbours have spotted deer in the valley recently so I was on the look-out for tracks. The size – about 2 inches, 5cm – fits roe deer, the species that is often seen in the area.
Greater Woodrush
Greater woodrush (also known as great wood-rush), Luzula syvatica, is an indicator of dry acid soil.
It has clusters of small rush-like flowers.
It has long white hairs along the edges of its shiny leaves, a feature of woodrushes that you don’t see in grasses, sedges or rushes.
Bluebell
As I walk through a drift of bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, at the top end of the valley I get a waft of hyacinth scent, but nowhere near as pungent as the wild garlic.
Wood Speedwell
Wood speedwell, Veronica montana, straggles over a mossy log by a woodland track. It’s a plant of moist, neutral soils, often found in ancient woodland.
Staghorn Sumac
Next door’s staghorn sumac might be falling to pieces as it sheds its reddening compound leaves but the birds appreciate it. A party of blue tits and great tits forage every niche on its bark and branches, while a small warbler, tagging along with them, checks out the lower branches. Starlings fly in to eat the small berries, botanically drupes.
In local parkland, this wasps’ nest at the foot of an oak has been raided, presumably by a badger. You can see the remaining wasps clustered on the remnants of the nest.
We’re used to seeing the grey squirrels burying acorns and collecting sweet chestnuts but this autumn they’re showing a lot of interest in conkers. Just after I’d photographed this nibbled shell, a squirrel bounded across the path with a large conker in its mouth and headed into the cover of a holly.
Dawn by Calor-gas-light
Monday 30/Tuesday 31 July, 1973, RSPB Loch Garten: Monday was a good night for night watch. The Moon went down behind Craigowrie, Jupiter shone over Torr Hill and Mars came up red behind the eyrie. When it became really dark at midnight there were about 5 times as many stars out as I’d see on a good night at home . . . the Milky Way a streak above the eyrie running right through the W of Cassiopeia. The Pleiades, thousand of them, blue in binoculars came up left of tree.
The dramatic dawn, blinding bright when the sun got up behind the eyrie and shone directly into the hide.
Torr Hill
Thursday 9th August 1973, from my Osprey Camp, Loch Garten, sketchbook: What a wind; swaying the forest pines, bending over the birches on the moor, breaking up the bank of cloud coming up the valley. There was white water on the gullery and grey breakers on Garten when I got round. I walked on shore getting sprayed.
‘They’ll moulder away and be like other loam.’ said Edwin Muir in his poem ‘The Horses’. This lorry was mouldering away on Torr Hill.
The ‘Bloodsucker’
More insects from Dalby Forest, including the soldier beetle, Rhagonycha fulva, also known as ‘the bloodsucker’ because of its colour. It’s harmless, but we aren’t far from Whitby, where Dracula came ashore, so who knows?
Batman Hoverfly on Hogweed
Batman Hoverfly, Myathropa florea, on hogweed in a clearing below Staindale Lake, Dalby Forest, North Yorks Moors. It is supposed to have a Batman logo-shaped marked on the rear of the thorax, but individuals can be variable.
The larvae of this hoverfly are ‘rat-tailed maggots’ living in wet hollows in woodland, although they’ll make use of buckets and plastic containers.
The Wood Wide Web
Happy birthday to Ben. And I’m glad to report that Superfast Fibre is scheduled to be rolled out to our neck of the woods in June.
Deeper in the Wood
Deep amongst the rhododendrons.
High Batts
Sawfly, bee-fly and hoverfly, dame’s violet, orchid, crosswort, briar rose and goutweed, orange rust and King Alfred’s Cakes fungus, on a Wakefield Naturalists’ Society field meeting at High Batts nature reserve this morning.
High Batts isn’t far from Lightwater Valley, north of Ripon. Visiting this reserve adjacent to a working quarry is normally by arrangement only but next month they’re holding an open day.