Tag: Greenfield Valley

Greenfield Valley

9 a.m.: The mist has cleared and we can see the conifer plantations of the Greenfield Valley again.

Fieldfares and starlings
Fieldfares and starlings

Two fieldfares settle on the rushy pasture in front of the farm. With their grey rump, greyish head and slithers of white on the front of their folded wings they’re more strikingly smart than the resident mistle thrush and the female blackbird which are also about this morning.

When one of them perches on the power line and starts preening, we see the dark band at the end of its tail and two tear-shaped streaks of chestnut on its breast.

Post Pecker

great-spotted woodpeckerA male great spotted woodpecker probes every crevice on the stout timber corner post of a wire fence. Having checked all around it, it perches on top then flies to the adjacent fence post. The slimmer post evidently doesn’t offer the same possibilities so it flies off, with bouncing flight, to the power line post and continues probing.

Two dippers are working their way down the beck towards Oughtershaw this morning; one wades in then completely submerges.

heronOn an afternoon walk to the Greenfield Valley we see a heron flying up Langstrothdale along Oughtershaw Beck, four pipits (no doubt meadow pipits) and a kestrel.

Zaphrentis

ZephrentisPausing to take a closer look at some crushed limestone on a forestry track, I find this complete fossil of a funnel-shaped coral amongst the more common macaroni-like lithostrotion corals and the stout toadstool cap-shaped shells of brachiopods (which I’m assuming are Productus).

The funnel-shaped coral is Zaphrentis phrygia, (not Zephrentis, as I’d previously misspelled it on this page) given its species name because of its resemblance to the Phrygian cap, a tall, pointed felt cap which was worn with the point tilting forwards.

Harebell, yarrow and herb robert, Oughtershaw.
Harebell, yarrow and herb robert, Oughtershaw.

Harebell, yarrow and herb robert are still in flower on the banking below the drystone wall on the road immediately to the south of Oughtershaw.

Greenfield Valley

low cloud

Bird's-eye primrose
Bird’s-eye primrose

The sun struggles to get through the low cloud over Langstrothdale and it never breaks through at all in the next dale, the Greenfield Valley.

We see pied and grey wagtails at Oughtershaw Beck then head up the slope towards Pewet Moss where bird’s-eye primrose, lousewort and butterwort grow in the boggier patches.

The plantations on the far side of the hill, on the slope down into the Greenfield Valley, have been clear-felled so what used to be a shady ride between conifers is now a track across an open slope.

We sit on a couple of sawn off stumps to take a break for a flask of coffee and look out over a slope that has already been planted out with conifer saplings. Each sapling is planted on a scooped up mound which prevents its roots becoming waterlogged.

langstrothdale

water avensThere are chaffinch and blackbirds about, birds that will probably find the open habitat more to their liking than the dense stands of conifers that stood here a year ago. Jackdaws call over pastures in the valley.

Water avens (right) grows alongside one of the gills draining into the Green Field Beck.

 

Lithostrotion

lithostrotionlithostrotionThe track has been repaired with crushed limestone. A few of the fragments are full of fossils, including the rugose coral Lithostrotion (above & left).

Another fragment (below) contains the valve of a brachiopod shell and a cross section of another type of coral, divided by septa which radiate from a central point.

fossilsLimestone Pavement

Greenfield valleyWe take another short break by the limestone pavement in the Greenfield Valley where I sketch Beckermonds Farm.

Common spotted orchids are in flower amongst the grasses near the exposures of limestone.

On our walk back via Oughtershaw village we see spotted flycatcher. The narrow roadside verges in front of the drystone walls are full of red campion, Herb Robert, water avens and dogs mercury.