A Walk Between Greenholme and High Borrow Bridge

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 A couple of days ago I ventured 10 miles or so outside my patch and did a walk in the rather forgotten bit of hillside between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District national parks. We had a gloriously sunny day and it was great to see an area that I knew little about before with wildlife to see and even a short section on a Roman road.



Several buzzard. Lots of meadow pipit and skylark. Curlew calling. A whole flock of house martins at High Borrow Bridge. A distant glimpse of what might have been a Red Kite ( and a fellow walker who lives at Ravenstonedale showed me a photo of a kite taken from his house recently which is only 5 or 6 miles from my house so perhaps one day soon we will see them here).

I am showing an image of a silver birch tree with what look like birds nests in the branches, but these are actually called "witches broom" and are produced by the tree itself as a result of a fungal infection.


I also spotted a small clump of Opposite Leaf Golden Saxifrage which is a plant I haven't spotted in the area before. There were also clumps of coltsfoot in flower on Shap summit and many primrose along the becks lower in the valleys.


And an insect that I think is Staphylinus - a type of rove beetle, that was spotted by a sharp eyed companion.


Diary

I haven't checked my camera traps for over 48 hours. Lots of rabbits. Mallard on the pond (in the middle of the night) more deer and a rare glimpse of a fox. (I am quite sure that the foxes can detect the camera and avoid it).


We see them so regularly that I forget to mention our red squirrels. We have them several times a day at the moment and often see two at the same time. We are hoping they are a breeding pair.








Comments

  1. richard17 April 2021 at 09:42

    Very interesting as a walking companion for the second half of the walk it is nice to find out about the things that that my sharp eyes missed!!

    ReplyDelete

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