Weekend in Arnside

We spent a wonderful weekend with friends from the local Natural History Society at Arnside.  We visited Gait Barrows national Nature Reserve and Arnside Knott.  The picture above is of the limestone pavement at Gait Barrows.  As it erodes away the hollows (grykes) become filled with debris and plants begin to colonise.  Some of these are like bonsai.  The little trees become quite gnarled and their roots are restricted.  There are often ferns down the grykes too, in the damp shelter.

The sun came out for a while as we wandered on Arnside Knott (National Trust) and the fritillaries started to fly.  The one above was identified as a Dark Green Fritillary (yes, I know; it's to do with the underwing!) and they were fast fliers too.  Lucky to get a picture at all.

This little gem is a Northern Brown Argus.  You can tell it's the Northern one by the two dots in the centre of the upper wings.  This is a small butterfly but none the less special for that.

 At Gait Barrows we hoped to see the Lady's Slipper Orchid, a reintroduction.  Unfortunately. as you can see, it had gone over.  Just crisp little flowers remaining.  Oh to have been there 3 weeks ago!

 Another little gem that I love is Squinancywort. Actually, I love it just for the poetry of the name.  It's tiny, the flowers being about the size of thyme flowers.  The name is a variant of Quinzy wort meaning a herb effective for sore throats.

 Can't resist an orchid.  Just common spotted here but we saw Northern Marsh too.  They were fairly common and dotted about the grassland like jewels in a crown.  Gorgeous.

I love the woods.  They have a dark mystery to them and an earthy smell.  This fallen tree had been colonised by these fungi which were the size of dinner plates.  I think they are the ones known as Dryads' Saddles. Bit of a stampede going on there then!
Although the weather forecast had been distinctly off-putting we had a brilliant couple of days and good company beats poor weather any day.