Another Walk up Hen Cloud

Tags

butterfly, caterpillar, eyebright, harebells, heather, Hen Cloud, painted lady, Peak District, Staffordshire Moorland, walking, wild flowers, yarrow

We didn’t have much time for walking on our last full day in the Peak District as we had packing, tidying and cleaning to do as well as taking our awning down.  The ideal walk had to be a short walk and one that was near at hand so we returned to Hen Cloud.  It is just a few minutes drive from where we stay and once there, within quarter of an hour we can be away from the road and up high, looking down.  We try to do this walk every time we visit the Peaks and when we stay there at the end of May/beginning of June we use it as an evening walk.  It is great to be at the top of the hill at 9.00 pm with the sun still shining and the swallows and martins flying round us.  Peregrines nest in the rock crevices of the hill and their calls mingling with the sound of the wind blowing across the tops fills me with such joy.

This time the walk was done during the afternoon in the second half of August so no nesting peregrines and not too many swallows and martins either.

This is the view from the place where we parked our car.

This last day of our holiday was warm at last and quite bright too.  Before setting off on our walk I noticed these flowers by the side of the road.

Some very pink Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis agg.)

Hen Cloud

The path we choose to walk up isn’t the steepest of the paths to the top, in fact it is a nice steady ascent – just right for two middle-aged, not very fit people.

The Roaches seen from the path up Hen Cloud

Ramshaw Rocks seen from the path up Hen Cloud

We had never been to the Peaks when the Heather (Calluna vulgaris) was in bloom before.  The pink-purple flowers with the bright green grass was very beautiful.

This is the path we usually take to the top. You can see Richard is quite a way ahead of me.

Ramshaw Rocks seen from the top of Hen Cloud.

Tittesworth Reservoir

View from Hen Cloud.

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Heather

Heather

We saw this rather battered and faded Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui)

I saw this caterpillar making its way across a rock. I can’t identify it.

All too soon, it was time for us to return to the car.

We saw these Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) on the way.

Our last view of Hen Cloud from the road.

The following day we got up very early and drove to Sheffield to collect Elinor from Alice’s house.  We only stayed for a couple of minutes and were then on the road back to our camp-site to hitch-up the caravan and then set out for home.

Thanks for visiting!

 

July (mainly) in Suffolk

Tags

birds, butterflies, caterpillar, danselfly, dragonflies, flies, garden, garden flowers, green woodpecker, herbs, hoverflies, insects, moths, Suffolk, wild flowers

This post is made up of photos of things I’ve seen in my garden during the last month.  The first few shots were taken during the last two days in June (I did say ‘mainly’!), when the weather suddenly got much warmer and the sun appeared.  Summer arrived and we all felt much better!

Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) on a scabious flower

Dog Rose flowers (Rosa canina) next to the big pond

Male Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

Four-spotted Chaser dragonfly (Libellula quadrimaculata)

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on big pond

Female Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) laying eggs on the big pond

We have Ground Elder in our garden.  I wish we didn’t but there is little chance of us ever getting rid of it here so we will have to try to weaken it and stop it from spreading further.  It is in the ditch between us and the school house next door and also in the ditches at the front of the house and under the hedge.  It is trying to spread into the lawn at the front but we strim and mow as much as possible and try to stop it from flowering.  We often fail in this.

Ground Elder flower! As you see it is a pretty umbellifer with slightly pink buds.

I eradicated it from a former garden by digging it out over a period of a few years.  It was in a flower bed so therefore easier to deal with.

Common Backswimmers (Notonecta glauca) in the front pond. This pond completely dried up while we were away on holiday but is starting to fill again because of the torrents of rain we’ve had during the past week or two.

Insects on Lavender ‘Hidcote’. There haven’t been as many insects this year as last, but the lavender attracted quite few while it flowered. It is a fabulous insect magnet!

Lavender growing at the front of our house

My herb garden

Bronze Fennel flower bud. When we returned form our week away all the leaves on the fennel had died and the flowers were drooping. I watered the herbs and then the rains and cool weather returned; the fennel is still alive (it has an enormous tap root) but no leaves at all for now. The flowers are fine and are being enjoyed by wasps and hoverflies.  A neighbour came in to water the plants in the greenhouse while we were away (tomatoes mainly) but we couldn’t expect him to water all our plants – that would be asking much too much!

A pretty Tumbelina Petunia in the window box.  It has a lovely gentle scent.

A very bright pink Verbena in the window box with the petunia. The hoverflies love it very much. I wish it was scented.

Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus (I think!) on verbena

A hoverfly on the Fuschia that is also in the window box. This photo was taken after we had begun to have rain at last after a long dry spell.

A beautiful, tiny green spider on the fuschia. I think this is a Green Orb-weaver (Araniella curcurbitina).

A Six-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae) on lavender

One of my unscented Asian lilies.

Sisyrinchium striatum. These put on a good show this year. Many years ago I had these growing in my garden and loved them as they seemed to go with all the flowers in the border. We moved to Somerset for 18 months and then moved here in 2006. Three years ago I found a seedling sisyrinchium in the garden which appeared from nowhere.  I potted it up and grew it on; it flowered the following year and I let it go to seed. I sprinkled the seed on my border and last year I found lots of plants growing which flowered beautifully this year. Free flowers!

A pretty Viola. These seed themselves all over the garden.

I have two Rosa Mundi bushes ( a gift from Richard) and they both flowered well this year. It is sad that they have such a short flowering period but it is worth having them for their pretty, painted petals.

Perennial Sweet Pea

Scabious flower

A pretty rose from Richard’s border

In a former post I posted a photo of a mullein flower infested with Mullein moth caterpillars.  Here is another photo taken a week or so later when the grubs were much bigger.

Mullein Moth caterpillar (Shargacucullia verbasci) on what was left of a Mullein flower spike

A Meadow Brown butterfly (Maniola jurtina). Wonderful camouflage!

A fly on the Amelanchier tree. I cannot identify this one properly though it looks a little like Empis digramma, a fly which hunts other flies in long grass and other lush vegetation and spears them with its proboscis.

I took this photo of the Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) and its 2 fledglings this evening. The adult was trying to teach its young how to find ant’s eggs.

This last photo wasn’t taken in my garden but in the grounds of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where I had to go for a check-up on the day before we went on holiday.  I didn’t know what else to do with it!

Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum)

Thank’s for visiting!