Tag Archives: Cladonia

Environment, Love of Nature, Natural History, Walks

Barden Moor, Yorkshire Dales

Lower Barden Reservoir, constructed in the 1880s by Bradford Corporation Water Works

Barden Moor is an extensive water catchment area, on acidic rock (Millstone Grit), providing soft drinking water to the city of Bradford. The area is part of the ancient Bolton Abbey estate, and is now also in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It’s covered in heather and moorgrass with areas of meadow and bog pools. It’s a fine place for an open airy walk away from the sometimes busy mountaintops, and a wonderful spot for nature.

Apricot Club, Clavulinopsis luteoalba. The fungi are yellow all over, but some look white in the bright light. The clubs are quite broad, unlike the slim spindles of C. fusiformis.
The grooved Earthtongue, Geoglossum cookeanum
Persistent Waxcap, Hygrocybe persistens
Blackening Waxcap, Hygrocybe conica
Like much of Britain’s uplands, the land is managed by muirburn, controlled burning of the moorland, to encourage new growth of heather, mainly Ling, which is the principal food of Red Grouse, and is also nibbled by the hardy upland sheep, which of course prefer open areas with grass to tall woody bushes. The thin ash-grey subsoil (Podsol, Russian for ash-soil) can be seen on the trackside bank.
Podsol on top of Millstone Grit, the local rock. The soil is black and slightly peaty with plant material at the top, then quickly turns to a poor subsoil with sand and fragments of rock, and then not very far down, actual bedrock.
Rowan (Mountain Ash) in full fruit
Maidenhair Spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes, a beautiful small fern of rocks and walls
This seems to be a Dapperling; I’d have said it was Lepiota hystrix except that that’s a woodland species. Suggestions?
One of the Cladonia ground-living lichens of the ‘reindeer moss’ group.
This one might be C. portentosa, which likes acid moorland.
Dog Lichen, Peltigera canina, a lichen of sandy moorland.
A handsome crustose lichen on rock, cf. Ochrolechia.
Common Frog among the tiny cowberry bushes

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands

Spring Migrants at Thursley Common

Eriophorum angustifolium, Bog Cotton, a plant of wild, wet and rugged places

A bright, breezy, and much cooler day (16 C, not 29 any more) was just perfect for a visit to Thursley. Perhaps many of the dragonflies decided not to fly: I saw one Common Darter and (I think) one Brown Hawker, and nothing else, so anyone who went along hoping to see the Hobbies hawking for dragonflies by the dozen will have had a wasted trip (and indeed I saw several extravagantly camouflaged types with gigantic telescopes standing about looking very bored).

But everything else was in full swing. A Cuckoo called from the pinewoods. A Curlew gave its marvellously wild, bubbling call from the open marsh. A Dartford Warbler gave me the best view ever of its rufous belly and long tail, as it sat low in a scrubby Birch, giving its rasping anxiety call repeatedly. I enjoyed the view through binoculars. By the time I remembered to take a photo it was half-hidden again.

A scrappy photo of the Dartford Warbler

A Stonechat gave its scratchy call from a small Birch, then hopped up to some Pine trees (so, a distant shot).

Stonechat on Pine branch

A few Chiffchaffs called from the woods; plenty of Whitethroats sang from the regenerating Birches that are encroaching on to the heath. A Green Woodpecker gave its fine laughing call.

Birches regenerating on to heath below Pines

So I heard three warblers today to add to the four yesterday, so seven singing warblers in 24 hours, a little bit special.

The lichen flora on the heath was quite beautiful, with Usnea beard lichen, leafy Parmelia, bristly Ramalina (all on old Heather), and elegant Cladonia potscourer, cup, and stalk lichens (three species).

Miniature elegance: Cladonia cf fimbriata, cup lichen

A Linnet sang from the top of a Birch. Goldfinches twittered and flitted about.

Dove’s Food Cranesbill, Geranium molle, (?), on dry heath beside path

Musk Stork’s-bill, Erodium moschatum, (?) on dry heath beside path

And on the path out, a Hobby leapt from a tree right in front of me, where it had been sitting watching the bog pools,  waiting for dragonflies to come out and display themselves. It flew round and up, then circled, soaring, away to the south. Perhaps it was the one the twitchers had been waiting to see flying all morning.