Bridestones Moor

Big skies and white clouds over Bridestones Moor,
a unique area of heather moor.
Unique in that it has not been intensively
managed for the red grouse.
Neither burnt nor grazed by voracious sheep.
Mature ling dominates but in wetter
patches, cross-leaved heath heather and,
hare’s-tail and common cottongrasses thrive.
On drier parts, bilberry, cowberry
and crowberry flourish with the ling
and below are various mosses and lichens.
Birch and rowan trees slowly colonise.