Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Tag: Ling

  • On Faceby Bank

    On Faceby Bank

    There’s only a week or two of the purple haze so I have to make the most of the heather, providing some colour on a wet morning when the horizon is lost to the mist. The view is down to Swainby with wooded Whorl Hill on the right. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • The Wainstones

    The Wainstones

    Making the most of a break in the lightning and storms, a quick trip up to the Wainstones. Still very humid though. Nice to see the ling beginning to bloom. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Hutton Moor

    Hutton Moor

    This stand of larch has always intrigued me. It first appearsĀ on the 1952 edition of the Ordnance Survey map, is circular and isolated on the heather moor. It can not be self-seeded. Who planted it? And why?

  • CCTV operating

    CCTV operating

    The Inglorious 12th minus one, to borrow from the title of Mark Avery’s book. Tomorrow will mark the beginning of the annual slaughter on the moors. On Farndale Moor signs have gone up advising of CCTV monitoring. No matter I don’t own a horseĀ and have no intention of biking along the track, I find these…

  • Sleddale

    Sleddale

    For a brief few weeks the moors are a sea of purple heather which is now at its best. Seen from Highcliff Gate, Sleddale Farm appears an island of lush green pasture. The name means a wide flat valley and was probably a meadow of summer pasture before being given to the priory to be…

  • Great Ayton Moor

    Great Ayton Moor

    There’s an old adageĀ that is saidĀ in all farming communities, from Scotland, to Wales and to Cumbria: Where thereā€™s bracken thereā€™s gold; where thereā€™s gorse thereā€™s silver; where thereā€™s heather thereā€™s poverty At first it’s hard to see the reasoning. Bracken is allelopathic, it produces toxins in the soil which prevents other plants from germinating. Hardly…

  • Westerdale

    Westerdale

    Better known as the name of the village, on the ridge on the right of the photo, but this upper part of the River Esk is mapped as Westerdale. The ling or heather is in full bloom. From John Breckon Road.

  • Derwentwater

    Derwentwater

    A classic Lakeland view. Derwentwater from Walla Crag. Keswick on the right, Lake Bassenthwaite in the distance. And in the foreground, following on from last weeks’s posting,Ā Ling isĀ in flower alongside the darker Bell Heather.

  • Heather Burning

    Heather Burning

    In all directions plumes of smoke can be seen on the moors on a good day at this time of the year. The gamekeepers are burning the heather. Grouse feed onĀ heather. YoungĀ shoots provide the bestĀ nutritional valueĀ but grouse require tallerĀ heather for nesting and cover. To provide a managed supply of young heather patches of heather are…