Category: Bridestones
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High Bride Stones
Out and about in the sun all-day catching butterflies and moths for a survey at the National Trust’s Dovedale and Bridestones property. Finds of the day were a Marbled White and a Dark green fritillary but both were not very co-operative for photography. This is the first time both species have been recorded on this…
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Shed skin of an adder
On Bridestones Moor near Dalby Forest. Find of the day a sloughed or shed skin of an adder, a process which snakes regularly need to do. Such a find would have once been of some value as it was believed that it had healing powers. Cast off snake skins were once used by labourers as…
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Bridestones Moor
Spent the day on Bridestones Moor, just north of Dalby Forest. It’s so easy to forget that it’s still only February. A glorious day. Buzzards soaring high, ladybirds active and sap rising from the newly cut trees. Tree felling and scrub clearance are now almost finished for yet another winter. Time to give the wildlife…
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Bridestone Griff
A slight covering of snow completely transforms the otherwise drab winter colours of Bridestones Moor. The is the upper reaches of Bridestone Griff. A griff is a North Yorkshire term for a deep, narrow valley, said to have formed by glacial melt-water, and sure enough, lower down, the glen does become steep but here, high…
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Low Bride Stones
You might believe these squat sandstone stacks were laid down in seas long ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Their curious shapes the result of the wind and the rain. But A.J.Brown* suggests it was Wade who placed them during a game of duckstones. Now, this is not so unfeasible, for Wade was a giant…
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Prehistoric linear boundary, Bridestones Moor
A small section of the 930m long prehistoric earthwork forming the boundary between Bridestones Moor and Dalby Forest. The archaeologists are concerned that encroachment of the forest is causing damage to the ditch and earth banks. So the winter job of clearing the trees is now in its third year, and the end is in…
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Deck the hall with boughs of holly ….
On shrub clearance on Bridestones Moor and a large holly tree is amongst the casualties. Oh dear, it’s considered bad luck to fell a holly tree. But I didn’t actually fell it. The cutting of boughs to deck the halls is acceptable as is pollarding for use as winter fodder. Very nutritional apparently. Which leads…
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Sunshine on Grime Moor
Volunteering with the National Trust on Bridestones Moor. On a wet, windy day with poor visbility a moor can feel so inhospitable. But then quite suddenly the front passes, blue skies emerge, and the sun shines on Grime Moor. It’s back to being magical. Grime Moor is the pasture in the distance; ‘Grime’ is derived…
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Bridestones Moor
The National Trust’s rare area of heather moorland just north of Dalby Forest. Rare because it is not intensively managed unlike most of the rest of heather moorlands on the North York Moors which are managed for one purpose only, that is to maximise the breeding of grouse for shooting, in spite of having the…
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As mad as an atter
In Dovedale Griff near Dalby Forest volunteering with the National Trust when this little beauty was discovered in one of their reptile habitats. Now I have it somewhere in the back of my mind that “an Adder” was originally “a Nadder”. No idea where this came from, I could well have dreamt it. But Google…