Bel's Wood

I have finally made it back to Bel's Wood. My last visit ended with Kendal Mountain Rescue recovering me from a gorse bush up on the hill. I am now mobile with crutches and wanted to see the changes from 7 weeks ago. The wood sorrel is flowering and there were good clumps of violets growing from patches of dead bracken so hopefully the butterflies will be emerging. Pearl-bordered and High Brow Fritillary butterflies enjoy these conditions.  Bluebells were just pushing up their closed buds and a week later are flourishing With stitchwort in numbers greater than last year. I saw a male and a female orange tip butterflies both of which seemed to be new with very vibrant colours both moving too fast to photograph. Friends heard a cuckoo further up the plot. Being confined to one area I sat in the sun to appreciate what I could see. This silver birch swaying in the breeze was a good place to start Looking north, the blackthorn is coming into bloom     ...

Between 18th & 21st February 2022 the UK was hit by three storms. A high level of media coverage was given to Eunice & Dudley while Franklin had a greater impact locally.  This photo was taken just as Eunice was whipping up some real energy - not at my wood but a neighbouring valley (Longsleddale).  There is a useful blog from the Met Office (link below) which shows that Franklin gave a more sustained level of very high speed gusts than the other two storms, although the data was collected off the South Coast of the UK. Eunice showed faster gusts setting a new record for the UK of 122mph at The Needles but for a less sustained period than Franklin. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2022/2022_02_storms_dudley_eunice_franklin.pdf Storm damage was experienced at Bel’s Wood during Storm Arwen. That was highly unusual with the wind coming from the north. Some well established trees fell a...