Category: Environment

Summertime blues

On By uphilldowndaleIn 2023, Derbyshire, Environment, Farming, Field studies, Flora and Fauna, Garden, Home, Landscape, Meadows, Nature, Peak District National Park, Summer6 Comments

There comes a time in late summer, when the flower colours seem to tip over into cool soft blues, and mauves, leaving the hot vibrant colours of summer behind. In the garden it is the hydrangeas’ and Michaelmas daisies, in the verges it is the delicate harebells.

Hope Valley, from Mam Torr

In one corner of our field is it’s the devil’s-bit scabious, it’s always a relief when I see it flower, I’d hate to lose it.

We’ve just one plant, its buds are shaped like plump blackberries (please forgive the less than pin sharp images, its been a windy day, with just my phone camera to hand).

The bees love the pincushion flowers.

Devil’s-bit scabious gets its Latin name – ‘Scabere’, meaning to scratch – from its traditional use as a treatment for skin conditions, such as scabies and the sores of bubonic plague. Its common name arises from the fact that its roots look truncated, as if bitten off, legend has it, by the Devil.

The one plant, sitting at the edge of the field, under a young oak, looks kind of vulnerable, I’m on a mission to try and increase the number of plants.

In ‘Flora of Derbyshire’, by William Richard Linton, published in 1903 it describes the devils-bit (field) scabious as being ‘Plentiful along the old road.’ That very road is just 50m away from this specimen,and I’ve never seen any others nearby in the 30+ years we lived here, I feel duty bound to make amends, its the least I can do seeing as I can’t reintroduce the corncrake to our field!

I love the gold embossed cover of the book.

Now to order some more seed.

A wagtail’s tale

On By uphilldowndaleIn Buildings, Derbyshire, Environment, Farming, Food, Garden, Insects, Meadows, Nature, Photography, Thoughts, Trees6 Comments

We’ve had a lovely little family of pied wagtails nesting under the roof of the barn.

I’m not sure exactly home many chicks fledged, certainly at least one (and sadly one that didn’t make it). The parents certainly grafted, with the male endlessly on the move hunting for food.

The male was ringed, I’m not sure how common a thing that is, I got frustratingly close to working out the ring details, but not close enough.

I so enjoyed their industry and their chatter. I never managed to capture how the male would land on PV panels on the barn roof, give the dipping wag of its tail and slide elegantly down from the top to the bottom of the panel, it amused me for hours, I think he might have enjoyed it too.

When the chicks were hatched the female was hunting too. She got rich picking from the ants that were starting to fly, emerging from a hole in the wall under my office window.

This was just a couple of days before the true ‘flying ant day’ when a swarm emerged.

She just picked them off, there was no escape.

A flying feast.

The chick I did see, hung out in a willow tree, calling for yet more food, the parents both feeding and chasing off persistent predatory magpies.

Then it was quiet, the nest empty, and its residents off on the wing. I hope they will return next year, it’s the first time they nested with us. I like to think (hope) it is because of the changes we’ve made to how we mange both the field and the grass around the house and apple trees, we cut much less, and much later, and I think this is making a big improvement to the number of insect there are around.

Wherever the wind blows

On By uphilldowndaleIn Derbyshire, Environment, Flora and Fauna, Flowers, Garden, Nature6 Comments

These thistle seeds will be going too

Every seed is a wonder of design and engineering.

I love to see insects and birds feasting on the thistles, but when it get to this stage my inner gardener start to panic.

Not everyone wants or loves a thistle, and there can be too many, and in the wrong place, on pasture land and on land used for silage and hay; the law says so.

Who knew how many dilemmas there are in growing a more diverse garden that has a rich diversity of plants. We go for a gentle ‘curation’ so no one species is allowed to get too thuggish. This page looked to offer some sound advice.

Nine newts a swimming, seven bats a flying

On By uphilldowndaleIn 2023, Bats, Birds, Derbyshire, Environment, Field studies, Garden, Photography, Pond life, Spring, Waters Edge, Wildlife2 Comments

Why have I never taken a torch to look in the pond at night? So many newts, to photograph them may take a little more effort on my part, but I did manage, after a fashion  to capture my first sighting of bats for 2023 skimming over the pond.

There were some ripples, not sure if they were drinking on the wing, or catching insects.
20:30 hrs 8.7c April 7th

Other sightings
Goldcrest
Heron
Hares x 2

Looking for a little shade

On By uphilldowndaleIn Away Days, Camper Van, Derbyshire, Environment, Landscape, Light and shadow, Nature, Photography, Summer, Travel4 Comments

Most of the UK is experiencing a heatwave at the moment, I hope you’ve somewhere cool and comfortable to be. An old house with thick stone walls, small windows and perched on a hill, is a very fortunate place to be.

This is Chee Dale, a cool deep limestone dale in the White Pak area of the Peak district National Park.

A lovely walk

Stepping stones, to the left, tucked under the overhanging rock, keep your feet dry when water is more plentiful and look at those lovely limestone bedding planes to the right. We like a limestone landscape.

The path can be a bit of a scramble in parts, stout footwear is required, especially when wet, the limestone can be fiendishly slippery.

Communications Hub

On By uphilldowndaleIn Away Days, Boundaries, Camper Van, Derbyshire, Drystone walls, Environment, History, Landscape, Photography, Rivers, Stone, Travel, Villages, WordpressLeave a comment

We took the camper van out to stretch it’s legs, just a one nighter, not far, just a 30 minute drive into the White Peak, pretty much my old commute in days gone by. We’d made some repairs and alterations to the van since our last ‘big trip’ to Scotland in May, and we wanted to check things worked as intended, the leaky tap is no more, and the new fridge, has a TARDIS like capacity, it’s smaller than the old fridge and yet it can accommodate a four pint bottle of milk AND a bottle of wine in an upright position, no more fridge wrangling! Result.

And if that wasn’t enough van excitement, Mr Uphilldowndale used space gained by the smaller fridge to build a cutlery drawer. ‘Tis a thing of beauty, I’d share a video of me opening and closing it in sheer delight, if I’d fully mastered uploading videos on to this WordPress editor.

We visited the lovely village of Monyash had a delicious and leisurely brunch at The Old Smithy Cafe, a favourite coffee stop of Mr UHDD on his Sunday bike rides, we shared our table and travel tales with a motorbiking couple from the Midlands, before striking out to Chatsworth.

The village can attribute its existence, and its name, to water. Lying underneath the centre of the village is a narrow band of clay deposited during the Ice Age. This resulted in pools of standing water, a highly unusual feature in a limestone area. Over time meres (ponds) were fashioned into the clay by the villagers to provide a constant source of water. At one time the village had five meres and at least twenty wells providing the inhabitants and their livestock, as well as passing drovers, with a plentiful supply of water right up until recent times.

The centre of the village is always where the gossip is, here the now superseded phone box has been repurposed as a mini library, the post box still functions, but you won’t get as many collections these days. (At least this one hasn’t been stolen.) But it is still a place to stop for a chat.

Monyash Derbyshire

Through the stile into the small enclosure is a clue to how this spot must have been a meeting place for hundreds of years, with what we took to be a capped well

I rather liked the view back onto the village green, and much admired the worn stile, which would have kept the local livestock out of the village water source.

We take turning on the tap for fresh water so much for granted. Getting water, must have consumed so much time and energy, especially in this part of the Peak District, where the porous limestone gobbles up rivers and streams. I really shouldn’t complain about a leaky tap.

Moving meadows

On By uphilldowndaleIn Derbyshire, Environment, Meadows, Photography, Weather, Wildlife11 Comments

The field, continues it’s journey into summer, never has it provided more pleasure than this year, and it’s always been a delight, but being on our doorstep, it is a wonderful distraction from the woes of the world.

The weather we have had since lock-down has made it quiet magical. So many insects and butterflies  After the heavy rain of the last few days, when the clouds clear and the sun breaks through, the bugs and butterflies rise up with the warmth from the ground. It makes me smile.

This was yesterdays treat, a dark green fritillary  

The name comes, if you are wondering, from the colour underneath the wing.

Fritillary_

They like to feed on knapweed 

Knapweed is a plant we introduced to the field, about eight or nine years ago, having had work done to remedy a problem from theoutflow of the septic tank ( sorry you weren’t expecting that were you?) we took the opportunity to reseed the area with a native wildflower seed mix,  some of the species decided the field wasn’t for them, but the knapweed liked the neighbourhood and flourished

knapweed

The bees are delighted.

knapweed 3

Socially Distanced

On By uphilldowndaleIn Derbyshire, Environment, Insects, Photography, Travel4 Comments

Maybe we should take a leaf (pun intended) out of the sycamore aphids book of social distancing.  They seem to have it sussed.

sycamore aphids 3 However, an Internet search* led me to discover it’s not about them being apart,  on the contrary, it’s actually about them being able to touch one another (but at least the little bugs have a plan how to deal with a life threatening situation and are sticking to it!)

One of the most striking features of the sycamore aphid is the way in which the individuals space themselves evenly under the leaf. the spacing is such that they are just close enough together to touch each other with their long antennae, so if an individual in one part of the leaf is attacked the alarm spreads from aphid to aphid in a wave of antennae-waving across the whole leaf.

Sycamore aphid

Just about every leaf I could see was covered in the aphids,  there must be millions of them; which probably explains why the blue tits, that consume a fortunes worth of food through the winter ( the bird food  bill comes in at more than  the cat and dog food budget combined) are not very bothered about cleaning the aphids off the roses in the garden, you’d think it was the least they could do?

*It’s rather gratifying to find the information you were looking for, in a blog you already follow, Cabinet of Curiosities  by Phil Gates, in addition to reading the authors words in The Country Diary in the Guardian too. 

 

Welcome

On By uphilldowndaleIn Derbyshire, Environment, Flowers, Insects, Photography, Weather4 Comments

Sunshine and showers, heavy at times.

It’s been a relief to get some rain, after the exceptionally dry weather we’ve had since lock-down began.  Earlier in the year I’d high hopes for the foxgloves, the young plants were so abundant, they obviously loved the very wet early spring, its hard to please everyone. But after the dry spell they were starting to suffer, looking somewhat stunted and under par. 

But with a good dousing of rain they have risen to their full height and glory! 

It’s turned out to be a vintage year for foxgloves. 

Fox gloves bank_

Much to the delight of the insects. 

Fox gloves bee