Gait Barrows

Seven of us thoroughly enjoyed a varied walk in lovely warm weather. We started off walking through part of the National Nature Reserve, marvelling at the unusual landscape of limestone pavements, bordered by ancient woodlands draped in lichens and mosses. Many wildflowers were seen, some tiny ones colonising the limestone such as thyme and stonecrop, in contrast giant mullein jutted up skywards from the crevices (grykes). Butterflies abounded, with ringlets in particular in good numbers. We left the boundary of the reserve and crossed over meadows covered in orchids. The one thing we hadn’t seen much of was birds – we heard blackcap and chiffchaff in the woods but couldn’t see them. However as we crossed a field we noticed two woodpecker silhouettes clinging either side of a telegraph pole. On closer inspection they were revealed to be green woodpecker – they flew off into an adjacent tree, and despite hearing them and scouring the tree we couldn’t see them again amongst the dense foliage. We carried on and had lunch in Trowbarrow watching the many rock climbers scaling the walls of the quarry. After lunch we carried on towards Challen Hall and Haweswater, enjoying the scenery and sunshine. We then walked up alongside Silverdale Moss with excellent views of the Lakeland fells and through Back Wood before returning to the cars via Coldwell Parrock local reserve.

​Species: Swallow, green woodpecker
Butterflies: Ringlet, speckled wood, small white, meadow brown, red admiral, tortoiseshell