Heather

We walked over the moorland north of Blanchland on the Durham/Northumberland border today, when the blooming of the heather was at its peak. A sea of purple, with golden patches of wavy hair grass and bright green Polytrichum and Sphagnum mosses in the spaces in between.

Fox moth caterpillar

This fox moth caterpillar Macrothylacia rubi crossed our path when we were out walking on Birkside Fell near Blanchland in Northumberland this morning. It will have been feeding on heather.

It's quite late in the year to see one of these in such an active state but the unusually warm weather might have coaxed it out. It's pobably searching for a sheltered spot to spend the winter, before emerging for a brief bask in spring sunshine and then pupating.

There are pictures of the adult moth here.

Heather as far as the eye can see

A few pictures of the heather moorland above Blanchland in Northumberland looking fabulous this morning. Surprised to see peacock butterflies nectaring out on the heather.

Painted lady

This was the first painted lady butterfly that I've seen here in the North East this year. I saw one last year but didn't manage to get a photo - this one was more obliging.

It was nectaring mainly on knapweed and thistles, on the hill to the north of Blanchland in Northumberland.

It's a long time now since we've had a full-scale painted lady invasion here. I think the last one was in 2009, when they arrived in late spring and produced a second generation, so that by early September there were hundreds of them - so many that it was reported in the national press.

Bumblebees and the foxglove challenge

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary is about this delightful little lane that leads down from Bulbeck Common to Blanchland. In particular, it's about the roadside verges that are full of wild flowers and were humming with bumblebees.

The sunken lane with high hedges traps the fragrance of wild roses growing on the verges

The tall spires of foxgloves are amongst the most conspicuous wild flowers along the lane and they're particularly attractive to large bumblebees. Visiting the downward-pointing foxglove bells isn't easy for these large insects when they approach in level flight.

First they need to grab the lip of the flower ....

... and then they face an uphill struggle as tyhe climb into the bell, which is slippery. You can often hear the bee buzzing its wings as it struggles in, with the sound amplified by the megaphone-shape of the bell. There must be a lot of wear-and-tear on visiting bees' wings.

The way partially barred by hairs on the petal surface. During the bee's struggle the stigma of the flower - which you can see here at the top of the bell - collects pollen from the visiting bee's back. 

There's not much room inside the tapering bell.

Getting out of the flower isn't easy, either. There's no room to turn around inside so they have to reverse out until they reach the entrance, picking up a smear of pollen on the fur on their back as they near the entrance.

In this picture of a back-lit foxglove flower in a garden you can see the shadows of the two pairs of stamens inside the roof of the bell, where they inevitably make contact with a visiting bee.

Once they reach the entrance most bees seem to exit by just letting go. Notice how the right-hand wing of this individual has been damaged, probably during numerous visits to the confines of the tubular flower in search of nectar.

When bees finally leave most seem to free-falls out into the air-stream before flying off to the next flower.

Lichens

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary explores the wonderful world of lichens that are the brightest objects on moorland in winter. Lichens like .....

...... this delightful Cladonia diversa (?), tipped with what looks like scarlet sealing wax. Those red tips are the apothecia, where microscopic flask-shaped asci shoot their fungal spores out into the breeze. To form another lichen they need to land close enough to the correct alga for the two to form a symbiotic union and develop into a lichen.

This is the moorland described in the Country Diary - a high, windswept path over Birkside Fell above Blanchland, in the Derwent valley on the Durham-Northumberland border. The high rainfall means that nutrients are rapidly leached out of the sandy soil. The area to the right is grouse moor, which from a distance seems like is a sea of dull brown vegetation, until .....

.... you look at what is going on at grouse-eye level, under the canopy of gorse bushes. There, at this time of year, the lichens are at their best and the mosses are actively growing too.

There's a wide range of lichen form and colour. I think this is Cladonia macilenta (?)

..... this looks like Peltigera lactucifolia (?)

.... and this, looking like a forest of tiny golf tees, is Cladonia pyxidata (?)

N.B. the (?) after the specific names mean that these are tentative IDs - I need to check them more carefully to be certain!

The Industrial Revolution in Reverse - Steam gives way to Water Power

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary describes an unusual piece of industrial archaeology in a remote Northumbrian valley.

This is the sight that greets you when you follow the track down from the delightfully-named Pennypie cottage towards Blanchland, at the mining hamlet of Shildon (not to be confused with the town of Shildon in County Durham) which is a mile north of Blanchland. All that's left of this community, that in its heyday numbered over 150 people, is a couple of cottages and this old engine house, together with some mine shafts in the hillside.

The engine house was built in 1806 by mine owner John Skottowe, to house a Boulton and Watt steam engine that was built to pump water from the underground lead mine shafts and tunnels. Waterwheel-driven pumps were no longer up to the job so he imported the latest technology from the tin mines of Cornwall.  A contemporary account describes how 'a steam-engine of great power was erected, the cyclinedr being of 64 inches in diameter, and the main beam weighing upwards of nine tons'.

It should have solved Skottows' problems especially as he owned coal mines across the border in County Durham, but the steam engine turned out to be uneconomic and he reverted to waterwheel driven pumps, dismantling the steam engine and transporting it to Backworth colliery. There was no rail access to Blanchland when the mine engine was installed and even when a rail link did arrived (in 1834) the line ended at Parkhead, five miles away.

The likely reason why steam-driven pumping was abandoned is that this little valley is so remote Even today the roads quickly become treacherous after a snow fall and two centuries ago, when they were less well maintained and horses and carts were used, they must often have been impassible in winter. 

After the steam engine was removed the building was converted to miners' accommodation, with the addition of three floors inside, and it became known locally as 'Shildon Castle'. The mine went into decline, unable to compete with imported lead, and many of the miners emigrated - you can read fascinating accounts of some of them by clicking here

This is the slit in the wall where the beam of the steam engine would have rocked up and down. At the top of the slit you can see the fireplaces that were installed when the building was converted to workers' flats.

You can see more photographs of the site, before its recent restoration, by clicking here

There was a vigorous exchange of mine workers and mining technologies between Cornwall and Northumberland in the early 19th. century, which you can read about by clicking here

You can download a useful pdf guide to the geology and landscape around Blanchland by clicking here

You can download a detailed report on Blanchland and its surround area by clicking here

Now that's what a call a field of buttercups.....

Currently several of the fields around Blanchland in Northumberland have some of the densest displays of buttercups that I've ever seen. Double-click the image for a better view.....

Signs of the changing season ..

A female common green grasshopper Omocestrus viridulus, looking for somewhere to lay her eggs .....

..... dry grasses highlighted by the afternoon sunshine ...

.... and a swallow skimming over the pastures and catching insects, building up energy reserves for the long flight south.


A pictures taken at Blanchland in Northumberland this afternoon.