A walk around St. John's Chapel, Weardale

These pictures were taken at the end of June, during a walk from St.John's Chapel in Weardale onto the slopes of Chapel Fell, then down into Daddry Shield and back along the river Wear to St.John's Chapel. It's a great circular walk, with splendid views, and when you get to the highest point the only sounds come from wind, water and birds.

Down in the valley, at Harthope Burn, hawthorn was still in peak blossom - incredibly late this year.

The path up onto the fell is along a wide, stony track fringed with drifts of wood cranesbill, lady's mantle and cow parsley - a natural perennial herbaceous border. Garden designers at the Chelsea Flower Show spend a fortune trying to replicate this.

In the foreground, wood cranesbill; in the background fields full of buttercups which have produced a memorable spectacle this year. Poor grass growth in the late spring prevented farmers taking an early crop, so the buttercups and cow parsley in the meadows have benefited from a stay of execution.

When we reached the highest point on the walk we were briefly surrounded by a flock of swifts that treated us to a display of aerobatics. 

The last deciduous tree on the path up - a rowan, in full bloom. Legend has it that these were planted around farm houses to ward off witches.

Meadow pipits are one of the commonest birds in the high pastures

The last flowery meadow - above this elevation the pastures are rough grass and rushes.

The views into upper Weardale from here are stunning.

The lapwings had chicks so were keen to deflect our attention.

Back down in the valley, at Daddry Shiield, burnet rose was in full bloom. This is the first wild rose species to flower here in summer and by far the most fragrant.

A haymeadow, along the footpath beside the river Wear between Daddry Shield and St. John's Chapel.

Hay rattle is the characteristic wild flower in these old meadows.

Marsh orchids, flowering on the river bank.

A young rabbit, wondering whether to stay put or bolt for cover.

Snow-in-summer Cerastium tomentosum, tumbling over stone walls in St. John's Chapel.

A perfect summer day.

Teesdale in early June.........

In early June the meadows in the middle part of the dale, around Middleton-in-Teesdale, are full of buttercups, while...

... the hawthorn blossom beside the riverbank footpaths is just past its peak.

In the middle of the river this fledgling dipper has been parked on a stone by its parents that are away collecting food, though it looks like it could feed itself.

This young rabbit was using a coltsfoot leaf for cover but ....

... it would have done better to run for the dense stand of butterbur leaves that could hide a hundred rabbits.

Upstream of Middleton-in-Teesdale, on the way to Bowlees, there are globe flowers blooming on the riverbank, alongside the white umbels of pignut.

You can hear a spotted flycatcher's beak snap shut when it catches a fly ..... and there are plenty of those around, including .....

... dungflies that are plentiful wherever there is livestock grazing in the fields and ....

..... empid flies that use nectaries of wood crane'sbill flowers are fuel stations.

The wet weather hasn't been kind to bees and this little solitary bees resting on an oak leaf looked bedraggled. Can anyone help with an ID? 

Hay rattle is coming into bloom in the hay meadows .....

..... and mountain pansy Viola lutea is flowering well. The epithet lutea means yellow but pure yellow pansies are in the minority - most have variable amounts of purple in their petals and this has a hint of it in the petal tips.

Vegetable Vampires 3: Hay rattle

Hay rattle Rhinanthus minor is the quintessential hay meadow wild flower that’s not only decorative but also popular with the bumblebees. It isn’t easy for an annual plant like this to compete with all the other plant species in a meadow but like other hemiparasitic flowering plants its solution to the problem is to dispense with an extensive root system of its own and, instead, plug itself directly into the roots of the surrounding grasses. This has a double benefit, providing it with water and mineral nutrients and suppressing the grown of tall host grasses around it.

In recent years conservation biologists have exploited hay rattle’s grass-suppressing properties in attempts to improve species diversity of degraded grasslands. It’s an easy plant to introduce if you want to turn your garden lawn into a miniature ‘hay meadow’, provided that you make sure that you rake the hay rattle seeds into the soil around the base of the grasses in autumn. It needs prolonged winter chill to break the dormancy of the seeds that tend to germinate in early April. Once the plant has flowered and set seed once it often tends to form a self-sustaining population.

Hay rattle seed capsules are enclosed with leaf bracts and the whole assemblage becomes dry and brittle has the seeds ripen, so the plant rattles in the wind. It’s said that the traditional time to cut a hay meadow was when the yellow rattle begins to rattle.