Malham Tarn and Moor - 6 June - Flowers - Scargill House Group

Lisa Chadwick asked me to take the holiday group she was leading at Scargill House round Malham Tarn Fen. Knowing what an excellent time this is for flowers I was doubly pleased to agree.

(Wildlife Walks - Mon 4 to Fri 8 June - Hugh and Lisa Chadwick-Firman)

The group bought £18 of greeting cards towards the Rainforest Fund - Thanks.

Come and share the day with us:

First we have coffee in the car park

Lunch on the boardwalk

Lunch as seen from a Polytrichum commune hummock

Lunch, looking toward the peat pools which were dug  for
student pond-dipping exercises -
and to give dragonfly nymphs more place to grow - 

Charles Kinsley
In the background is the field with the stream next to the Field Centre road and beyond that the building used as the Estate School in the time of Walter Morrison (former owner of the Malham Tarn Estate), when there were many  families working on the estate. Charles Kingsley used to come and visit Walter Morrison, and (we say) used to take the children from the school and take them to the stream and tell them stories about the Water Babies.
"Charles Kingsley wrote some hymns" I say - "I must look them up". (No-one knew which one). "He wrote a good poem about the water going to the sea - pure and clean at the source, dank and foul as it went through the cities, then it became purified and free in the sea.... though I wonder if the pollution was just spread out.. or made the sea more polluted..  Must look up the hymn."

I did so in the evening and found an excellent green sermon by him and lot on his history - this is now in a separate post.

Photographing sundew and cranberry

We had a rest and at Malham Tarn House and then continued

Walking towards Ha Mire

Examining flowers beside the stream

Yellow mountain pansies on Malham Lings

Photographing the pansies

Yellow Mountain Pansies with the Field Centre in the Background

Photographing more yellow mountain pansies

Butterwort

Photographing Mountain everlasting flower or Cat's-paw

After the group left I walked around Malham Moor taking more pictures

A pink version of Mountain Everlasting -
I have walked over these hills many times before
but not seen them flowering in abundance
like this - we had just hit the time right. - 

Algae on a post. Growing richly here due to the bird droppings -
It is the highest fence post by a wall and the highest wall for miles around

Lichen

A good day.
I hope the group enjoyed the rest of their holiday.