A goodbye to August

Despite the fact that there are few if any plants coming into bloom in late August, a walk to the edges of the area revealed a few flowers still in bloom that I have not seen previously.  While the rate of change in nature is not so breathtaking as in May and June, maturing fruit guarantees that there is still plenty going on in the plant world.  Animal activity is very visible, even if the animals are not always seen.

Left - Haws adding colour to the hedgerows.

The Ragwort, Knapweed and others are ensuring that there is still plenty of colour in the ground layer.  It is in the bushes and trees, especially in the hedgerows, that new colour is most noticeable.

The Hawthorn is looking absolutely stunning with the red of the haws and the green of the leaves both present for the moment.  Haws on most trees are now a beautiful, ripe, bright or deep red.  

There are also berries on the Rowan.  Though this tree is not as common in Apedale as it is in the Moorlands, there are a few small trees in the planted areas and some larger ones by the road into the visitor centre.


 
It looks like a bumper year for blackberries, I do not remember ever having seen so much fruit.  There are plenty of berries ripe now and plenty more to come by the looks of things.   Although early signs suggested that the raspberries would do better this year, many of the plants seemed to die off before the fruit could ripen properly, as has happened in previous years.

Left - Immature hazelnuts still on the tree.  I love the complex curves of the husk (involucre) that surrounds the nut.

While there were plenty of hazelnuts in the hedgerow a while back, it seems that the squirrels are making it their business to ensure that none survive to maturity.

I photographed some immature nuts earlier in the month.  A week ago the number of nuts had been decimated, this weekend I saw nary a one!  The litter of shells and part eaten nuts beneath the hedgerow suggests that this is the work of squirrels.  There are also  many whole nuts discarded with the litter, this must be quite a bounty for small mammals unable to climb.

I am rather partial to hazelnuts myself, unfortunately I will always be beaten to it by the squirrels as I have never developed a taste for eating the nuts while they are still green.


I have discovered rather a good number of sloes, these are in a very accessible place and I think there may be a good deal of competition for them later.  Elderberries are also reaching maturity, at least those in less shaded locations, though this common tree isn't particularly well represented in Apedale.

  

Left: Sloes, there are a few Blackthorns in the Sawmills path hedgerow. Right: Elderberries on the Apedale Road, looks like the birds have already been busy.


I showed a photograph of some smooth, blushing green, medium sized apples in the last post.  There are a variety of apples around so I thought I would show some of the russet apples this time (below).

Not all fruits are edible, one of my favourite plants is the very inedible and toxic Bittersweet or Woody Nightshade.  The fruits and flowers are often seen at the same time (see title image), there are still some tight flower buds so there is plenty more to come from this plant.

Left: Late rose on Rosa Rugosa

I thought I had seen the last rose on the Rosa Rugosa on the Apedale Road, so I was pleased to be greeted by a waft of scent when I went for my run on Sunday morning.  There on the opposite side of the road, among the ripe hips, was one new, dew jewelled bloom just beginning to open. I am sure that this really must be the last one of the year.




The animal kingdom

I was horrified to find that someone had thrown several cider cans into the pool in Miry Arena, when I visited on Saturday.  The cans are quite inaccessible and I don't know how they can be reached without wading in and disturbing the pool.   Other foul looking rubbish also dotted the arena.  The amount of litter about tends to be in inverse proportion to the distance from a public road, with the exception of Springwood pool which is always a disgrace,  so this was an unpleasant surprise.

Patience and perseverance paid off and I was lucky enough to get close to a Common Darter on two occasions .  In the second instance I managed, for the first time, to get close enough to a dragonfly to discern individual elements in the eyes.  As with all the images on these pages, you can click for a larger view.

Left: Common Darter on a bramble leaf at the edge of the arena.  Right: A close up of another Common Darter showing individual elements of the eye.


I also caught some tiny little bugs living among the reeds.  I have not managed to identify them yet.  I think their delicate pastel colours are exquisite.

Tiny little pastel coloured (unidentified) bugs low among the reeds in Miry Arena, one seems to be having a bit of trouble with rain drops.

While I am becoming a bit quicker with my camera, especially in getting the settings and exposure compensation sorted, I am still generally too slow for birds on the wing.  Recently the light has also been poor and so even where I managed to get a bird in frame, noise and motion blur have left me with nothing more than 'record' shots.  Two that 'got away' were a Heron and a Falcon, both seen over the main country park.

House Martins move fast and low and in most attempts at a photo I miss the subject completely.  I was deleting failures when I saw a small silhouette high in the sky in one of them.  I zoomed in on the area and was surprised to see the unmistakeable long tail of a swallow, the first I have 'seen' in the area.

Left: A Heron. Right: A Falcon, birds on the wing that were too quick for me to get more than a "this is what I saw" quality photograph.  Nice to have the reminder all the same.

An attempt to photograph Goldfinches turned out better than my attempts at birds in flight, even if (again) the subject turned out to be other than what I expected.

There is a particularly attractive Hawthorn with 'tortured' lichenous branches that are silhouetted against the sky.  Goldfinches will sometimes perch on the higher branches where they are visible from below.  I saw some little birds fly into the tree and so I waited in as unobtrusive a manner as possible.   The light was not in the 'best' place, so the birds were often silhouetted, however, at the right angle they did catch the low evening sun.  I could not make out details of the birds through the low definition electronic viewfinder, but I did not see the reds and yellows of the Goldfinch so I thought they must be juveniles.

It was not until I reviewed the images, magnified, on the camera's larger screen, that I saw that the beaks did not belong to finches.  I seem to have captured one of the warblers.  Technically the shots leave much to be desired, though I am pleased with the composition and lighting.  The character of the tree and the difficult but rewarding lighting have a lot of potential, I hope I can make the best of it in the time before the evening light is gone.

A beautiful little bird catching the low evening light high in the branches of a hawthorn of impeccable character.