Yorkshire grasslands & meadows, butterflies & wild flowers.

Well more than halfway through what has been a personally testing year, a year like no other to be honest but not something I'm not going to dwell upon here, its just not very interesting and anyway I'm well on the road back to my old self with every intention of getting back on the saddle and planning another foreign road trip later in the year.😃😃

Nature's tale meanwhile continues to unravel and since July is a relatively quiet time of the year for birding I've been spending a fair amount of time seeking out some Yorkshire meadows to wander about in - a great way to while away the hours and plot my road to recovery!

Fordon chalk bank, a SSSI site on the northern fringes of the Yorkshire wolds is more grassland than meadow but the site has some of the most impressive strips of 'created' meadow running alongside farmed crop fields I've seen. Much wider than the 10m or so I regularly see in my part of the wolds and packed full of wild flowers and butterflies.

Marbled White on Clover, Fordon, 16/07/19

Small Skipper, Fordon, 16/07/19

Ringlet, Fordon, 16/07/19

Fordon bank grasslands

I hung around this peaceful valley all afternoon and was rewarded with some pretty decent 'golden hour' shots as the shadows lengthened and the sun dipped lower in the sky.

Grassland at Fordon, 16/07/19

Small Heath, Fordon, 16/07/19

Lady's Bedstraw, Fordon, 16/07/19

Clustered Bellflower, Fordon, 16/07/19

Fordon bank grasslands

Dark Green Fritillary on Betony, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Ablaze with floral colour and teeming with butterflies, the curiously named Haugh and Gundale Slacks (another SSSI site) near Pickering was another meadow / grassland visited in July, this time with good mate Rob. Easily the largest number of Dark Green Fritillaries I've ever seen in Yorkshire(50+), Marbled Whites and several other butterfly species.

Dark Green Fritillary on Betony, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Dark Green Fritillary on Scabious, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Marbled White on Scabious, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Dropwort, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

St John's Wort, Haugh & Gundale Slacks, 12/07/19

Further north and west but still in Yorkshire, a couple of days in the Dales was an opportunity to visit a very different type of meadow. Scattered within the North Peninnes and Yorkshire Dales area there are many fine examples of traditionally farmed meadows termed Northern Hay Meadows. Lying predominantly on upland slopes these species rich grasslands are one of the scarcest habitats in the UK. We chose to visit a series of these delightful meadows that lie adjacent to the upper reaches of the River Wharfe nr Yockenthwaite in Langstrothdale - rough camped there too😃⛺

Hay meadow, Yockenthwaite, 24/07/19

Betony flowers, Yockenthwaite, 24/07/19

Hay meadows are steeped in tradition, entirely man made they are grazed in the autumn and winter months then 'shut off' until late July/ August when they are cut to make hay. The richest hay meadows can contain 30 plant species per sq metre.

More info - Northern Hay Meadows

More Info - Yockenthwaite meadows

Strolling beside the hay meadows

River Wharfe

The source of the River Wharfe is formed by the joining of the Oughtershaw Beck and Green Field Beck, very close to here and where we rough camped. The river is 65 miles long, making it the 21st longest river in the UK, and empties into the Rive Ouse near Cawood

Not a great deal of bird action in the Dales, as expected for July, with several sightings of Spotted Flycatchers, a couple of return passage Ringed Plovers on Grimwith Reservoir, 2 Northern Wheatears at the same location and a handful of migrating Sand Martins beating south in the aftermath of a summer storm.

Ringed Plover, Grimwith Reservoir, 24/07/19

Sedge Warbler, Spital Beck, Fangfoss, 02/0719

Apart from seeking out of meadows and grasslands I've been getting back to doing my normal thing - visiting local sites, doing the business for YWT at Askham Bog, keeping my mum on the straight and narrow after dad's death and of course getting back to my caravan and local patch at Fangfoss. Speaking of which I got a new bird for here last month, surprised its taken so long, but a pair of Sedge Warblers taking food into bush alongside the Spital Beck was a most welcome sight!

Common Swift, Pocklington Canal, 02/07/19

And it only seems like yesterday when we were all bemoaning the lateness and paucity of Swifts, Swallows & House Martins this year, and now they're all on their way back it seems, Swifts have already departed from my neck of the woods!

I heard it was a severe weather system over Iberia in early spring that severely affected tens of thousands of returning Swifts and Hirundines. Been a poor breeding season for them all I suspect.



At some point in the last few months as new and different plants bloom week by week, I realised that I'd been making an identification mistake for years! Told more than one visitor to Askham Bog over the years and probably on this blog that this - (Marsh Valerian) is Fine Leaved Water Dropwort, a much scarcer plant.

Marsh Valerian, Pocklington Canal, 02/07/19

 ....silly me, I'd have said it with such comviction too! This year at Askham Bog a proliferation of A water based plant I couldn't quite place appeared along one of the dykes and .... you guessed it, turned out to be Fine Leaved Water Dropwort!

Fine Leaved Water Dropwort, Askham Bog, 14/07/19

Clustered Bellflower, Fordon, 16/07/19

Love the pure and delicate white flowers on that Water Dropwort but its a totally different plant to Marsh Valerian - what an idiot! Talking about delicate here's another shot of one of the Clustered Bellflowers at Fordon and a few more images from round about my locale in July into early August.

Brown Hare, Fangfoss Pk, 21/07/19

Meadowsweet, Pocklington Canal, 02/07/19

Common Cransbill, Fangfoss Pk, 11/07/19

Pocklington Canal (Gardham Lock),

Sedge Warbler, Pocklington Canal, 05/08/19

Been warm wet and muggy in Yorkshire for ages, yet another symptom no doubt of the climate change that surely no sane person can deny is upon us with force. Not gonna dwell on that either (check it out here or even more starkly here should you still need an eye opener) -