YNU VC64 trip August 2022: Humberstone Bank - including lichens

The Yorkshire Naturalists Union held their vice-county 64 trip on 14 Aug 2022 to Humberstone Bank. this Farm on belonging to Yorkshire Water is in the Pennines, 6km (4 miles) north of the Blubberhouses Moor Pass (A59), at the head of Washburn Valley next to Barden Moor and to Simons Seat,

The last day of the August hot sunny spell enabled us to enjoy the purple heather at its best. The land goes, from Humberstone Bank Farm at c. 1100 ft across the "inby" and "outby" land at the head of the Washburn Valley to the moorland which  is adjacent to the moorland of  Barden Moor . 

The Yorkshire Naturalists Union organises a field day each year in each of the five Vice Counties in Yorkshire. All members of the YNU and all members of its associated 40 member societies are welcome at these.  Read more here - (as that includes The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust with 45,000 members, a lot of people are eligible to come). About 18-20 people came to this meeting. What a privilege. If only more members were aware of what they are missing.

A big thank you 

• To Sarah and Ken White who organised this visit.
• To the Lepidoptera group (Butterflies and Moths) Who set up moth traps the previous evening and came early to count and release them
• To the Yorkshire Water people for letting us use the teaching room and facilities
• To the farmer Jonathan Grayshon who gave us a talk at the beginning. 

 

• to Ken who had special permission to drive on the track and who give three of us a lift in his 4 by 4 to Harden Gill Beck, seeing several birds of prey - hobby, sparrowhawk and more en route;   Here we met the others who had walked there for lunch
  

See the book "Lichens - an illustrated guide to the British and Irish Species" in the centre.

I was pleased to meet another member of the YNU interested in lichens. Here is Ian Instone (centre) with his Frank Dobson lichen book, and myself holding a piece of Peltigera membrancea Membranous Dog Lichen - and showing it to the group. It grows under the black rucksack and on the bank we had been dangling our legs over as we sat for lunch.

This month of August 2022, members of the the British Lichen Society are holding events in memory of Frank Dobson who wrote the standard British illustrated Lichens book, but who died last year.

Ian and I also remembered to each other Albert Henderson of Leeds, a former editor of the YNU Bulletin, who died just a few years ago but who had helped both of us in our Lichen progress.

On the ledge where we were sitting, and/also on the stone post in the bracken  10meters behind where we were sitting was a pale pinkish crustose lichen which went red with C.: Trapelia placodioides It rarely 

View from where we were eating lunch,
with the P. membranacea

fruits

Gall on Seep's-Sorrel

Lower drop: C added c 2 minutes ago.
Upper drop: C just added. 

right is a stone post.  

Ian looking at Porpida tuberculosa fruiting

Porpida tuberculosa fruiting

Caloplaca holocarpa ? nearby

Ivy leaved water-crowfoot in Harden Gill Beck

Pseudevernia furfuracea on a gritstone wall

Looking down the Washburn Valley, from next to a blown over Whitebeam tree in the field at Humberstone Bank Farm.  Our lunch stream - Harden Gill Beck (far right) joins the River Washburn  (near right) which flows into Thrushcross Reservoir, then Fewston Reservoir, then Swinsty Reservoir.

The Washburn Valley is very gently v shaped, not U shaped. It formed when the adjacent valleys of the Wharfe and the Nidd contained glaciers. The water run of from the glaciers and the land in between fed the Washburn and made the valley. (I am told)

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In the white field at the very centre of the picture is a newly dug "settling pond".

I had visited this last month (and found Isolepis setacea). It had certainly looked very muddy/silty. the farmer explained it was dug to collect sediment washed of the land so that the sediment could settle there. and be removed periodically, rather than being deposited in the reservoirs downstream

At the end of the day we met at the classroom/meeting room at Humberstone Bank Farm for our Reporting meeting. The four people on the right-hand side are members of Craven Conservation Group. There will be a full report of the meeting in "The Naturalist" which is the journal of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union in a year or so. Also, we hope that Ken White can give a short talk about some of the things seen in a forthcoming YNU Zoom First Friday of the Month Meeting.