YNU Field Excursion to Redmire Quarry - 19 July 2025 and some lead mine lichens

Seven spot ladybird examines
Rhizocarpon petraeum

Redmire Quarry is a large shelf high on the side of the valley of the river Ure (Wenseleydale, N Yorks)   with SW facing limestone cliffs at 350m above sea level. 

I especially enjoyed finding lichens on the led mine spoil heaps above the quarry. See lower down on the article.

We had special permission from Caslte Bolton Estate to visit the quarry.

Terry Whitaker was the organiser of the meeting and had also provided a stove and water so we could make tea, on the picnic table that is there by the private hut.

We arranged to meet up again at 2pm by this table

11a.m.

My entomological contribution.   
Derek saw two other species as well.

Terry Whitaker was the organiser of the meeting and had also provided a stove and water so we could make tea, on the picnic table that is there by the private hut.

 I spent so long making and drinking his tea when I first arrived that I missed going to see the final moth traps being opened. Apparently they had an excellent catch. At least six people had come from Yoredale Natural History Society.

The moth trappers had departed and the rest of us sat for a photoshoot at 11am before setting off as a group.

There was a "Limestone Dandelion" and lots of Limestone Bedstraw.

"Limestone Dandelion" the lowest involucral bracts stick out.

Limestone Bedstraw

Other people saw the beautiful blue Viper's Bugloss (Anyone from the trip want to send me a picture?)

 Gaby released some of the special moths they had captured.

Northern Eggar Moth  (= Oak Eggar Moth) on Gaby's boot

Northern Eggar Moth  (= Oak eggar Moth)

Tiger Moth

The first and only bit of Knotted Pearlwort   Sagina nodosa  (it has white anthers) in a slight rain gully on the track on the way up.

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 A platform along the length top of the cliffs has pebbles and mounds and evidence of lead mines. It is  bordered by rabbit proof fencing and beyond that the land, now gritstone with heather and limestone without, rises with remains of lead mines and grouse moor.

The first of any Spring Sandwort plants.
Spring Sandwort has pink anthers.

I spent much of the time on this rabbit grazed platform. It had short vegetation - in fact mostly moss and lichens: 

I had carefully collected a sliver of rock with Rhizocarpon petraeum from the cliff on the way up .....

Rhizocarpon petraeum on the cliff face

Distribution map from the BLS website

... only to discover that this bright white crustose lichen with its concentric rings of black apothecia was super common on the piles of pebbles on the platform above.

View back down to the picnic table and cars

Cetraria islandica

The Cladonia rangiferina seemed
to occur in all sorts of shapes and forms.
Here it has wide flattened podetia.

The Cladonia rangiferina 

Not sure what this white Cladonia is.

Moonwort

On the top, Big Shaggy-moss - the official name of Hylocomiadelphus triquetrus (formerly Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus) was the dominant vegetation, closely followed by Cladonia rangiformis (My name: Limestone Giraffe Lichen): Both of these were pale pastel green in the grey light of cloudy midmorning which preceded the drizzle of 1p.m.

Then my eyes picked out the dark glossy brown tangles of wire-netting-like Cetraria aculeata. I could not find any of its relation  C. muricata though I looked hard.  

Green mounds 12cm in diameter of a cushion moss (Tortula tortuosa?) had dead summits on the mounds which were covered in black stuff. Was this a result of the drought 6 weeks earlier - or was this the result of a lichen? Many of these black areas had a  rough textured thick white crustose lichen with tiny urn shaped apothecia - Diploschistes muscorum . I am used to seeing this on moss on limestone walls where Cladonia pocilum grows.  A glance at Dobson's book says it also grows on C rangiformis - well plenty of that here. 

Diploschistes muscorum growing on black stuff on Cushion Moss Note C rangiformis in the foregrounds

Closer up.

Diploschistes muscorum growing on black stuff on Cushion Moss

Thyme and Sheep's-fescue grass were the main higher plants.

Moonwort

Rabbit tunnel

Left side: quarry side; right side: moorland side

A strange lumpy form of Cladonia rangiformis

Peltigera

i lost my handlens / penknife. I retraced my steps and found it. What a relief

Definite evidence of rabbits

I had also lost everyone else by now. I spent a long time enjoying this new habitat for me. I wondered if a real lichen expert would notice more species than I was noticing, but ended up walking over lots more of the only the same species. Only one Peltigera (Dog Lichen).

I found one moonwort shoot in SE048929 and two moonwort shoots close to each other in SE048930 in another.

We had arranged to meet up again at 2pm by this table.. and had lunch. Well prepared with umbrellas.

2pm. Well prepared for the rain

I climbed up the mound (and island of bedrock) behind the picnic table and found surface vegetation similar to the top platform of the quarry - and also some beautiful yellow Hygrocybe. (waxcaps) with slimy caps.

Hygrocybe. Some had slightly reddish streaked stipes (like H puniceus) and others had  stipes which were smoother and just yellow and white

Yellow Hygrocybe Waxcaps amongst the
Thyme and Big Shaggy-Moss

Back at the Village Hall early we had tea, the roll call of Societies and the plenary session. Then we repeated part of the plenary and had more tea when several more members turned up at the official time of 4pm. It was good to meet old and new friends.

 

YNU Field Excursion to Kingsdale Head Farm 5 July 2025 - Lichens

Wonderful lichen laden post at Kingsdale Head
that I only noticed
after everyone had gone (See end of post).

Pictures from the day: held in the far NW of VC64 - WNW Yorkshire are posted at the end of this account  

(Geology: Top of a glaciated valley cut through the Yoredale series (Repeating limestone, sandstone, shale layers, with one millstone grit at the top of hills Gragareth/Greenhill and Whernside. Whernsisde (736m) and Green Hill (628m) are the highest peaks in Yorkshire and Lancashire respectively. Green Hill adjacent to Cumbria is about 1.8km along the ridge from Gragareth (627m) adjacent to Yorkshire.  . 

Land use: Former sheep grazing moorland,  with a couple of "Inby fields" next to the farm. Now the estate is being "Rewilded". In  the areas with peatbog, the drainage ditches have been blocked. There is low grazing with ten cattle. 

(See also the report from the pretrip visit on 1 July)

Parts of Britain may have been having a heat wave . The East and South of Yorkshire YNU members reported that the land there is parched. 

Not so in Kingsdale. Very much a green and pleasant land.

And on our chosen day for the YNU excursion, sadly rain was forecast, and had come along with strong winds on the previous evening.  

"Well done!" to the seventeen brave souls who made it all the way to the farm, 310m above sea level, .. and just three miles from Cumbria. Fortunately, the Kingsdale Head Farm had an excellent meeting room set up in a very big  barn with tables chairs, a boiler with hot water and if we had needed it, a large display board.  Patrick an ecology student from America was here at the farm gaining work experience to help us.

I live c 17 miles away (11 miles as the crow flies)  - 30 min drive if traffic is good -  and made no effort to get up early, as the drier part of the day was forecast to be later rather than earlier. So I missed seeing the opening of the moth traps.

It was good to have time to chat with people who had come from Barnsley and Brockadale towards Doncaster - just about 78 miles away).  Our YNU Journal Editor had made it and also our YNU President.  

Five members of Craven Conservation Group took part: Terry Whitaker from Bentham had organised the event and today was accompanied by CCG member Dave Fisher from Bentham. CCG member Cynthia Hardyman had been there earlier taking part in opening the moth traps. Later in the day Geoff Morries came.

So we set off walking up the road, which ran parallel to the river - This might have been a good place for searching for water creatures three days ago, but now the river was really high and fast flowing.

 As the raindrops settled on my glasses, I wished that I still could use occasional contact lenses, like I used to do, about 20 years ago. 

We came the wood at Cluntering Gill (Whiteside Wood), planted at some time in the past. The first tree in the wood was an alder and had a tuft of the pastel green foliose lichen Ramalina farinacea growing on the branch overhanging the path... in front of my nose, and big enough for me to see through my rain droppy drippy misted glasses.. 

It was at this point I discovered I had left my best hand lens (part of my Swiss Army penknife) - at home. Huh. The second spare lens in one I found (in one of the 15 pockets available in my three water proofs, waistcoat, jumper and trousers ) was not very good.  Then I looked up and discovered everyone else had disappeared, off up the gill.  

So I decided to go back to the farm and my car and see if I had a spare lens there. Various lichens on the roadside wall and the river sidetracked me. There were saplings and rose bush saplings planted by the river.  ..  I returned to the car. Hurray - I HAD put a my spare penknife (with lens) in the car. I was very HAPPY.   I was pleased I had been so prepared for once).

Everyone else returned shortly for lunch. 

In the afternoon the rain semi-cleared up and the mist/cloud level moved to about 500m (i.e. we still couldn't see the tops of the hills)

We went as a group to another wood: Blackside Wood -well old conifer plantation on a steep slope, which had a band of limestone in it we were told. It had one huge Sitka spruce tree with a very wide trunk.

Derek explained to me how to recognise Omocestus viridula - the common green grasshopper;  We found Peltigera praetextata lichen covering a boulder.  This is a dog lichen with a rugose (crinkle/puckered) thallus (As in P membranacea) but the edge of the thallus can have crinkled edges/crinkly isidia. The conifers only had a little lichen on the trunks - the types that are happy on acid bark.- such as Hypogymnia physodes. 

We found the band of Yoredale Limestone. It even had a few ash trees growing on it. One with more P. praetextata.    

"Whats that?" said Joyce, pointing to a 2cm pale grey round lobe on the damp limestone ledge- and it turned out to be Dermatocarpon miniatum lichen - "Spotty Elephant Ears" is my invented name for it.

Then there was a green squamulose lichen spilling out of a nearby crevice. It was made of lots of lobes - squamules about 5mm across.  "Looks like a very wet patch of Squamarina cartilaginea" I said, but then wished I hadn't because it wasn't S cartilaginea.- it had sunken fruit, not flat or raised apothecia.

It turned out to be Placidium squamarinum - It was bigger than any I have seen near Settle - It grows in crevices in some walls and limestone cliff faces and is brown when dry.. this one was bright green mottled with paler bits, and the patch about 4cm across. Still, it was growing on a ledge of a clifflet. 

By the time I had thought about it everyone had gone. Again. I retraced my steps and found one of the group - Peter Guerney. We walked down through the wood.  Peter pointed out two birds nests to me that I would neve have noticed - holes in trees.. Suddenly at the bottom of the wood I found a large beech with good lichens on a branch (compared to the sitka spruce)  -well normal deciduous tree lichens - Ramalina farinacea, Xanthoria parietina. For some reason this beech had been 3/4 ring barked - but was surviving because the back part next to the rock had not been accessible to the axe.

Back down the path and almost at the road we saw some Alchemilla mollis (Garden Alchemilla) - this according to the BSBI 2020 atlas has increased more than any other species in Britain recently. .. and here it was right up here. 

Back at the farm meeting room, we enjoyed the cake that Terry had brought.  I showed people the stamps I had just bought - Fungi  (issued on 1 July). Including one we had seen on this afternoons walk - Turkeytails.  - Derek chaired the meeting and Terry was secretary. We had a roll call of societies.   We looked at a collected Satin Moth.

Derek said he would come back later in the week when the sun is out and record more insects.

Geoff and I helped Terry remove stuff he had brought and tidy the room. Geoff and Terry left.

"I'll just record a few lichens on the concrete block wall -part of the farm - whilst we are here with permission at the farm. A different habitat." I thought.

Then I saw the post

Stood on the grass on the slope below where we had parked out cars.

Wonderful.

I was able to name 10 lichens on the post - mostly big ones.. and see at least three others that I could not name.

Pseudevernia furfuracea 
Parmelia saxatilis 
Punctellia subrudecta
Hypotrachyna afrorevoluta
Hypogymnia physodes
Melanelixia glabratula
Physcia tenella
Xanthoria ucrainica
Candelariella vitellina
Trapeliopsis flexuosa

Picture taken by our Whatsapp group

Polypodium sp ? vulgare and a tuft of Tortella tortuosa moss below it
 - there were old limestone stones in the wall.
On the wall between the farm and Cluntering Gill

Cladonia species -wet

Physcia caesia - wet

Derek surveys the river.. and points out it is not a good day for sweep netting.

Lunch

Common Green Grasshopper - Omocestus viridulis

A non-native plant in the wood - it is liable to spread an take over.

Peltigera praetextata - Dog lichen covering a boulder.

Can you see the frilly edges to the thallus? or the Peltigera praetextata?

We came to the limestone area - a patch of pavement covered in limestone loving mosses.. and the ash tree in the centre had Peltigera praetextata growing up its trunk.

Look at the bright copper apothecia on thsi piece.

A photo looking up to remind me se were standing under ash.

There was a lot of Leptogium sp  (Lichen with blue green algae and frilly edges) growing on the Mosses on the Limestone.

There was a mini 1 m tall clifflet in the wood
- there must be a better geological term
for the edge of a band of limestone 

This is where we saw the Dermatocarpon miniatum  (Spotty elephant ears) . this picture is about 3cm across.

Some lichens have fruiting bodies like little cups (or big saucers in the case of the Peltigera)  with the fungal spores produced from the top surface of the cup (or saucer). These cups are called apothecia.  Others have fruiting bodies that are flask shaped, with the spores produced inside the  flask. These bodies are called perithecia. The tiny dots on the Dermatocarpon are perithecia. 

This was the surprisingly large patch of Placidium squamulosum 4cm across

Same picture as above before cropping.
The Placidium squamulosum is on the left, midway up the picture.
When dry it is brown, and usually grows hidden in crevices in cliffs or walls
- here it is spilling out of a crevice.  

Close up of the Placidium squamulosum.

Extreme close-up of the Placidium squamulosum.

Extreme close-up of the Placidium squamulosum.

The damaged beech - see base. 

And at 6pm some of the post lichens:

Pseudevernia furfuracea - with lots of isidia and bits sticking out from it,  (bottom)  Parmelia saxatilis - with white ridges (top left), brown-grey-gunge still seeking a name - top right. 

Punctelia subrudecta  

And Look a tiny Millipede

View of other side of post

The next YNU Field Meeting is in VC 65, about