Settle Wildflowers - Day 50b - Reflections at Midsummer

Well -  Day 50! 

50 blog posts; 150  wildflowers - all within easy walking distance Settle and home near Langcliffe, 1.5 miles away. i.e. withing 2 miles of each place, a sort of 6 mile oval shape. 

I have had a great time, discovering new walks; Seeing different plants come out at different times. I have combined it with searching for lichens too. 

I started posting on 11 April with Day 1, ten weeks ago.

Lockdown started on 23 March.

The end of March and beginning of April had been spent searching for lichens before the leaves come on the trees. 

Now the lockdown is coming to an end how can I maintain may freedom to continue with these walks? 

Can I have self discipline to do them, rather than relying on society banning car use and travel?

Whilst people in England have been able to drive to a distant place "to exercise" for several weeks now, (since ... May). I  only made use of this "freedom"  to drive  on 6 occasions necessary occasions.  I finally had to buy some fuel at the garage after 2 months!

So it left me plenty of time for local exercise walks 

- until a week ago. 

On Saturday 13 June, I started recording the Colt Park Hay Meadow Plots, ten miles from home which takes a big chunk out of most days. This is a four week job. It is long term monitoring and repeats the survey I carried out 6 years ago.

But I will keep up the walks 

Each post is followed up with a tweet and a post on Facebook.. Thank you to those friends and others in Settle and Langcliffe and elsewhere who encourage me.

Look - It is Midsummer now. And I am at blogpost 50.

Is this half way. Can I go on to Day 100 - in another 10 weeks time? ..   Maybe. Will there be enough new wild flowers to keep going?

Can I go on for another 50 Days?

We'll see.

Watch this space...

                            ----------------------------

Meanwhile.. 

I made a resolution to do one long local walk a week, starting as usual from home or from near the food shops in Settle. 
(So walks starting after a say five mile car ride from Settle don't count)

(Long in terms of time.. If the plants are good I don't get very far).

On Wednesday I had a local walk in the evening and found.. Bird's-eye primrose!!.. yes within 3 miles of Settle.

This morning  (Sunday 21 June) I had a very local walk - my back and front garden - as part of the Great Yorkshire Creature Count. 12 noon Sat-12 noon Sun.

I submitted my 43 observations of - it turned out 25 species - in the last half hour of the 24 hours. It is the first time I have used iNaturalist and taken part in such an event. Learning all the time!!!