9 May 2025 - Day 9 - 31Days Wild - Took Doris to Gargrave then to Keighley to audiologist and to meet Viv

 Doris had an appointment with the audiologist at Keighley Specsavers. I collected her and took her to Cynthia's at Gargrave. Cynthia and I went out to pick salad for lunch from the bottom of their garden at the wild area that gets flooded when the river Aire is high.

The River Aire is currently extremely low

The salad, with the wild garlic, ground elder and
other greenery tasted very nice,
maybe because of the mustard and honey dressing.

Cynthia, Doris and Viv were able to talk about old times. All three had been teachers in Australia. I am still wearing my sun hat.

The audiologist explained to Doris and Cynthia that Doris had to brush her hearing aids with the little brush supplied before she put them in the battery charger.  Why hadn't he explained that before?

Still we had had a lovely day meeting Viv.

5 May early afternoon 2025: -Walk to commemorate the 4 men from Langcliffe killed in the 2nd World War.

A group from Langcliffe Church walked round and visited the four houses where the four soldiers had lived who had lost their lives in the Second World War. 

The first house was number 8 on the terrace where I live - that is when I heard the people outside. From here they walked to the Locks where I caught them up

Sweet Cicely on the road down to the Locks at Langcliffe

Saying a prayer at the Locks

The wall where I sometimes look for Ceterach - the Rusty-back fern there was no sign of it, and the moss there looked extremely dry. We then walked by the mill pond.

and up the steps ove the Settle-Carlisle Railway Line

 The Lichen Toninia sedifolia -which I now discover has changed its name to Thalloidima sedifolium 

Squamarina cartilaginea

Then when I got up to the village I found I had lost them - spent too much time photographing scenes and lichens (or maybe - I am no longer fit walking up that steep path). Ah, there they are down New Street.

The man who lived here was Anne Marshall's Uncle.

 After the fourth cottage I left them preparing to have a picnic and I set off for home (see next post) .. yet to be written.

5 May -Day 5 of 31 Days Wild - Early morning walk with John Osborne as part of Ground Nest Fest

Wild Ingleborough and The Folly have again organised various events for the week - Ground  Nest Fest.

We met at 6am at the Chapel le Dale Car Park 

Then we walked up past Southercales Farm settlement, Past this Ash tree with a ? Mountain ash? growing on it.

Well Done Ellie. .. Not on the programme - she had carried up a thermus flask and coffee and redbush tea.

Very welcome

4 May 2025 4b of 31 Days Wild - Lambing Service at Horton

 

Audrey reads "Little Lamb, who made thee?"

John Dawson explains the work involved in lambing.

Explaining the uses of wool

4 May: Mike Berners-Lee's books in the church garden: A Climate of Truth, and How Bad are Bananas? - talk 10 May

Next Saturday 10 May, Mike Berners-Lee will be coming to the Action on Climate Emergency, Settle  (ACE) meeting held in our St John's Methodist church hall, BD24 9JH to lead a discussion on his latest book - "A Climate of Truth" 

Meet at 10 for coffee ready for the talk and discussion at 10.30am 

I took some photos of two of his books in our church garden.

A Climate of Truth and How Bad are Bananas?

It is a good weather forecast for Saturday so why not have your cup of tea/coffee in the garden? 

Photos taken on 4 May

Lichens near Foredale Farm - mid north side of SD8069 - 3 May 2025

The route of the old road to Foredale Farm, bounded by two drystone walls, was left when the newer tarmac road to the quarry was built many years ago.

Penyghent seen in the distance. 

This made a nice place to sample lichens as the old route is now grass covered.  The walls, whilst constructed mostly of siliceous rocks, had a few limestone stones in them, and the sun shone.

Here are some lichens I found. I really wish I had taken a photo of the farmer on the quadbike with the sheep and lambs too.

This is Xanthoria calcicola (also in the top picture) which has a very warty thallus and is bright orange with a slightly more yellow bright margin. It does not usually fruit, but this one has apothecia.

I am calling this Diploschistes muscorum. It has urn-shaped apothecia - They seem very small in this specimen but maybe they are young.  

Close up

The very small apothecia  in the small thalli on this rounded sandstone rock in the wall turned purple with K. I call this species Caloplaca holocarpa sensu stricta.  It is a distinctive species 

Another jolly patch of Xanthoria calcicola. Xanthoria calcicola is rare around here

 in this Settle hectad. 

But I think I have seen in the Mersey embankment, on the Thames Embankment, on the Wall beside the Seine and in the botanic garden at Barcelona..( I  just need to double check.)

Dermatocarpon miniatum - Although it is growing on a sliceous rock there are odd limestone rocks in the wal, and also this wall is a hundred me or so from the old long since discues limestone quarry processing plant when there would have been lots of limestone dust.  I had put a bit of water on this very dry lichen.

Collema fuscovirens

The bedrock showing in the track is an anticline. 
It has some Lecanora muralis growing on it 

Another jolly patch of Xanthoria calcicola. Xanthoria calcicola is rare around here

 in this Settle hectad. 

But I think I have seen in the Mersey embankment, on the Thames Embankment, on the Wall beside the Seine and in the botanic garden at Barcelona..( I  just need to double check.)

 

2 May 2025: Lichens in SD8069

I would like to send in my Lichen results to the British Lichen Society for the first ten monads of my hectad SD86 (from Rathmell to here- Helwith Bridge)  but somehow I did not write up my results for this monad to locations to a precision better than SD8069.

So this is a good excuse to resurvey parts of SD8069 the Helwith Bridge aquare.

So I set off on the evening of the 2nd May 2025.

The geology here is well studied and very interesting - with folded 450 MYR old siliceous rocks at the bottom (Silurian and Ordovician) and an  unconformity with  a 100 MYR gap and  then Carboniferous Limestone on top (actually the limestone is just into the next monad and hectad to the west).

The rocks at the bottom have been quarried for many years at Helwith Bridge Quarry

The names of these rocks seem to change EVEN FASTER than Lichen names. I would, at  O level 50 years ago, have called these "Silurian slates" - I like the alliteration.   Then I was told they were "Greywackes" which is sandstone formed when sandy deltas slipped down into the sea and the pressure metamorphosed the sandstone. Then last week I was told it was part metamorphosed siltstone.  The British Geol Survey this week calls it "Horton Formation - Siltstone. Sedimentary bedrock formed between 427.4 and 425.6 million years ago during the Silurian period.".. And Says the old name "Horton Flags"  is now obsolete. And the rock next to it is  Austwick Formation Sandstone (Silurian Period) Map 

Anyway it is siliceous rock. 

I took this to be Porpidia macrocarpa

View from site towards Penyghent

 

Some sort of Cladonia. there was a lot of C subcervicornis around.

Normandina pulchella on moss (Hypnum maybe cupressiforme) on sloping rock outcrop at ground level

Ptilidium ciliare and Peltigera membranceaea

See other lichens posts