After a lovely drive from Horton towards Ribblehead, we stopped short of the viaduct and turned left behind the railway cottages to go down a rocky track to Colt Park Barn where we could park and importantly use the portaloo!. Other members of the group had already arrived so we went into the barn and upstairs to the meeting room to see Colin Newlands the man in charge of the NNR and who was to be our leader for the day. However, Colin had had a crisis as sheep had escaped over broken walls and he needed to go up the fell to sort it all out. But, before doing that he gave us an excellent talk on the history of the reserve, indicating its many special habitats. Drinks and biscuits were there for us to take advantage of before we started on our survey.
Ragged Robin. Photo: Christine Bell.
It was hot!! So we decided to look at the meadow which was just outside the barn door. This proved to be most interesting. We occasionally see a Marsh Hawksbeard Crepis paladosa, but here there were many amongst the Sharp-flowered Rush Juncus acutiformis. There were a lot of Orchids, Common Spotted Dacylyorhiza fuchsia and query hybrids but we were very pleased to see a colony of Heath Spotted Orchid D.maculata which we don’t often record. Then one of our group spotted a different Orchid which turned out to be Small White Orchid Pseudorchis albida, going over, but still a first sighting for most of the group.
Heath Spotted Orchid. Photo: Christine Bell.
Many other more common plants were identified – lovely stands of the pink Ragged Robin Silene flos-cuculi, a group of the delicate Wood Horsetail Equisetum sylvestris – another first for some, and an abundance of the semi-parasitic Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor and Eyebright. Concerning the latter it is possible we found some of the less common species of this plant, but no-one had the the info so they all were marked as Euphrasia agg.!
A good day in an outstanding area and a determination to add another part of this reserve to our programme next year
Christine Bell
