Open day

Sunday 13th June saw the first Moorhaven Open Meadows event, part of the open meadows series organised by Moor Meadows https://moormeadows.org.uk. In lovely sunshine, we welcomed around 20 visitors to view the new cemetery meadow and Trudi and David’s larger and better established meadows up the hill at Stoneybrook.

Ugborough Beacon to Aish

A lovely varied walk around Ugborough Beacon to Three Barrows and back to Moorhaven via Corringdon Ball and Aish.  The grass on the more sheltered eastern face of Ugborough Beacon was full of heath milkwort in colours ranging from ultramarine through white to pink. I checked the bracken above Peek Moor gate to see if…

Easter day on Dartmoor

We saw three lizards, including this beautiful green one on Hickley Plain near the Avon Filtration works. Toadspawn and tadpoles in the stream at Shipley Bridge, and a strange orange fungus. This is the Bog Beacon – Mitrula paludosa – which grows in bogs and shallow streams, rotting fallen leaves. Sanicle is related to cow parsley and hogweed,…

Things that look like cow parsley, part 2

Cow parsley is almost over and is gradually being superseded by rough chervil. Rough chervil has similar flowers, and bracteoles but no bracts as with cow parsley. Its distinctive characteristics are hairy stems that are often purple – cow parsley stems are smooth and green – and drooping flower buds. Ground elder is dominating the…

Things that look a bit like cow parsley

The hedgerows are full of cow parsley at the moment. Rough chervil and upright hedge parsley are similar but they flower in succession, after cow parsley. Cow parsley has soft, fern-like leaves, small bracteoles but no bracts. Leigh Lane, just off Wrangaton road between Moorhaven and Green Lane, is a good place to spot umbellifers. Pignut…