Bumblebees and bogs

A surprising find on the moor yesterday, near the head of Ludbrook: ten or more bumblebees in a grassy, mossy nest. There were also lots of dragonflies and damselflies, in particular gold-ringed dragonflies patrolling up and down the brook too fast for photos. Meadow brown and large skipper butterflies were in the long grass beside the lower moorland…

Dartmoor evening

A beautiful evening on the moor. Tiny leaves of sundew are poking through the boggy moss and eyebrights and sheep’s sorrel are flowering.

Ice

  It was cold on the moor this morning but the crevices in walls were full of tiny plants, including new leaves of sheep’s sorrel, navelwort, heath bedstraw, and stonecrop. There were some beautiful ice formations near the Ludbrook, including extruded strands of frost around a fox’s burrow. Gorse and an unseasonal strawberry flower This orange-yellow jelly…

Dartmoor and the coast

 I was excited to see a small patch of marsh violets a month ago near Piles Copse. Now they seem to be on the bank of every stream and ditch on the moor. I don’t remember seeing such a display before.       Tiny but distinctive pink flowers of lousewort are showing through the grass, with the ubiquitous…