Thursday 16 October

Damp cool morning

This is the beautiful but poisonous fruit of Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara also known as Woody Nightshade, it grows almost anywhere but you will find it in most of the local hedges, the leaves give it away when the flowers aren't present.

Fruit of Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

If you check the leaves your sure to find some like this, very distinctive.

Take Care

Sunday 13 October

Dry morning

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

 Elder - Sambucus nigra

 Field Rose - Rosa arvensis

 Hawthorn - Crataegus monogyna

 Holly - Ilex aquifolium

Sessile Oak - Quercus petraea

Rhododendron - Rhododendron ponticum

Take Care

Tuesday 27 August

Lovely dry morning, we did Dry Bones and round on to Primrose Hill.

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara finding this all over the valley. A member of the nightshade family, mention nightshade and people start pulling it up, when I ask them what about the potato and tomato, they are stunned to find they also belong to the nightshades, lots of plants are toxic to a point we just need to be careful, not enough people & children are out playing like we did and had to learn, we were told never eat anything unless you ask or know what is safe and what is not. 

This was the view from the top of Primrose Hill, it looked like a patch of snow.

 Thistle seeds - thousands of them.

 Creeping Thistle - Circium arvense

Take Care 

Sunday 14 July

We did our morning walk in the Valley

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

Later in the day at Knott End we found

cinnabar caterpillars.

Take Care.

Saturday 13 October

Damp 

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

 Henry Mallard he's so cute and we just want to take him home - he gets picked on by the big boys.

This is Fred another mallard but large and with a white bib, very smart.

 Moorhen on the Top Lodge

 Nipplewort - Lapsana communis

 Red Campion - Silene dioica

Sunflower - Helianthus annuus

 Zac

 Sally - peeping at us, this is the Springer Spaniel in her.

Don't know what the interest was on this stump but she would not leave it, we thought maybe a squirrel had been on it.

Take Care.

Friday 7 September

Dry Morning and great day, we went through Charnock Richard later in the day and it was Scarecrow Festival weekend got a few photos - folk were just putting them out for the weekend. will post them later.

A memberof the nightshade family known as Woody Nightshade or Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara -yes it's poisonous.

 What we always called the pond field now the pig field

 A lovely Toad with attitude

we put it back into a safer spot.

Take Care

Thursday 21 June

Rain this morning

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

 Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

 Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Take Care

Friday 8 June

Damp again

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

Growing wild a garden escapee Druce's Crane's-bill - Geranium endressii x versicolor = G. x oxonianum

 Japanese Rose - Rosa rugosa

 Oxeye Daisy - Leucanthemum vulgare

Another escapee quite easy to think it is Meadow Cranesbill but this is Purple Crane's-bill - Geranium ibericum x platypetalum = G. x magnificum

Yellow Day-lily - Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus found in the church yard

Take Care

Saturday 19 May

Raining this morning

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

 Broom - Cytisus scoparius

 Young Crow

The noisy parents dive bombed us, letting us now they had young on the ground, it was right next to me when I looked down. One of them followed for a few hundred yards.

White Lipped Snail

Take Care

Tuesday 27 September

Dry Morning.

 Bittersweet - Solanum dulcamara

 Bird Pellet - about 2 inches / 5cm in size I know these are studied so I have no doubt someone will be able to tell us who did it?

 Big Lodge 

 Upright Hedge Parsley - Torilis japonica

 Common Nettle - Urtica dioica

Later I had a walk down the New Road still plenty in flower.

 Welsh Poppy - Meconopsis cambrica

 7 Spot Ladybird

 Bush Vetch - Vicia sepium

 Enteridium Lycoperdon a slime mold.

 Prickley Sow Thistle - Sonchus asper

 White Dead Nettle - Lamium album

 Bridge below Sunny Mount

 Sunny Mount Entrance

 Devil's-bit Scabious - Succisa pratensis

 Cat's Ear - Hypochoeris radicata

 Common Knapweed  - Centaurea nigra

 Honeysuckle  - Lonicera periclymenum

 Path through the Rucks

 Dandelion - Taraxacum

 Hedge Woundwort - Stachys sylvatica

Speckled Wood

Take Care.