Yew Grove

I went for my morning walk over Arnside Knott, and made the usual mistake of taking far too many photographs, leaving me in an agony of indecision over what to blip.

This was the chosen one. The Knott has a grove of yew trees on the shallow soils on the steeply sloping south facing side. Most of the limestone hills around here have them in similar locations or growing on the limestone pavements. The one on the Knott reminds me of a miniature version of the Great Yew Forest of Kingley Vale in Sussex that Dick Williamson wrote a natural history of. Dick was the son of Henry Williamson who wrote Tarka the Otter, and he was employed by the Nature Conservancy Council as the warden of the Kingley Vale National Nature Reserve. A colourful character to say the least.

I've been trying to get a photograph all year that does some justice to the yews of the Knott. Their canopy is so dense, and the shade they cast so deep, that most photos have failed badly. This was taken shortly after the sun rose, and the light was slanting through the wood at a low angle, illuminating the fluted trunks of the trees. It's about the best I can do.

In the afternoon, Simon and I went to a talk at the Kendal Mountain Festival by the Austrian legendary mountaineer Peter Habeler. Habeler was most active in the 1960s and 1970s, and was famous for a number of ascents of the Himalayan 8000 metre peaks, including the first ascent with Reinhold Messner of Everest without oxygen. Quite a man, and modest with it.

Tomorrow I shall be doing the first of my winter bird atlas surveys.