A small group of members met under Covid guidelines (booking places, maintaining social distancing, not car-sharing) at Newgate Bank car park, and meandered slowly through the trees up onto the moor to the trig point. It was a lovely day and the views were superb, especially looking north up to the Cleveland scarp (above).

We were a bit concerned that much of the heather did not look healthy. We wondered if this was due to the heather beetle plague earlier in the year, the strange weather conditions we’ve been having, or perhaps just the after-effects of a light burning to encourage new growth for the grouse?

As we got out of our cars the first thing we saw was a raptor flying over, which rapidly vanished, but we think was a peregrine. A few hundred yards later out on the moor another bird flew across, heading west over the forest, which we think was a ring-tail harrier. Not a bad start to the day! We also got wonderful views of a stonechat, two buzzards, a small party of 7 crossbills and a coal tit.

As we walked along the track Nicola spotted two very interesting green caterpillars, which we later identified as the Broom Moth (left below) and Beautiful Yellow Underwing moth (right below) which both feed on ling. We saw a Silver-Y moth, several Small Tortoiseshell and a few Peacock butterflies.

Other insects included a common carder bee. We saw one rabbit and a probable lizard (a heather and berry bush moved as we were looking at a butterfly, so a lizard was suspected).

We did not make a list of all the plants we saw but they included Cat’s Ear, Common Spotted Orchid seed head, Bilberry and its close relative Cowberry (this rather strangely still in flower although there were a few ripe red berries as well) Marsh Cudweed, Perforate St Johnswort, Eyebright and Yellow Pimpernel. We also spotted a Fly Agaric fungus – the classic red-with-white-spots toadstool.

Eyebright

Cowberry flowers Cowberries

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