Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary
Wednesday,
21st February, 2007
WITH
MY HORBURY WALKS booklet successfully launched, I've set out to do another one.
I spent Monday and Tuesday checking out routes around Newmillerdam Country
Park, south-east of Wakefield. I'm more concerned with way-finding
and landmarks than natural history but while I had my digital camera around
my neck I've been taking a few close-ups of catkins, fungi and rocks.
Ear fungus (left) often grows on elder bushes and on other logs.
Candle-snuff fungus (right) also grows old stumps.
This
ironstone concretion (left) was in the sandstone on
a bridge across an old railway, now used as a walk and cycle-path. It's about
the size of a grapefruit.
We've walked around Newmillerdam lake hundreds of times but the five circular walks I've devised for my next booklet have given me a chance to see the Country Park in a wider context and connect it with other familiar places in the district.
There's a lot of history in this landscape and walking around for a couple
of days on footpaths, bridleways and old railway walks gives me an impression
of what the landscape might have been like in the past. Names like Applehaigh
Clough, Lawns Dike, Shroggs Hill Plantation and Gallows Hill conjure up pictures
of past landscapes.