Lancashire Wildlife Blogs

I always look forward to going to The Beacon at  first light. The view is never the same and is quite often wonderful.

If, overnight, a global apocalypse had befallen the world causing a massive rise in sea levels – it might have looked like the  scene that  greeted me.  An ocean of mist  had engulfed  a huge area - all the  way to the horizon.  South Lancashire had been completely flooded.

I watched the developing mistscape, changing minute by minute as the sun rose. The colours were subtly altering – starting off with  rosy hues then becoming sepia.

When the lightshow had played itself out I made my way to the darkly wooded, North West corner of the patch. On my way I passed the flooded former quarry.

This seems to be exactly the kind of  place  Donald Pleasence was  talking  about in The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water,  the famous public information film of the seventies. TV Talking Heads seem to be forever reminiscing about how this film scarred their childhoods (along with the Singing Ringing Tree), making them water-phobic. Well it’s clearly had this effect on me – I find the place borderline terrifying.

As I’d hoped, there was a good show of fungi. Amongst the toadstools I found, was The Deceiver (Laccaria laccata) – so named because  of its variable size, shape and colour -  depending on age, and also on weather.  The widely spaced gills interspersed with smaller gills is a  good identification feature.

As well as the fungi, this dark, damp part of the patch has a good range of mosses and liverworts. These often unregarded plants come in a bewildering variety of similar species, but are nonetheless fascinating.

I was kneeling down, photographing a liverwort, when a loud, nearby sound shot me to my feet. A bark crossed with a shout, with a bit of scream thrown in for good measure.

My brain instantly recognised it a Roe Deer, but even so I couldn't help from reacting with a microsecond of ‘fight or flight’ (I can't see myself fighting a  Roe  Deer in the near to medium term).

It always amazes me  when I see a Roe then compare it to the sound it makes. How can such a cute animal sound like the  Hell Hound from Hades?