Wharfe Wood

An interesting voluntary project today - a joint meeting between the BMC & Natural England to do a site survey at Oxenber Crag to see if it is viable to clean flora from this site within an SSSI to return it to a climbable state.
I was responsible for the original proposal so today with a BMC Access Officer and the Natural England Officer we attended site & I listed my reasons, methodology and credentials. As I spent a while pointing out the correct plants and key identifiers to the NE chap and explained that I've done several courses and been assessed on this sort of stuff he gradually relaxed and came on board. Really we'll remove little more than Ash saplings, Grass, Ivy, Hawthorn & some Sycamore - we'll probably improve the habitat for a lot of the rarer plants that will be about later in the year. Now we just need to get the land owning Estate on board - but as we'll also be making the crag a lot lot safer I think they'll be happy to take up the offer of free labour.

Up on top of the crag where a lot of the interesting plants are just coming out it was gusting close to 50mph - so we didn't linger and the couple of shots I tried of the first Orchids (Spotted & Purples)  I've seen this year were far too blurry. Down in the woods it was calmer - and whilst the bluebells on the Western slopes were nice - I was more taken by the carpet of wild primroses to the East - this pic just doesn't do it justice - it was yellow everywhere.