Glen Maye 2

From a garlic scented glen to a country churchyard.

 

Tuesday 25th June, 2013 (part 2)

 

Before we reached the mouth of the little river that flows through Glen Maye we turned inland.   The path is quite close to the edge of a sheer drop into the river valley below.  There were some white burnet roses growing at the top of the cliff face and a bright yellow bush of broom (Cytisus scoparius).  The broom seems to have survived the late snow better than the other more common shrubby member of the pea family - gorse - possibly because it is more flexible.

 

I tried to find out the name of the river - thinking it might be the River Maye.  The maps didn't help so I resorted to the internet.   It appears to be generally known as the Glen Maye River although one site did refer to it as the Rushen River and it does flow through Glen Rushen before it reaches Glen Maye.

 

The path descended gradually until we reached the valley and passed one of the many old bits of mining archaeology that litter the Island in a rather picturesque way.

 

 

 

A little further on the others sat down at a picnic bench while I took a photo of the beeches.  Years ago we asked one of the forestry workers about two of these trees . . . the straggly one next to the pile of dead branches and the one to the right of the picnic bench.  We were told that they were types of Southern Hemisphere beeches.  The straggly one has tiny, beech-shaped leaves and the other has larger leaves also similar to the common beech but not identical.

 

 

 

We strolled along the shady path along the river bank.  The wild garlic which had flowered earlier in the year was dying back and the whole glen was pervaded by a slight scent of garlic given off by the decaying leaves.

 

 

 

Tim took this photo of the waterfall.  It has been dry recently and there was very little water falling.

 

 

 

I turned away from the waterfall and photographed this curtain of long ivy strands, which hung down and obscured the rock face on the other side of the river.

 

 

 

After that shady interlude in the glen, the walk got rather strenuous.  We climbed the steps from the waterfall up to the hotel and then endured the long, hot, steep climb up a tarred road until we reached the track down into Patrick.  I barely had enough energy to walk and it wasn't until we were half way down the track and I caught sight of these ox-eye daisies that I got my camera out again.

 

 

 

I love ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare).  We have them in the garden.  The original plants were given to me by one of our neighbours in Ballure Grove, where we rented a house for our first ten months on the Island.  I don't know what the little yellow dandelion-like flowers are - they just sneaked into the bottom of the photo.  They are most likely a type of hawksbeard or hawkweed.  I got a book out of the library once which said that there are about a thousand different varieties of yellow compositae - and I decided it was too complicated to bother.

 

 

 

Further down the road I noticed a wall brown butterfly (Lasiommata megera) - sunbathing on the stones.

 

 

 

While we were walking along the lane towards the Patrick Road we passed some people with a couple of dogs.  I missed our boys on the walk, but it did occur to me that there are benefits in dogless walks.  No smelly plastic bags and searching for the next doggy litter bin, and no worries about traffic . . . or sheep . . . or arguments with strange dogs.

 

We took a short cut through the Patrick churchyard.  Trevor noticed a bird flying out of the entrance porch and we went to investigate.  There was a rather fine mud nest up in the rafters and a note on the bench - asking visitors to the church to please leave the outer door open for the house martins and to keep the inner door closed.  I don't think they wanted the birds to move into the church.

 

 

 

Before returning to the cars, we wandered through the churchyard and read the inscriptions on some of the headstones of the graves.  In one corner there is a little fenced area containing the graves of seven Muslim Turkish internees who died in the nearby internment camp at Knockaloe during the Great War.

 

 

 

It was quite a contrast with parts of the churchyard with old Manx graves.   Around the church there are neat paths and mowed grass but other areas are beautifully wild.

 

 

Glen Maye 1

Not a fin in sight - but flowers and birds  galore!

 

Tuesday 25th June, 2013

 

Sunday's email from Dorothy said "How about a Tuesday start from the Raggatt. Trevor is hoping to see Sharks on the way to Glen Maye."  The weather forecast was good and this is one of our favourite walks - the only sad thing was that we had no little black Schipperke to keep us company.  Danny has developed Idiopathic or “Old Dog” Vestibular Disease, which has affected his balance.  His condition is improving but I doubt whether he will be able to cope with a long walk again. 

 

It was a warm morning and we had only walked a short distance before we needed to stop and take off a layer of clothes.  The route starts off along sheltered farm lanes which were overgrown with grasses.  The banks were sprinkled with white hogweed flowers and pink campion.  We weren't quite sure about the crop with the yellow flowers in one field but decided that it was most likely to be rape.  It was definitely a member of the crucifer family.

 

 

 

Looking down at the ground, I saw some pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea).  It is an interesting little plant - an immigrant from North America.  Nobody knows whether it got its common name from the appearance of its flowers or from the sweetish, slightly pineapply scent of the crushed flowers.  After reading about pineapple weeds, I discovered that the flowers are edible, although bitter, and the plants have various medicinal qualities.  I may be brave enough to eat one if I come across them again on our wanderings.

 

 

 

On the path up the back of Peel Hill we were accompanied by a number of small heath butterflies (Coenonympha pamphilus).  They are one of the smallest of the butterflies that we have on the Island - a similar size to the the common blue and holly blue - with a wingspan of just 30 to 37 mm.  They were rather active and hard to photograph and have an annoying tendency to rest with their wings upright instead of spread out - so it is difficult to photograph the upper side of their wings.  When we reached the point where our path met the path down from Corrin's Folly, I saw two mating small heaths in the long grass.  The photo shows them larger than life-size.

 

 

 

Then we walked over the ridge and looked eagerly for the basking sharks which had been seen in the vicinity recently.  The sea was anything but a surfer's paradise.  There was hardly a ripple to disturb the surface . . . and there was not a fin in sight.  The basking sharks often float just below the surface with just two tell-tale fins emerging from the water.  If you are knowledgeable about the species you can calculate the length of the shark from the distance between the dorsal and the tail fins.  Someone told me how to do it once, probably Trevor, but I have forgotten. (PS  I looked it up.  It isn't complicated - you just take the distance between the fins and double it!)

 

 

 

We turned south through a gate on to the the path leading to Glen Maye.  The path along the cliff tops was very overgrown with flowering grasses.  There were a few patches of white pignuts near the beginning of the path but I was more interested in the extraordinary variety of grasses which are really quite beautiful.  I could have spent hours examining them but I was already getting left behind the rest of the group.

 

 

 

I have a book about grasses, ferns, mosses and lichens but still find it almost impossible to tell one from another.  But I am fairly confident that the following photo is of  Holcus lanatus L.

usually known as Yorkshire Fog.  I had just assumed that the common name was derived from the usual meaning for fog - but apparently in North Country dialect "fog" means any coarse winter grass that grows after the hay has been cut.  It may have come from the Old Norse fogg, meaning a long, limp, damp grass.

 

 

 

I was hoping to see some pink thrift (Armeria maritima) on the walk.  The flowers on the first plants that we came across had already faded but the old "everlasting" flower heads looked quite pretty mixed with the blue of the sheep's bit (Jasione montana) and the pale pink English stonecrop (Sedum Anglicum).

 

 

 

Another feature along this stretch of cliffs was a number of large patches of hogweed, not the alien giant variety which we encountered last week, but its more benign native relative - the common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium).  I didn't feel that common hogweed deserved a whole photo just for itself, but the plant in the lower right corner was prepared to share with a view of the cliffs - looking back along the coast.

 

 

 

A little further on we passed some pretty patches of thrift which were still pink.  The taller reddish flowers growing with the thrift are common sorrel (Rumex acetosa).

 

 

 

More stonecrop and friends.  Stonecrop has a special significance for me.  I remember it from our first walk along these cliffs.  We took a bus to Glen Maye to view a house to let and walked back to Peel.  I never forgot the stonecrop even though I had no idea what it was called in that summer of 1990.

 

 

 

 

We were entertained by some large gulls, flying overhead and making an unusual noise.  They were greater black-backed gulls.  I don't know whether we were too close to their nesting site for comfort or whether they were trying to steal eggs or chicks from some other gull nests.  They are rather large and fearsome birds so we moved along quickly until Tim pointed out a little bird sitting on a sprig of gorse.  I took two photos but the camera managed to focus on a single sprig of grass between me and the bird.  So I got two photos of a sprig of grass with a blurred bird in the background . . . and then the bird flew off.  Luckily we came across an identical bird (probably the same one) a little further along.  This time I got a reasonable photo which confirmed my opinion that it was a male stonechat (Saxicola torquata) - even though he was singing a rather pleasant little song rather than their usual alarm call which has been described as sounding like two stones being tapped together. 

 

 

 

I would like to think that there might be a puffin living in this hole - but it is more likely to belong to a rabbit.

 

 

 

I was excited to see another cormorant nesting site.  This one was precariously perched on the cliff face high above the sea.  They were too far away to see clearly with the naked eye.  It was just the pale discolouration of the rock face that first caught my attention.  But with the magic of the zoom it is possible to pick out six or seven nests.

 

 

 

This photo, taken from a little further along the path, puts the nesting site into context.  Trevor says that it is possible to climb down to this sheltered little beach but there is no path so the birds are unlikely to be disturbed by humans.  The cormorant nests are on the white patch of rocks above the far end of the beach, towards the top right corner of the photo. 

 

You may be able to make out some pale blobs at the bottom of the photo.  They look rather like pebbles but they are gulls sleeping with their beaks tucked under their wings.  It was a very peaceful scene.

 

 

To be continued in part 2.

Ohio

A green and pleasant walk.

 

Wednesday 19th June, 2013.

 

After setting out from the camping ground at the Sulby Claddagh, I stopped to take a photo outside Ballamanaugh.  When I caught up with the others, they were staring in awe at an enormous weed the likes of which they had never seen before.  It was a giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) and it was just a baby giant.  My wild flower book says that they can grow over five metres tall with  flower heads over half a metre across.  They are not common on the Island and are only found in this area.  They are best avoided.  According to Wikipedia "Giant hogweed is a phototoxic plant. Its sap can cause phytophotodermatitis (severe skin inflammations) when the skin is exposed to sunlight or to ultraviolet rays. Initially, the skin colours red and starts itching. Then blisters form as it burns within 48 hours. They form black or purplish scars that can last several years. Hospitalisation may be necessary"!

 

 

 

As we climbed up the track through Ohio Plantation we had the unfamiliar experience of feeling too hot - even though we were walking in the shade.  It was a fairly steep climb and there wasn't a breath of wind in the shelter of the trees. 

 

Enough sunlight was filtering through the trees for the ferns to flourish.

 

 

 

Once we reached the top of the hill there was a refreshing breeze and we felt cooler although we were walking in the sun.   I was glad that Trevor hadn't chosen the walk to the Creg Bedn  - the huge block of quartz which you can see on the hillside in the background of the next photo.  If he had, our route would have been through this field of cattle.  A frightening prospect because there were some calves and protective mothers in the group. 

 

I met a man in Sky Hill plantation once who told me that the Creg Bedn was a fairy rock and was known to move.  I rather doubted that theory but there are some scientific instruments in the area which I have been told are there to measure earth tremors - so perhaps he was right after all.

 

 

 

We stopped at the edge of the fields and I took this photo of the gates which were half buried in snow last time we passed this way on the first day of April.

 

 

 

It was interesting to compare Wednesday's image with Tim's photo of our last visit, when only the tops of the gates were visible above the compacted snow drifts.

 

 

 

We walked along the track to the top of the Narradale Road but Trevor said that he wanted to return down the Kerrowmoar track.  There were two options - either to cut across through the heather to the junction between the Millennium Way and the Kerrowmoar track, or to walk south along the footpath which is a continuation of the Narradale Road until we reached the  Millennium Way.  I suggested the second route - it was longer but much easier, especially for Danny because his legs are not long enough to cope with tall heather.

 

While we were walking along through the heather moorland a curlew flew overhead and circled around.  And then we were entertained by some meadow pipits which flew overhead doing a slightly inferior tweety imitation of sky larks and then perched on the heather near the path and watched us until we were safely through their territory. 

 

There were some beautiful patches of cotton grass (Eriophorum augustifolium) flowering amongst the heather.

 

 

 

Here is a close-up.  Cotton grass is difficult to photograph because it tends to look blurred even if it is in perfect focus . . . and it dances around in the slightest breeze.

 

 

 

We stopped on the Millennium Way to watch a return visit from the curlew, and an aerial display by three ravens, and then a probable kestrel (which might have been a hen harrier).  Birds are difficult to identify positively when they are flying high and the sky is bright.  I tried to get a photograph but ended up with a few nice blue sky pictures - some of which had a minute dark blemish which was hard to recognise as a bird.  Recognising the species from that photographic evidence was out of the question.

 

As we approached the gate, where we needed to turn left onto the Kerrowmoar track, I remembered taking a photo from this spot in August 2011, of Tim and Timothy.  It was a clear day and the view and the heather were breathtaking.  I think the heather will be disappointing this year.  The tops of most of the taller plants have died back after being buried in snow and, although the growth is regenerating from the lower shoots, it will take a while before the plants have fully recovered.

 

20 June 2013

 

27 August 2011

 

 

Walking down towards the main road we enjoyed the view of the valley below us - between our track and the Narradale Road.  It was such a green and peaceful scene that it inspired an urge to mangle and combine quotes . . . a green and pleasant land . . .  mountain greenery . . . how green was my valley . . . where sheep may safely graze.  How about a green and pleasant mountain valley where sheep may safely graze?

 

 

 

And to the north, guarding the entrance to the valley from the northern plain, Cronk Sumark - the site of an ancient hill fort.  The terraces cut to support defensive barricades are clearly visible.

 

 

 

As we passed a derelict property we saw a bright pink rose scrambling through the overgrown hedge.  All the flowers were the same deep pink . . .  in this case the camera lied.  It interested me to see the difference between the flower in deep shade which is the true colour, the paler one in lighter shade and the harsh bleaching effect of the full sun on the lowest flower.

 

 

 

We had to walk for a short way along the main road before passing the Ginger Hall, a well-known local pub.  It has given its name to this bend in the TT course where we turned left to follow the back road to the Claddagh.  The origin of the name of the hotel is interesting.   According to Peter J. Hulme "Grangee (Mx) = (Farm) 'of the Grange - monastic grange in former times.  Ginger Hall - formerly Gringee Hall - derived from the above".  But the Isle of Man Pub & Brewery Guide has a different explanation.  They say " . . . the hotel is one of the oldest, pre dating 1818, and acquired its name from the original licensee who used to brew his own ginger beer."

 

 

 

 

PS (Friday morning).  I am worried about Danny.  We think he had a mild stroke during the night.  He was all right last night but was staggering and falling over when he woke this morning.  We haven't taken him to the vet yet.  I don't think the stress would do him any good.  He is better than he was earlier today and can walk around without falling now - but he is still a bit uncoordinated and is holding his head on one side - a classic symptom of stroke in a dog.  He ate his breakfast and even managed a short dog fight with Leo, who sensed that Danny was vulnerable and tried to pinch his food.  And they say that dogs are nicer than people!  Tim says Leo should have been a banker.

 

Glen Auldyn

Danny's turn.

 

Saturday 8th June, 2013

 

We chose a  longer local walk for Danny because I wanted to see whether my back could cope with a proper hike next week. 

 

We walked up the glen road to the end of the tarred road and then continued along the track by the river, through pheasant territory.  It was pleasantly cool under the trees but we knew the walk would get hotter as the morning progressed and we ran out of shade.

 

 

 

After passing the old shepherd's house we stopped to take photos of the little waterfall but it was a waste of time because there was hardly a trickle of water.  Danny gets very bored by photography and stood in the shade by the path - yawning.

 

Then we walked up towards the old quarry.  There were patches of bluebells everywhere.  They don't seem to have been bothered by the snow in March.  Apart from the flowers under the big trees in Ballaglass, the bluebells seem to be doing better than ever this year.  Perhaps we are reaping the benefit of last year's cool damp summer.

 

 

 

Before we reached the stream, I stopped to take a photo of the view down the glen behind us.

 

 

 

The railway sleepers, which were laid across the stream as an informal bridge last year, have gone - either washed away or deliberately moved - but it was easy to cross the stream as the water level was so low after the long spell of warm, dry weather.  I wanted to take photos of the pool at the old quarry.  It has silted up so much during the past twenty years that it can hardly be called a pool now.  It is really just two streams either side of a bank of slate chippings and debris which have washed down in floods over the years.

 

 

 

When we first moved to Glen Auldyn we were told that people used to swim in the pool.  Now there is hardly enough water for a little black dog to get wet.  I was too late to get a photo of Danny lying down in the water to cool off - but I did get one of him trying to shake himself dry.

 

 

 

We retraced our route back to the stream and stopped for a brief rest in the dense shade of a horse chestnut - the last shade until we reached the trees at the bottom of the Millennium Way.  Then we set out up the hillside aiming to reach the Millennium Way near the gate above Slieau Managh plantation.  We took a fairly direct route uphill and soon we were well above the chestnut trees down near the stream.

 

 

 

There were some inquisitive spectators watching us struggle up the hill.

 

 

 

As we approached the Millennium Way we stopped to watch some hen harriers.  First we saw a female circling overhead.  She was being unusually vocal - and then a male flew past.  They seemed to be having a conversation.  We saw a couple more, females I think, in the distance.  They seemed to be circling over Slieau Managh plantation - perhaps they nest there in the  heather and gorse between the blocks of trees.  As we walked down the Millennium Way we saw another male flying low over the edge of a field - apparently hunting.

 

It was hot and dusty on the footpath.  Some work had been done to repair the path since we were last up there - and a drainage ditch had been created along the east side of the path.  Now all they need to do is work out a way of keeping the scrambler bikes on the official path and off of the surrounding heather.  The view to the north was rather hazy after all the dry weather.  We need some rain to wash the air.

 

 

 

We didn't walk down as far as the main track up through Skyhill plantation but turned up a mountain bike path.

 

 

 

It was quite steep in places but worth the effort.  I was delighted to come across an obliging speckled wood butterfly.  All the butterflies we met earlier in the walk were flying fast and had refused to pose for photos.  They weren't a very exciting assortment - mainly unidentified small whites, a couple that I would guess were wall browns but I am not sure (they were too orange to be meadow browns), and another speckled wood.  And I nearly forgot the small heaths up on the hill.

 

 

 

Then we returned home  - after stopping briefly above the Ballagarrow fields to take the obligatory photo of Ramsey . . . still shining by the sea.