A small group (Clare Shaw, Kerry Milligan, Paul Ross, Judith Allinson, David Shaw) met at a parking layby on Leck Fell, just before Leck Fell House. We then trekked down the fell towards the beck, through deep heather and bracken, aiming for the less steep access point upstream of Ease Gill Kirk. The stream bed was totally dry, as the area is limestone and full of pot holes and sink holes, so the water drains away for long stretches.
In the overhand of a bank above the beck, Paul found a lovely patch of very fertile Seligeria recurvata, which we all admired. Rocks in and by the beck had Barbilophozia barbata and Barbilophozia atlantica with its distinctive red gemmae. A Grimmia growing on limestone, which seemed a candidate for G. dissimulata, turned out to be G. trichophylla.
We descended the beck into Ease Gill Kirk. Wet rock faces had abundant Chiloscyphus polyanthos, while a large boulder in the beck had Encalypta vulgaris (sadly without capsules) and a reddish Mnium marginatum.
A rock face and steep slope above the beck just upstream of Ease Gill Kirk had Marchesinia Mackai and Orthothecium intricatum, with Gymnostomum aeruginosum and Trichostomum crispulum and T. brachydontium at the base.
Judith and I left after lunch for the long-seeming trek back to the car across the difficult ground, but now with a steep uphill gradient to contend with.
After lunch a few more species were added to the list, including Dicranella rufescens and Metzgeria pubescens, adding up to a very respectable 98 species altogether.
Text: Clare Shaw