Latest news with #NorthPennines
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Country diary: This hardy survivor is brightening up the moors
From high on the Allendale moors, I can see right to the Scottish border and the soft blue outline of the Cheviot Hills. Below me, the West Allen Valley holds deeper colours, the land green and bounded with stone walls or dotted with small woods. Shadows thrown by the early evening light pick out every feature: streams, cleughs, barns and farms, mining spoil and ruins – a record of the land. The wind is warm, buffeting the cottongrass that stretches across the boggy ground and along the roadside ditch. It's a boom year for this beautiful plant, perhaps due to the dry spring putting the plants under stress. A sedge rather than a grass, Eriophorum angustifolium flourishes in its harsh moorland environment, sending out underground rhizomes where few other plants will grow; a line of snow poles shows what the winters are like. The plant's ability to survive here gives it the alternative name of bog cotton. Today, the wind sets every fluffy seedhead in bobbing motion, dancing with light like the choppy scintillations of waves. The discreet greenish flowers could be easily missed. It's those downy cottonwool plumes that enable wind dispersal that have been used to stuff pillows and make candle wicks, and dress wounds during the first world war. Plug plants of cottongrass are being planted by the North Pennines National Landscape to restore degraded blanket bog. Binding the surface of the peat together with their wandering roots, they prevent further erosion. In other benefits, the female black grouse that I occasionally see up here feed on the flower heads, giving them a source of protein and energy before laying eggs in spring. The larvae of large heath butterflies feed on a similar species, the hare's tail cottongrass Eriophorum vaginatum. For a brief time, the moor is transformed in white and I come up here to revel in the spectacle and feel the peace. Swallows swoop to pick up insects off the road. A hare lopes through the tussocks as a lark delivers a stream of notes above. Then a curlew lifts off, beats its wings before gliding, its ecstatic bubbling song ending in a drawn-out plaintive note. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
15-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Thousands of trees planted in Pennines Forest project
Almost 20,000 trees and shrubs have been planted in efforts to improve woodland in the North Pennines. North Pennines National Landscape (NPNL) said the three-year project involved working with about 120 landowners to identify 761 acres (308 hectares) as suitable for project focused on small woodlands and low-density wood pasture, with scrub and scattered canopy trees to work alongside farming systems, NPNL said the North Pennines was "one of the least wooded areas of England" and the initiative looked to "bridge the gap" between the existing Great Northumberland National Forest and the Northern Forest. The North Pennines covers much of the west of County Durham together with parts of Northumberland and Cumbria, according to Durham Landscapes. The NPNL said it worked with 37 landowners to secure funding for tree planting spanning 128 acres (52 hectares). NPNL advised the landowners to plant different species of native trees, including aspen, wild cherry and crab apple, and shrub such as group said it also identified areas where tree planting would have the least negative effect on wading bird populations, which rely on open landscapes. NPNL's Sarah Tooze said: "The project focused on the kinds of tree cover - small scale woodlands and low-density wood pasture with scrub and scattered canopy trees - which work alongside nature friendly farming systems and will improve the landscape for biodiversity and other public goods." Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
