Upper Park Wood

Sunday, 15th May 2005

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Upper Park WoodHolly has small white flowers this month, oak is coming into leaf, gorse is in flower and I'm being eaten by midges as I stand here, drawing on this buttercup-covered slope.

From the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Upper Park Wood reserve near Honley there are views over Holmfirth. For us this is something of a hidden valley because we're usually heading out either owl boxHolmfirth or Huddersfield way so we miss the valley that connects the two towns. It looks like appealing countryside to explore; it's got steeper hills and deeper valleys than the gentler landscape around us, 10 miles or so to the north east, but it's still green and wooded, unlike the bleaker-looking moor tops which dominate the skyline as many miles to the west.

With its open slopes of unimproved acidic grassland and its central bluebell wood following a gully, this is a small but attractive reserve. There's a programme of management in place to improve the habitat still further, with planting of gorse and shrubs on the slopes on either side of the wood. We notice an owl box attached to the branch of an oak tree.


sorrel

Wood near HonleyA Taste of Sorrel

After reading about delicious sorrel soup yesterday, I can't resist tasting a leaf of sorrel, which is now in pink flower. I'm expecting it to be peppery and astringent, like rocket, but to my surprise it's sweet, more like basil. Next Page

Related Link

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk

 

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