Well, it's been a minute, hasn't it? I meant to do this back in 2020 but there was <checks notes> a global pandemic and then after that, things just got in the way. Anyways, here is the final seasonal blog post, which you could read while you listen to the accompanying bogcast of ambient sounds.

Fabulously, I managed to catch some birdsong this time out. In the interests of full disclosure, I've had to tweak the levels on the bogcast so that you can hear some of it. It was definitely there and I definitely heard it but it was not that easy to capture on my 'phone.

As I approach the start of the transect, I find a new bog pool just above the track. I say "new" but really, I mean new to me. Back in February, I learned a new route around the track-fence, so this pool may have been here a while. It's already starting to fill up with Sphagnum cuspidatum; this is a pioneer species that colonises new pools so there's a fair chance this pool is reasonably recent.

As I start to head up the transect, I pause to take a look back down the fence line. Although the picture makes things look rather cloudy, it's sunny and warm and the air is thrumming with buzzing insects and birdsong. On the other side of the track from the transect, a skylark rises into the sky and parachutes back down as its rippling, liquid song rings out over the moor.

The ground is wet beneath my feet - not surprising given the winter and spring we've had. Nonetheless, I find a small hummock of Sphagnum (possibly) capillifolium that is drying out, several strands bleaching in the sun.

I need not have worried, though - restoration efforts since I was last here have been effective. I soon come to what was once an empty gully (an erosion) channel lined with bare peat and constantly eroding further down into the bog. Timber sediment traps further along that gully are now slowing the flow of water to the extent that S. cuspidatum and cottongrass are beginning to clog it up.

Further up, I find another former gully gradually turning back into functioning blanket bog. This gully once carved down into the peat under the fence from the bog next door. Obviously that's a very human expression of what's happening; bogs do not acknowledge land registry boundaries, which is why we're lucky so many landowners feel the same as we do about bog restoration.

A series of timber dams have once more slowed the flow to the extent that vegetation can re-establish itself; we haven't planted any of this, its just nature doing its thing once the pressure is off. Running uphill from this gully is another gully that's also been blocked. One of the key reasons our surveys are so thorough is so that we can understand where and how water is moving around the landscape. This means that we can accurately target our interventions where they'll be most effective and provide the best value for money.

Nestled down amid the sphagnum surrounding the newly filling gully, I find the tiny rhubarbesque (definitely a word) leaf of a cloudberry. Way too early in the season for any fruit (which I have still yet to encounter in the wild) but I am happy to see it.

At the top of the transect, I stop, sit down and settle in place to record some audio for the 2024 Great Yorkshire Show (if you're going to the GYS, come hang - we'll be in the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust tent). Away over towards Yockenthwaite Moor, a curlew's haunting, bubbling song billows towards me across the peat, mournful but somehow also joyous. The single note of a golden plover cycles round and round and round, mournful but also actually just mournful - no oxymoronic adjectives for you, Pluvialis apricaria! As I simmer in the drowsy heat, another skylark - one of the sounds of upland spring - is singing. Two black-headed gulls screech at each just to ensure I do not lose myself in reverie.

Here, at the top of the moor, I am surrounded by pools. This is great - if we're holding water right at the summit then peat below must be gradually returning to its soggy, boggy best. Though not as degraded as some of the sites on which we work, the change I have seen here over the past 6 years is extraordinary. In particular, the Nature for Climate funding, administered by Natural England, has really helped to feel like we're making a difference.

I spend 20 minutes recording ambient peatland noise and then squelch back down to the track and listen to yet another skylark. What a lovely afternoon.