The Churnet Valley Railway's supporting charity - THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE RAILWAY COMPANY (1978) LTD - is currently running an appeal to pay for the purchase and transport of three Mark 1 Coaches which are to be restored for use on the expansion of services to Leek.
The bluebells are looking lovely under the trees at the moment, with the white flowers of stitchwort often seen dotted in-between.
The showy blackthorn are in full flower at the moment promising a good crop of sloes later in the year!
And the tiny bilberry flowers are covering bushes all over the place.
The delicate dog violets are carpeting banks at the moment. They're a good ancient woodland indicator as well as crucial food source for several threatened fritillary butterfly species.
Beautiful carpets of wood anemones in Cotton Dell are good indicators of an ancient woodland site. They spread only about 6 feet in a hundred years so these patches have been around for a long time!
Flowers are covering some gorse bushes at the moment making them glow in the sunshine. I saw these ones in the valley along the river from East Wall Farm near Oakamoor.
It's feeling more like winter here at Coombes Valley with the arrival of fieldfare, redwing and brambling.
This year’s initial moth traps at Coombes valley are far from sparse – containing a selection of moths, crane flies, and beetles.
Thank you to all the people who came along over the last two days to pull Balsam in Diimmingsdale. We have tackled areas on the paths above Red Road and the Ramblers and around the chained oak.
Last week I was with the Churnet Valley volunteer gang at a new location near Grindon helping a local farmer control some scrub. The scrub has been threatening to take over some rare species rich limestone grassland, so the landowner has a proportion of the small blackthorn bushes down.
