Flora and Fauna
The flora and fauna of the lands around Hartforth offer species rarely seen by non-Yorkish people. Here are a sampling of God's natural gifts to the area - Lancashire which is east of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and North Yorkshire, which is east of the national park.
Lancastrian Whitebeam (Sorbus lancastriensis)
is entirely confined to the limestones around Morecambe Bay.
BIRD’S-EYE PRIMROSE (Primula farinosa)
is now found only in the counties of Lancashire, Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Durham.
Rock Sea-lavender (Limonium britannicum)
Western coastlines of the British Isles support eight species of rock sea-lavender that are found growing wild nowhere else in the world. One of these endemic species is Limonium britannicum.
Lady's-slipper Orchid (Cypripedium calceolus)
This is a showy and attractive orchid up to 30 cm tall. The stem arises from an underground rhizome and carries three or four leaves and most usually one flower. These are up to 6 cm across, and appear in May/June. The flower comprises a central yellow slipper-shaped lip surrounded by five maroon petals.
The yellow lip attracts small bees, which once inside the ‘slipper’ cannot escape except through narrow openings at the flower's centre. As the insect escapes the flower is pollinated. The flower also passes on pollen of its own to the bee to transfer to the next lady’s-slipper orchid it visits. The plant takes in excess of ten years to grow to maturity.
This orchid has never been widespread in the UK being confined mainly to limestone areas in northern England. It was the target of collectors in the nineteenth century and consequently has become extremely rare in the UK. Only a few plants have survived in garden conditions and only one definite natural site is known in the country. This is a heavily guarded and secret location in Yorkshire.
The first written record of the plant in England (from 1640) was from Helks Wood near Ingleton, but by 1796 it had been cleared from this site by collectors. Accounts from around this time state that bunches of slipper-orchids were sold from stalls at Settle market. By the end of the 1880s the plant was already very rare throughout its former range.
Purple Ramping-fumitory (Fumaria pupurea)
Purple ramping-fumitory was first recognised as a species separate from other fumitories in 1902. So far, it has not been found outside the British Isles. Its main strongholds in the UK are Cornwall and western Lancashire.
Sea Bindweed (Calystegia soldanella)
This species is found mainly on coastal shingle, sand dunes and above the strand line on sand and shingle beaches, often with Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum).
Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)
Lapwing is still a widespread breeding bird in the county. It is likely that the Lancashire population is considerably larger than that in arable-dominated counties in the South and East of England.
Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus)
The reed bunting is a small songbird, a little larger than a sparrow. The species is widely distributed as a breeding bird throughout North West England apart from the high Pennines. It seems to be most frequent in north Merseyside, Greater Manchester, south western Lancashire and around Barrow-in-Furness. It is also found throughout Cheshire
Twite (Carduelis flavirostris)
Lancashire and Greater Manchester account for about 20-25% of the English breeding population.
Yellow Wagtail
The yellow wagtail nests in arable land and used to nest in the hay meadows of the Yorkshire Dales, but we no longer have hay, it’s all changed to silage and this is cropped too early for them.
Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)
Once ubiquitous in the UK, the red squirrel is now absent from most of southern and central England. Populations remain in Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cumbria, Northumberland, parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, North Wales, Thetford Forest in Norfolk, the Isle of Wight and three small islands off the Dorset coast
Water Vole (Arvicola terrestris)
High Brown Fritillary (Argynnis adippe)
In Britain the species has suffered a contraction in range of 94% over the past fifty years and is now extinct from most of the country. It has three main strongholds – the Morecambe Bay region, Exmoor and Dartmoor, and the Malvern Hills.
North West England is the national stronghold but even here it is rare (in only 2% of recorded tetrads). The species occurs in suitable habitat in the limestone hills of the Morecambe Bay region, and in adjacent bracken rich-habitats in North Lancashire and South Cumbria. Generally, these populations are regarded as stable at present.
Large Heath Butterfly (Coenonympha tullia)
The species was formerly widespread but many colonies have been lost in the south of its range. The current strongholds are in Northumberland, Cumbria, Northern Ireland and north and west Scotland.
Northern Brown Argus (Aricia artaxerxes)
In Britain it occurs as two sub-species that are endemic to this country - Aricia artaxerxes artaxerxes and Aricia artaxerxes salmacis. The former occurs in Scotland, the latter is restricted to northern England.
Wall Mason Bee (Osmia parietina)
The wall mason bee is found sporadically in western and northern Britain, from west Wales northwards to west and central Scotland.