The Office

We arrived at the brickworks at 9 a.m., but it was clear that the staff on the ground hadn't been notified of our visit, and it then transpired that the relevant paperwork couldn't be located, so we had to wait for about an hour while everything was sorted out before we could get on site. Very frustrating, particularly as the morning was beautiful.

Eventually we made it onto our survey areas, only to find that there'd been no grazing since our last visit, and it was impossible to find most of the marker posts for the quadrats. So we resorted to doing a more rapid survey technique, which at least meant that all the work could be completed in a single day - a wise precaution given that there was a severe weather warning for tomorrow. 

I spent most of my time staring at the ground, but occasionally I remembered to look up and admire the view, which stretches from Morecombe Bay to the Lake District. It's hard to believe that this heather moorland was part of a quarry less than twenty years ago. In the background you can see the current quarry and the white building where the buckets of  the last operational aerial ropeway in the UK are loaded with clay and taken down the hill to Claughton brickworks.