I’m standing in a bog surrounded by plantation and grouse moor. It is overlooked in more ways than I want to know by the dystopian hulk of the RAF Fylingdales radar station. But my guide is Brian Walker, a retired maverick forester, avid naturalist and spinner of excellent tales, so the invitation to visit was irresistible.
In 1974, Brian’s friend and mentor, the botanist Margaret Atherden, persuaded the Forestry Commission not to plant this area, known as May Moss. Now I’m looking at the result. With each squelching step, the hummocky expanse of brown, gold and grey resolves into ling and cross-leaved heath, bog cotton and native cranberry still bearing last year’s fruit. Beneath them are the bright green, claret and crimson colours of sphagnum mosses and, delightfully, the candy pink flowers of bog rosemary, which, along with cloudberry, occurs nowhere else on the North York Moors.
