Totally gorgeous and wonderful walk in Teesdale with Fiona today . We walked between Low Force and High Force and saw everything we wanted to see and more . The Northern Marsh Orchid , lovely surprises like Lapwing fledglings pondering around very carefully , all downy and flightless and very vunerable . Very cute as well. Fiona saw loads of the plants she was into and it was a great walk . We took just over 3 hours to walk around three miles and the intensive look at the birds and plants was wonderful. We are going up Cronkley Scar just a couple of miles further up next week  because Fiona is getting fitter and there are lots of plants and birds we want to see up there as well.  I identified my first Stonechat today , well when I got back home and it is a gorgeous bird.  Some brilliant ferns unfurling their , err, ferns and I'm going to make sure I can identify them all next time !