Wildlife and habitats

Bleak, treeless and often shrouded in low cloud, blanket bog can seem a desolate, empty habitat. Crouch down, though, and you'll find yourself in a forest of mosses and dwarf shrubs. In summer, the pools rattle with glittering dragonfly wings and the hilltops echo to  the curlew's musical bubbling, white cottongrass bobs in the wind. Field voles burrow through the dense vegetation, seeking cover from short-eared owls. A skylark soars, trilling, parachuting back to the ground like a musical shuttlecock.

The shallow, well-drained soils that have accrued between our limestone pavements are no less beautiful than the pavements themselves. Blue moor grass and Yorkshire's national flower, the bird's-eye primrose, can be found alongside English sandwort - a flower that grows only on Ingleborough. Grazing this habitat with cattle helps to maintain a rich and diverse range of flora.

Slabs of smooth grey rock, incised with deep fissures and patterned with swirling hollows and runnels sculpted by thousands of years of rainwater, form an unlikely wildlife habitat. Down in those fissures, ferns and wildflowers shelter below the reach of hungry mouths. As we change the grazing regime, shrubs and trees can take root and the pavement is blossoming with colour and life. Wild Ingleborough has some of the most astonishing limestone pavement in the world.

Wood pasture, although managed through grazing, recreates how the landscape might have looked when bison and aurochs roamed prehistoric Yorkshire. Single trees and small groves are spread out across species-rich grassland. The wildflowers and trees provide cover and food for invertebrates, nesting sites and winter food for birds. The non-selective grazing behaviour of cattle creates varying height within the vegetation and their dung helps to spread seed and support invertebrates.