Country diary: A revelation among the ‘clints and grikes’ of my limestone seat | Mark Cocker

Wharfedale, Yorkshire: On the trail of a wood warbler, I find a suite of woodland plants rising up from a fascinating land formation – limestone pavement Grass Wood is a magnificent fragment of ancient woodland owned and exceptionally well managed by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It is home to some lovely plants, including lily of the valley and herb paris. What became my defining revelation about the place and, in truth, about this whole area was down to a wood warbler. It is among my favourite birds, so getting to see the individual singing just off the trail required me to enter the trees, rise up a short bank, and then sit for a long time on a rocky ledge. Slowly it dawned on me that the platform on which I rested, while carpeted in moss, was also incised into a tessellated pattern. From these narrow cracks in the limestone arose a suite of woodland plants. It was dense with ash seedlings, ferns and sedges, as well as linear thickets of dog’s mercury, but there – unmistakably where my hand rested – were strips of flowering herb paris. Though it wasn’t any scarce plant that left me gaping. It was a realisation that I was on what’s called limestone pavement, a compell