A harebell grapples with a freeloading furrow bee

Daddry Shield, Weardale The architecture of the flower choreographs the insects' movements, making pollination likely

The footpath to St John's Chapel, through hay meadows long since cut, follows the south bank of the Wear. Today the water was shallow and clear. But after heavy rain in the upper dale the river becomes a torrent and it has eroded small terraces so stony and steep they are never cut at hay time. These places are refuges for a late-summer flora of Campanula rotundifolia, harebells as blue as the sky overhead.

It's a place to sit among the flowers on an afternoon when summer seems to be slipping past too quickly.