The final walk was in June – technically summer – but it wrapped up this year’s series of walks identifying plants and anything else natural we found nicely.
Sally and David took us on an extensive tour of the four fields they own just over the junction of Merricks Lane with Cold Harbour Road. They have owned these fields for three years now and keen to improve the grassland to hay meadow.
We walked across and through the fields identifying plants as we went. These were recorded as part of their annual wild flower survey and the list of plants grew as we waked round is at the end of this post.
A cursory glance over last year’s survey results ( carried out earlier in the year) and general observation seemed to suggest that there had been a healthy improvement in wild flower spread and diversity.
In addition to the survey we spotted a Large Skipper Butterfly, white tailed bumble Bee, Thick Thighed Beetle, Bracken (or Garden) Chafer, Damsel Fly and a Meadow Plant Bug. Conveniently the bumble bee was carrying out a personal hygiene routine and inspection of the small bracken frond long enough for me to take a rudimentary video using my phone.
The Swollen thighed beetle or thick legged flower beetle has huge green bulges on its hind legs. They feed on pollen and are excellent flower pollinators and are quite noticeable through their metallic green sheen. The Bracken or Garden Chafer can chew the bulbs and roots of garden plants but in this setting, a field with some bracken showing through, they can be helpful in keeping bracken down.
The Large skipper butterfly posed well for us to photograph. According to https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/large-skipper they “favour grassy areas, where foodplants grow in sheltered, often damp, situations and remain tall and uncut. It is found in a wide variety of habitats where there are shrubs, tall herbs, and grasses, for example; woodland rides and clearings, pastures, roadside verges, hedgerows, and wet heathland.
Our next spot, flitting conspicuously with flashes of blue from plant to plant was a Common Blue damselfly.
I spotted one developing anthill, teeming with industrious yellow meadow ants. A field of anthills can be quite a sight to see. They can be seen as an important contributor to biodiversity in grasslands. Their long-lived mounds gain volume with time and their underground influence extends as adjacent colonies coalesce. The mounds often support a different plant community from the surrounding grassland and plant species lacking elsewhere. More information at https://biologicalrecording.co.uk/2023/12/05/yellow-meadow-ants/
Sally and David have been creating bee nesting sites by simply drilling holes into dead log ends. Some of the holes were or had been inhabited, indicated by the ‘Frass’ which we learned from Gemma consists of debris, excrement, and insect body parts.
- Doves-Foot Cranesbill. Like Small flowered Cranesbill but with longer hairs on the stems
- Broad leaved Dock
- Common Sorrel
- Creeping Buttercup
- Lesser stitchwort
- Pignut
- Yarrow
- Mouse Ear
- Birds Foot Trefoil, Lesser and Greater
- Germander Speedwell
- Meadow Buttercup
- Red Clover
- Field Woodrush
- Herb Robert
- Marsh Bedstraw
- Creeping Thistle
- Hedge Woundwort
- Garlic Mustard
- Cats Ear
- Knapweed
- Self Heal
- Ribwort Plantain
- Ragwort
- Fools Watercress
- Water Figwort
- Colt’s foot
- Water Mint
- Crested Dogs Tail
- Ox Eyed Daisy
- Common Spotted Orchid
- St John’s Wort Imperforate
- Meadow Sweet
- Cowslip
- Barren Strawberry
- Meadow Vetchling
- Remote Sedge
Grasses:
- Cock’s foot
- Yorkshire Fog
- Meadow Grass
- Perennial Rye-Grass
- Meadow Fescue
- Hairy or Soft Brome
- Crested Dog’s Ear