As April’s Cowslips fade and go to seed, Creeping Buttercup takes it’s place in May, decorating each meadow with a glittering of yellow. Dandelions have also gone over replaced by their fluffy pom-pom seed heads, set to drift in the breeze.
Across the shorter turf, beautiful displays of the larger pea-flowered Birds Foot Trefoil and perfect circular rings of Horseshoe Vetch. Blue Chalk Milkwort and pink Red Clover create a mosaic of colour, which is enjoyed by numerous butterflies; Common Blue, Adonis Blue, and Small Heath. More Painted Lady sighted yesterday.
Stepping further west the sound of multiple Skylarks fills the blue sky. The song cascades down as the climbs higher and higher, with rapid wing beats in a vertical flight. The continuous repetitions of a Chiffchaff’s ‘chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff’ can be heard, along with a Greater Whitethroat from within the thicket of now leafy Blackthorn.
Ox-eye Daisy heads are beginning to ‘pop’, alongside some beautiful displays of Kidney Vetch already in flower. The dainty blue Pale Flax sway upon their spindly stems. Pretty in pink, Sainfoin flowers in upright racemes. Plenty of Hay Rattle and Beaked Hawk’s-beard, adding to display of yellow.
The field margins blossom with masses of flowering Hawthorn and Elderflower clusters beginning to show. Beneath them, the shaded fringes grow tall with Nettle, Wood Dock, Garlic Mustard, and the sticky Goosegrass. Melancholic Blackbird song appears to be heard throughout my walk.