On my journey in I counted a score of House Martins on the wires at Greyseed Farm, but despite their circling the entre yesterday I saw none at the park. However, there were increasing number of Whitethroats and Robins suggesting a beginning of the migration accumulation. One Skylark was heard over the Meadows and likewise a Green Woodpecker was heard calling from the Upper Gully. About the gully Gorse a pair of male Stonechats were verbally sparring! A Carrion Crown took off from the ground with what could only have been a snail in its beak.
Whilst a few Meadow Browns were seen the dominant butterfly species was the Gatekeepers, although some are showing ragged wing tips. Marble Whites and Skippers appear upon the gully slopes along with Skippers and an Adonis Blue of the second brood. My last butterfly was a Red Admiral near weather station!
I rescued a Field Grasshopper from a spider’s web, which is producing short chirps from its pots as I write!
The quantity of fruits are increasing and ripening to benefit the migrants. Bittersweet, Cotoneaster, Dog Rose began to follow Elder and Blackberry with the latter two having ripe fruits in places. Fungi had sprout from dry cow pats with the shaggy surface of a developing white specimen possibly to be a Shaggy Ink cap another white stem with Yellow cap and gills specimen has yet to be identified by myself!
Greater Plantain, with its broadleaves, showed flowers spikes in Saxon Fields “Sycamore Corner”. I had to look up the unsurprisingly named Dwarf (or Stemless) Thistle which hugged the gully slopes and showed delicate pinky hair like flower petals. It looked to be a great day and clearly the three canoeists heading west were taking full advance of the weather.