A wonderful summer morning, with lacy wisps of cloud adrift in a china blue sky.
A WSW breeze whispers through the meadows, where many of the dry grass stems are adorned with the golden chrysalises of 6-Spot Burnet Moths, which will start to hatch soon into lovely crimson and black adults.
Plenty of butterflies on the wing this morning, with Marbled Whites by far the most numerous, fluttering above the meadows in their hundreds. As I walk down the side of Centenary Meadow, dozens of Small Blues rise up from the grass, with Small Heaths, Large and Small Skippers, Red Admiral and Large White also seen this morning.
A large, orange and black Dark Green Fritillary glides across the Gully, looking magnificent in the morning sunshine.
Rounding the corner of the Small Copse, a squadron of 9 Swallows are hunting beneath the sheltered canopy – zooming past me at shoulder height as they hoover up insects.
The meadows are starting to turn to shades of bronze and gold. Among the grasses, the round seeds of Pale Flax bob in the breeze, while below them, Yellow Rattle is starting to demonstrate the reason for it’s name as the large round seeds are shaken in their pods.
Ragwort is also starting to bloom, with several plants carrying the lovely, stripy yellow and black caterpillars of Cinnabar Moths (local naturalist Rees Cox always referred to them as ‘worms in a rugby shirt’! This much maligned flower, if eaten in very large quantities can be harmful to cattle and sheep, but nonetheless provides a valuable nectar source for pollinators and is the only thing Cinnabar Moth caterpillars can eat.
Plenty of other flowers to enjoy, including spikes of yellow Agrimony, pink Pyramidal Orchids, pink-tinged Wild Carrot, tall yellow Wild Parsnip, blue Selfheal and lots of tall yellow Dyers Greenweed.
Near the Observation Point, our Kestrel family are growing fast, with a pair of siblings huddled together on a rocky crag, as one of the parents keeps an eye on them from further along. A few Guillemots bob on the water, with Fulmar, Shag, Great Black-backed Gull and Herring Gull on the wing