A glorious summer morning – as I walk up the side of Long Meadow on the way to work, I am an suddenly enveloped in a blizzard of butterflies, as Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns and Marbled Whites whirl drunkenly above the Bramble flowers.
The meadow is filled with a roaring chorus of Field and Meadow Grasshoppers, with a magnificent Great Green Bush Cricket – the second biggest insect in the country, perched beneath a Bramble stem.
All around the Park, the hedgerows are filled with colour and variety. Hawthorn berries are a brilliant crimson, with the smaller, shiny berries of Wayfaring Tree tinged from pale green to bright scarlet. Woodbine (or Old Man’s Beard) is covered with creamy flowers, the nectar attracting Buff-tailed Bumble Bees and lots of butterflies, while on Blackthorn, Sloes are starting to ripen to shades of dusky purple.
On the downs, shiny golden Carline Thistles are beginning to flower – like tiny, intricate ‘art deco’ sculptures, with ‘Picnic’ Thistle, Field Scabious, Common Restharrow, Lady’s Bedstraw and Wild Thyme all in bloom on the short turf as a Bloody-nose Beetle plods mechanically across the sward.
A Roe Deer grazes a sheltered glade in the Gully, glancing across at me, before continuing breakfast.
In the longer grass, seas of white Wild Carrot bob in the gentle breeze alongside yellow-flowered Wild Parsnip. Swallows skim the top of the grass as they hoover insects from the warm air, with the screeching of Swifts heard above the back meadows.
A Kestrel hangs in the air above the Gully, with a Peregrine Falcon perched below the Observation Point.
Our bird-ringing studies continue this morning, with around 50 birds ringed, recorded and released. The highlights this morning included a Pied Flycatcher, Garden Warblers, Whitethroats and Sedge Warblers (all signs that birds are starting to prepare for their long journey south).
A nice moth trap last night, with a handsome pink and green Elephant Hawkmoth, a Poplar Hawkmoth, Dark Arches, Heart and Dart and Common Quaker among the species recorded.