Blue Tits and Great Tits were in abundance flying between an Ash tree and a Sycamore Tree, I watched them flying and playing between the branches for a few minutes. A strange sight as I looked over the fields a bright red head which I then realised to be a male Pheasant. Sparrows called from within an Ivy-covered electricity pole and then the sound of the Pheasant rang out. Cow Parsley fills the edges of a footpath while the ground is covered in white speckles from the Blackthorn Blossom.
A Chaffinch sang from very close by to me and a Blackbird pecked around the ground. In my recent Tor Grass survey, I had lovely patches of Horseshoe-Vetch, Black Medick, Yellow Rattle and Birds-foot Trefoil, all signs that the Tor Grass management plan is working. Also seen on the survey were an abundance of Common Spotted Orchids now coming out in full bloom.
With the recent rain and warm days everything has exploded with life, the meadows are now nearly waist height and filled with a beautiful array of colours; pinks, yellow, blue, greens, purples, white and orange all add to the multi-coloured fields. As I watched a grey head popped up, it was a Jackdaw and then the red head of a Pheasant, both covered by the long grasses.
Above Skylarks sang across all the meadows, then one descended deep into the grass. Sainfoin seems to be dominant in Centenary Meadow, I remember patches in previous years but this year there seems to be large swathes of it, a beautiful colour to the mix.
As I searched for the Herefords on the downs, I found large patches of Eye-bright, Horseshoe Vetch and Chalk Milkwort all growing in this limestone grassland habitat. I spotted a Chalkhill Blue Butterfly clinging to a grass stem and as I followed the sound of a Stonechat a Green-Woodpecker flew across the gully and a group of Linnets flew over. Returning to the centre I walked past an Elder Tree, its flowers now a beautiful sweet smell which filled my lungs as I breathed it in.