As the summer turns, each week transforms the Park again, with new sights, sounds and smells!
The meadows sparkle with dew, beneath a sky of patchy cloud and perfect blue. If you’ve never tried (and your knees are up to it!), take a look at the meadows from ground level – it really transforms them into a jungle! Towering Ox-eye Daisies, Corky-fruited Water Dropwort, Knapweed and grasses like Upright Brome, Tall Fescue and Cocksfoot form a high canopy, swaying gently in the breeze.
In the ‘shrub layer’, Pyramidal, Common Spotted and Bee Orchids jostle for space with the semi-parasitic Yellow Rattle and the true parasite Common Broomrape, dense stands of pink Sainfoin, blue Selfheal, honey-scented Lady’s Bedstraw and white Hedge Bedstraw. Here and there, spikes of yellow Agrimony stick up like spears through the surrounding plants along with thousands of blossoms of the yellow flowered Rough Hawkbit and it’s relative Goatsbeard.
A wonderful variety of ‘peas’ are in bloom, from yellow Dyer’s Greenweed Kidney Vetch, Meadow Vetchling and Birdsfoot Trefoil, to purple Common Vetch and the lovely, jewel-like pink flowers of Grass Vetchling.
The ‘undergrowth’ includes the intricate flowers of Eyebright, Hop Trefoil, Black Medick, Cut-leaved Cransesbill and Fairy Flax, to name just a few!
Many stems are now adorned with the golden chrysalises of Six-spot Burnet Moths, with butterflies fluttering above the grasses including Meadow Browns, Marbled Whites, Small Heaths and hundreds of Small Blues.
Swallows swoop low – their tail streamers almost brushing the grasses, as Skylarks pour their lovely, liquid song into the air high overhead.
In the cool shade of the hedgerows, the pink flowers of Woundwort can be seen, along with the yellow and purple flowers of Woody Nightshade, among the huge, furry leaves of Burdock and Spear and Woolly Thistles.
The glossy, heart shaped leaves of Bryony are draped across Hawthorn and Blackthorn, along with other climbers including Old Man’s Beard, Honeysuckle and Cleavers. Around them, the white flowers of Elder are just starting to turn, though still smelling delicious!