Why I love the Ragpits!

If I ever ask Bug Mad Girl where she would like to go, her reply is always the Ragpits at Aston Clinton. After a visit this morning I asked her to write a blog post about what she loves so much about it ....

The Ragpits are full of nature to discover and we always see something cool when we go! Probably my favourite thing we do when we're there is check under the corrugated sheets that are dotted around the site. If we're lucky we see slowworms and occasionally mice underneath them. Today we saw two small slowworms and one huge one that was very cute! We also saw a mouse but it was too fast for mum to get a photo.

 

 

There are always lots of butterflies and other insects at the Ragpits. Today we saw several common blues one of which sat on my finger, a lovely bright small copper and two speckled woods.

We also saw a silver y, a type of day flying moth, a great big dragonfly and lots of bees and hoverflies.

Silver y moth

I love running up and down the paths as they're quite steep and when you get to the top of a slope you get a really good view, then you can run down the other side again. I also like to explore through the wooded area around the edge and climb on the logs and trees.

While I was there today I found a big bracket fungus, some lovely shiny red berries and a thistle that had exploded! Feels like Autumn all of a sudden!

 

 

 

 

There are always lots of wildflowers to see and even when all the orchids have finished flowering there's something pretty to look at.

Thousands of orchids have gone to seed

Today we saw lots of tiny white eyebright and some purple gentian that mum thinks is autumn gentian as it's not as big as the chiltern gentian.

Eyebright

Autumn gentian

Autumn gentian

When we went through to the meadow there were sheep grazing the land and there was lots of sheep poo! They're there to keep the grass and plants low so the orchids have a chance to grow in the spring.

I quite often find bones in the woods or on the slopes. I didn't see any today until we came across a pigeon that had been eaten. It must have been quite recent as there were bits of flesh hanging out and it had wasps and flies on it!

Somebody's lunch



So that's why I love the Ragpits. Every time we go we find something new and exciting and always have a lot of fun (and we usually see slowworms which are really cool).