It was such a beautiful sunny day today, that I made the most of it and took Rosie for a walk around Brush Hill this morning. First thing we stumbled across, in the shade of the woods, were several White Helleborines in flower. I know I've posted about quite a lot of them recently, but these were special because they were "up the hill" in our local woods. It was very exciting to find them there!
We walked out from the trees onto the chalk grassland and it took my breath away. I couldn't believe how alive it felt and how much had changed since we were last there a couple of weeks ago. The slopes were covered in flowering grasses, buttercups, ox-eye daisies, fuzzy hoary plantain and speedwell. I even found a few scabious in flower. It was really lovely.
Common blue butterflies were flittering around everywhere and literally hundreds of garden chafers were buzzing around the flowers. I saw cardinal beetles, crane flies, lots of bees and I could hear, but not see, the chirping grasshoppers. Everything seemed to be loving a bit of sunshine!
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| Common blue |
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| Garden chafer |
We disturbed a green woodpecker on the path ahead of us and it flew off low across the slope, with its distinctive dipping flight. Then we walked back through a track made through a large patch of stinging nettles. We disturbed a large group of insects that swarmed around my head before settling back together on a group of leaves. Turns out they were small barred long-horn moths, aptly named for their fabulously long antennae.
We paused at the top of the hill to admire the wonderful view, then headed back home, very glad that we'd found the time to get out there!
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