Meadow Sweet

It is the time of year when our wildflower meadow begins to flourish with life. We’d love for you to take a few minutes out of your next visit to relax and appreciate the beauty of nature in the meadow.

We’re sure you’ll spot an array of species: these are some of the species we’ve spotted recently or expect that you may be able to spot this month:

Flowers – The grasses have been very tall this year, but are going brown now, so there should be plenty of flowers visible. Probably a mixture of purple, white and yellow – Lesser Knapweed and Greater Knapweed are both easy to spot all over the meadow. Wild Carrot and Rough Hawkbit should be providing white and yellow all over as well and there is quite a lot of Musk Mallow this year, some of it right by the path on the way in.

Insects – Common Blue butterflies have two broods in a year and may be beginning to appear again by early to mid-July. If you see a flash of blue flying past it will almost certainly be a male Common Blue. We saw the first of the Small Tortoiseshell and Ringlets at the end of June, so they should be around. There should still be plenty of Marbled White too and the small orange butterflies are Skippers, either Small Skipper or Essex Skipper. Burnet moths will give a flash of red as they fly past – we have mostly Six-spot Burnet, but also Five-spot sometimes.