The joy of spring

WHAT an amazing day, and not just because it was a day off work (Thursday 28th April 2011) - although that surely helped.

Hill-side apple orchard

 

 Cow parsley lined lanes

 Hawthorn landscapes

I paid another visit to the wonderful Somerset Levels and as ever they did not disappoint.  The Levels are a maze of small fields, bound by hedgerows and rhynes (ditches), with pockets of wet woodland, along with large areas of both old naturalised  peat diggings and newer pockets of extraction.

Its amazing what you can see if you keep your eyes open and look beyond the obvious.  The highlights were:

• an adder
• fighting slow worms
• 16+ hobbies
• a distant marsh harrier
• two really clear bittern fly-bys
• hundreds of dragonflies and damselflies
• the first cuckoo of the year
• plus loads of warblers
• and the glorious sun shining over a lush, springtime landscape.

I toured the area going to all my favourite spots.  I had been vaguely looking for reptiles and then heard rustling in a bramble bush.  There were two, possibly three, grass snakes in a vicious, writhing tangle.  They were doing their best to bite each other into submission.  It was hard to get any pictures through the branches but these images give you some idea of their antics:

 Fighting male grass snakes

One grass snake biting another

The damselflies and dragonflies were everywhere and looked stunning in the sunshine.  Apparently they have emerged particularly early this year.

   Damselfly sp.

 I tried to get a dragonfly in flight - this one was using a very fast shutter speed:

  

 

 Four spotted darter

Hairy dragonfly?

I wonder whether this is a dragonfly chasing a damselfly?:

This butterfly is possibly a female green-veined white:

 

Just when I was about to head home I found a sexton beetle rattling around in my car of all places.  These bugs are famous for burying corpses upon which they lay their eggs; the corpses providing a food supply for the larval stage.

 

Sexton beetle

Swarm of bees

WHILST out walking a couple of days ago (near Chedworth in Gloucestershire) we came across this amazing swarm of bees.  I have never seen this phenomenon before and I must admit that my pictures are a bit shaky as I was a tad nervous...

The swarm had gone a few hours later.  Apparently the bees do this in spring whilst in search of a new "nest" location.  The queen bee is amongst them somewhere.

Purple, yellow and green

WILTSHIRE Wildlife Trust's Clattinger Farm is a corker - it supports excellent unimproved flower rich meadows, and is at least an annual pilgrimage for me.

Field ablaze with cowslips

Currently it's a sea of cowslips, with some going over snake's-head frittilary flowers and countless green winged orchids.  There are also many other meadow specialists in leaf making up the sward (such as great burnet, betony and sawwort) that come into their own later in May and June, before the hay is cut.

Snake's-head fritillary

This is one of the few Wiltshire sites that support snake's-head fritillary- it relies on damp, unimproved meadows which have never been ploughed - ever!

Mixture of cowslips and orchids

 The common, but lovely, self heal

Adder's tongue fern - an unusual rarity that can only be found in ancient grassland

 

Two stunning green-winged orchids

A lighter form of the green-winged orchid

 An overwhelming number of orchids

Cowslips

On one field the cowslips were showing up where the ridges and furrows in the grassland were - possibly a sign of drainage or ancient ploughing, before the days of artificial fertilisers and weed killers

The bright yellow kingcup, growing in a ditch