Tag: wild flowers

Wingless butterflies and wild granny’s bonnets at Strawberry Banks

Well, to be accurate, you can find both winged and wingless butterflies at Strawberry banks – I know this sounds like a cryptic crossword puzzle. Mmmm, there’s a thought maybe I could start a new career! The answers would involve a lot of letters so they’d also make good Scrabble words. The wingless butterfly I’m talking about is the Butterfly Orchid, a lovely, modest flower which is the latest of a host of orchids that grow at Strawberry Banks near Chalford. Common spotted orchids are also gracing the sunny slopes right now and it won’t be long before pyramidal orchids are flowering. As for the winged butterfly, this idilic limestone grassland is also a place where you’ll find plemty of them of them zipping around, especially on a warm day.

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Nature Highlights in May

Dazzling display of bluebells carpets Cam Peak with hawthorn bushes looking like iced wedding cakes. Credit: C Aistrop

May is bursting out all over – literally. You’re probably puzzled, thinking the old adage surely refered to June but, believe you me, May is the month when nature explodes onto the scene. After months of grey lifelessness when winter seems set to never end, nature accelerates from full stop to warp factor 10.

Nature’s activities in May remind me of the Rupert Bear story (which I loved reading to my daughter) about the ‘imps of spring’ – tiny, elf-like people who slept underground during winter and then, woken by their alarm clock, come above ground with their bottles of magic potion. They spray everything in sight and suddenly trees come into leaf, flowers bloom, grass grows and the animal and bird life appears from nowhere. There’s such a sudden profusion of life this month that part of me suspects the imps and their potion really do exist.

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Rudge Hill – can you resist a ‘Sound of Music’ moment?

Rudge Hill - view from the site June 2018 C Aistrop
View from Rudge Hill to the far hills. C Aistrop

It’s the last flourish of orchids right now and Rudge Hill near Painswick is an ideal place to enjoy this. The flowers of fragrant orchids and common spotted orchids were starting to finish when I visited the site the other day, but pyramidal orchids are in their prime and looking sooo perky. It’s also peak time for meadow flowers and there are more flowers than you can shake a stick at showing themselves off in the sun with the accompanying butterflies dancing around. Added to all this is a fantastic 180 degree view from the top, taking in Painswick, the church, Sheepscombe and into the distance along the Painswick valley. It’s such a sublime site, especially on a sunny day, that I dare you to not to break into a ‘Sound of Music’ moment: you know the one – the opening scene where Julie Andrews runs through the meadow on the mountainside, arms outstretched singing ‘The hills are alive….’. And then you can recover your composure in the fabulous Edgemoor Inn just across the road. So this is 4 star wildlife watching!
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Sauntering through bluebells in Standish woods, Randwick

Standish wood - bluebells and lots of trees May 2018 C AistropAt this time of year, bleubell woods seem to be everywhere you turn – and that’s one of the (many) wonderful things about living in the Stroud district. Standish woods near Randwick village is one of the most popular woods around Stroud for a bluebell experience – partly thanks to the stunning views down the Severn Estuary, the flat path along the top of the wood, the good parking and the ice-cream van.

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The devil went down to Strawberry Banks

Strawberry Banks Comma + db scabious - Caroline Aistrop

Hurrah! Another opportunity to write about one of my favourite places in Stroud district. I visited Strawberry Banks a couple of days ago and discovered a profusion of devil’s bit scabious creating a purple tapestry weaving through the grassland of this beautiful, hidden valley. Its delicate, lilac pom-pom flower nods on the top of stem about 2-2.5 feet high, and is primly arranged in pairs (though my wildlife-watching companions disagreed and said it was blue. I often have this argument with people ‘It’s purple’, ‘No, it’s blue’, ‘Don’t be daft, it’s obviously purple’…anyone else go through this when discussing flower-colour? No? Must be my funny eyesight, then. I magnanimously agreed on lilac).

It’s one of the last flowers to still be going strong at this time of year and if the conditions are right (not too much sun in September), it can even carry on into October. How grateful the autumn insects and butterflies must be to have this source of nectar to feed on and, when I visited during a spirit-raising sunny afternoon, there were butterflies in abundance zooming from flower to flower as if they couldn’t get enough of this high energy drink. In just half an hour, I saw commas, peacocks, red admirals, tortoiseshell, and large white butterflies plus heard umpteen grasshoppers and crickets calling.

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