Views around Foxglove

After the beautiful sunny days of last week there was a return to cold, wet and windy weather today.  Some areas of the reserve will have benefited from the rain, although others will now be saturated. Whist the sun was out there were beautiful views of Foxglove to be photographed.

The Bluebell bank is on the left whilst on the right is the area cleared just over a year ago.  We are hoping that more Bluebells will be flowering here.  Foxgloves are biennials, so the leaves growing last year should flower this year.

This old Hawthorn will soon be in leaf but a few more weeks are needed before it is covered in May blossom.

The middle moor is looking really good after the winter.  If you see a group of volunteers crawling around the middle moor on their hands and knees, they are not weeding it but looking for Yellow Rattle seedlings!

There are several little becks running through the reserve.

Our old Oak stands next to this beck.

The Scrapes is holding onto its winter coat, with very little green showing.  Although in the ponds the frogspawn has hatched and the toadspawn has been laid.  Sticklebacks are now swimming around and on warm days Whirligig Beetles can be seen whirling!  There are also Pond Skaters which might have been ID'd incorrectly and may actually be Water Crickets - watch this space.