Days of colour

              The contrast could hardly be greater. After two weeks spent in the Orkneys where the skies are endless and the landscape largely treeless, Crow Wood felt and looked like a rainforest. The plentiful rain and recent hot sun has precipitated the rapid growth of all the plants. My efforts with scythe and strimmer to control the bracken and brambles before we went away look rather puny now, as both have fought back vigorously. On the plus side the open areas along the entrance track and within the wood itself are now full of colour as most of the flowering plants are now at their best. 

             Sadly, the cold and wet weather earlier this spring has not been kind to butterflies with numbers pretty low overall but it was good to see several Silver-washed Fritillaries on the wing. The males are a bright orange colour and really feisty, patrolling the sunny glades for females to mate with and battling with any other males that dare to enter their patch. The females will lay their eggs on the leaves of violets and once hatched the young caterpillars will find oak trees to climb up into and will pupate there. The dash of colour these butterflies bring to the wood is the icing on the summer cake. 

Pyramid Orchid - one of six found by the main track

A Silver-washed Fritillary gets its name from the colour on the wing underside

Rose-bay Willowherb

Ragwort in flower

Thistles provide good amounts of pollen for bee species

A Red Admiral foraging on the last of the Bramble flowers

the delicate flowers of Common Centaury

Meadow Brown Butterfly on Marjoram, another good plant for pollen

This is Vipers Bugloss, which grows along the edges of the track and needs very poor soil. Its flower heads are the shape of a snake's head....hence the name