• About the garden

Corner House Herbs

~ news from a south midland garden

Corner House Herbs

Tag Archives: butterflies

Wild flowers at College Lake

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by marytheherb in Wildlife

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

birds, butterflies, chalk downland, nature, Wild flowers

What a difference a week makes. The weather is fantastic and yesterday we had a beautiful day at College Lake near Tring. This is an old quarry that is now managed by Beds, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. There are two lakes and a range of other habitats (woodland, grassland, open meadow, wildlife garden etc) in this lovely chalk downland.

For more information see BBOWT website http://www.bbowt.org.uk/

There are plenty of bird hides around the site with a charming one at ground level next to a shady pond with a frogs’ eye view of things. The new visitor centre has refreshments available at some times of day and great views over the reserve.

Yesterday we were looking at all aspects of wildlife, especially birds, and at the start of our walk we were treated to the sight of two hobbys in the cloudless sky. We also saw oystercatchers, redshanks, lapwings and a variety of gulls.

For me though, the real treat was the variety of wild flowers in the area providing nourishment for many beautiful butterflies. Unfortunately butterflies are not easy to identify or photograph but they included gatekeepers and marbled whites.

Here are some of the wild flowers we saw. I hope I have identified them correctly.

Greater Knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa)

Pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis)

Common Centaury (Centaurium minus)

Melilot (Melilotus officinalis)

Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)

Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare)

Yellow-wort (Blackstonia perfoliata)

The wild garden

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by marytheherb in Wildlife

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

butterflies, frogs, ponds, wildlife

March being pleasantly warm there were quite a few butterflies around. The brimstone is always the first about in the spring and a very welcome sight. This year we also saw quite a few peacock butterflies. I hope the cold weather in April has not been too bad for them.

Peacock butterfly sunning itself on the path

The frogs had their usual sex fest (it always seems a little later in this garden than others) and left masses of frogspawn. About two weeks ago there was still mostly a squirming mass of hatched tadpoles on top of the water lily but now they have all gone, and looking yesterday I couldn’t see a single one swimming about.  Something similar happened last year and I can’t tell where they are going. In previous years there have been tadpoles and small frogs galore. There are various predators in the pond, of course, including newts and dragonfly larva but I can’t believe they could have taken all of the tadpoles by now. Are they hiding or has something else happened to them, I wonder?  

Happy frogs, I hope!

The larger pond has probably given me more pleasure than any other part of the garden. Particularly when new here, I spent hours watching pond life. It is so charming to see what seems like a whole other world. It looks delightful but it is a nasty world of predations. One year I spent some time catching water boatmen and flinging them into the undergrowth, believing that they were too numerous and fearful for my tadpoles. I found out later they could fly. Now I leave well alone. To protect the aquatic wildlife I never use chemicals anywhere near the pond.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

  • October 2014
  • January 2013
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • February 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011

Blogroll

  • Gardeners Tips
  • Louisa's Potting Shed
  • My Tiny Plot blog
  • Out of my shed
  • Redneckrosarian
  • The Galloping Gardener
  • Weeding the web

Herbs

  • Iden Croft Herbs
  • Jekka's Herb Farm blog
  • Jekka's Herbs
  • Judith Hann's herb garden
  • Juliette de Bairacli Levy
  • National Herb Centre
  • Norfolk Herbs
  • Sonning Common Herb Farm
  • The Herb Society

Categories

Autumn plants Churches and churchyards Flower arrangements Flower garden Fruit Fungi Gardening Garden soil Garden visits Greenhouse Herb gardening Herbs Pond Uncategorized Vegetable gardening Wildlife Winter garden

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Corner House Herbs
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Corner House Herbs
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...