Summer/Autumn Fruits
Blackberries Now Ready for Picking
Blackberries are now ready for picking throughout the Parish. These blackberries pictured are at the top of Halnacker Lane and are particularly abundant. Yum yum!
Insects & Flowers
Comma Butterfly on Bramble Flowers
Yes, it is that time of year when the blackberries will soon be ready for picking. The bramble flower nectar is one of the main sources of food for the comma butterfly in the summer months. Blackberries should not be confused with dewberries which are ripe and in the hedgerows now. Dewberries are bigger than blackberries, have fewer segments and are covered in a bluish bloom.
Summer Flowers
Lady’s Bedstraw now in full bloom & scent
Lady’s bedstraw is now flowering throughout the parish. It has a wonderful honey like scent. This picture was taken of a great flush of flowers on the footpath from South Farm to the South Downs Way. Flowers of the bedstraw family where often used in the stuffing of mattresses in medieval and early modern times, hence the name. Lady’s bedstraw was often used for the pillows as it has the strongest and sweetest scent, plus Read more…
Butterflies
Silver-washed Fritillaries are active in Hen Wood
Silver-washed Fritillaries are flying around in the sunny glades in Hen Wood today.
Summer Flowers
Wild Thyme near South Farm
There a some wonderful patches of wild thyme flowering near the top of the path from South Farm to the South Downs Way as the track enters into a sunken section.
Summer Flowers
Meadowsweet & Yellow Loosestrife in Coombe Road
Meadowsweet is very fragrant, it has a smell like that of aspirin. This is due to the plant containing salicylic acid, similar to the synthetic acetylsalicylic acid of aspirin. Meadowsweet (filipendula ulmaria) originally had the latin name spirea ulmaria hence the link to the commercial name of ‘aspirin’.
Insects & Flowers
Musk Thistle and Bee
This bee is taking advantage of one of the musk thistles now flowering on Park Hill. The musk thistles have a lovely scent, but take care when you get close up to smell them!
Amphibians
A Froglet is Hopping
A froglet was spotted whilst the East Meon Nature Group was investigating the pond north of Duncombe Wood with regard to helping lessen the annual toad massacre on Coombe Road.
Rivers and Streams
The Bourne Runs Dry
The Bourne that flows out of the spring fed pond to the north of Duncombe Wood, and then flows north to the corner of Coombe Road near the village, has run dry. This date varies every year, depending on rainfall. In Winter and early spring it was a minor torrent. (A bourne is an intermittent stream , flowing from a spring. Frequent in chalk and limestone country where the rock becomes saturated with winter rain, that slowly drains Read more…
Early summer landscape
Pyramidal Orchids in the Churchyard
Pyramidal orchids have started to flower in the nature conservation sections of the churchyard. Jonathan Iremonger