Swifts have arrived back in East Meon. They have travelled all the way from south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. Their screeching and swooping is one of the real indicators of summer. Due to our cold and miserable spring they are quite late arriving this year.
Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum multiforum) is now flowering in great profusion in the local woods. This is the wild variety and not one of the many cultivated varieties. With all the recent rains and slightly warmer weather there are many wild flower varieties starting to flower.
Click on the link below to view the East Meon Nature video presentation given at the Annual Parish Assembly meeting on 26/04/21. You must click on the ‘blog post’ to get to the active link: East Meon Nature Video
The pond at Lower House Farm has turned green. A little while ago it had a good amount of frogspawn inside it. Is this blue/green algae? Investigations are on going.
Cuckoo flowers ( cardamine pratensis) are blooming in fields, hedgerows and the edges of woods, but where are the cuckoos? One reason they are called cuckoo flowers is that they bloom in April and May when the cuckoos return from Africa. However cuckoos are quite rare in East Meon these days, as they are getting rarer throughout the country. This is due to a number of possible reasons that are still being studied. The cuckoo Read more…
Wood anemone (anemone nemorosa), also known as windflower, is now in full flower in a number of woods in the Parish. Duncombe Wood has a very good show. Particularly, it is to be found in ancient and deciduous woodlands. It has a sharp, musky smell.
The rather peculiar flower toothwort (lathrarea squamaria) is coming up in Duncombe Wood. They are parasitic on the roots of trees, usually hazel, feeding on their sap. However they must not take too much or the tree will die. They are also known by their county name of ‘corpse flower’ in the belief that such a ghostly plant could only grow from a buried corpse. In fact they do not need any chlorophyll as they Read more…
The toad patrol continues to find and move toads across Coombe Road. To date this spring, 17/03/21, we have moved 376 toads, with the added bonus of 74 newts. Unfortunately we also found 14 squashed toads and 9 squashed newts, but these numbers would be much higher if the patrols were not out. One of the things we have been seeing recently is that a number of the female toads have a male toads on Read more…
After six cold and dry evenings, the weather changed on Wednesday 3rd March to damp and misty with light rain and a mild 9C. The toad patrols had not found any toad movement at all in the previous six evenings, then suddenly it was all go. The patrol moved 111 toads across the road with one fatality, it being squashed by a passing vehicle. Thirty three of the toads were females, a much bigger proportion Read more…
A sign that spring is now well on the way are the bright yellow star shaped flowers of lesser celandine (ficaria verna) that are appearing all over the Parish, but most noticably at the moment in the bottom of hedges. This plant should not be confused with greater celandine (Chelidonium majus), which is a different plant altogether. As one of the first flowers to appear after winter, they provide an important nectar source for queen Read more…