Today, at the start of a busy three days of music, I had to drive over to Stratford-upon-Avon for a rehearsal of a new concerto for electric violin which I’m premiering on Sunday! I left plenty of time to get there as I was concerned about possible Friday afternoon traffic delays, but I actually had a reasonable journey and so had an hour or so to spare.
On a whim I decided to visit the place where my Dad was buried, a natural burial ground called Sun Rising, which is only about 10 miles from where I was heading. It’s several years since I’ve been there, definitely not since before Covid, and it has really matured: The wildflower meadows were looking splendid and the grove of trees in the area where Dad is have grown up so much that it took me a few minutes to find his memorial plaque.
I was the only person there and it was rather lovely to wander around the meadow taking note of the insects and butterflies that were there in abundance. It definitely put me in a good frame of mind for my rehearsal!
Brenda writes: “There was one new moth in the trap today, the micro anania coronata.
I’ve started to read Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey, which Steve bought me for my birthday. It’s not quite what I expected because its focus is on the history of the plants in their contexts, but there is some botanical information. You may remember I was puzzled by a plant at Kelling Heath in the spring which I misidentified as hairy tare. Reading a section in Mabey’s book about the fumitory family I found the answer to the puzzle. It was climbing corydalis ‘a cream-flowered scrambler more or less confined to heaths and ancient woods on acid soil.’ So it can now be added to the list.
New species for July 7th:
Moths: anania coronata
Flowers: climbing corydalis
TOTALS TO DATE:
Birds = 206
Moths = 170
Wildflowers = 235