I'm constantly amazed by just how many different types of wildflowers we have at Dove Stone, especially in the meadows and along the edge of the main trail. It's an area of knowledge that I've been getting into more and more over the last few years, and there's always something new to learn, thanks to Kate telling me what to look out for! I think I've got my work cut out though - last year at BioBlitz we recorded over 170 species of plant at Dove Stone, and we're hoping to record even more a week on Saturday! But I just love learning about them, and some of the names are great - Viper's Bugloss, Devil's-bit Scabious, Ragged Robin, Bogbean...you couldn't make them up.
One of the first wildflowers that I saw and wanted to identify was a little white/pink thing that turned out to be called 'Cuckooflower', which made sense as I'd just heard a Cuckoo when I saw it! Apparently it flowers around the same time as the Cuckoo starts calling, hence its name. And I recently learned that this particular flower is the food plant of the Orange Tip butterfly, so it's great to know that we're contributing to our biodiversity by having this plant here.
In fact, the wide range of wildflowers here really does help - you only needed to see how many different types of bees there were around the other week when we had those few days of sun, busily going from flower to flower whilst they had the chance. I love bees. I could watch them for ages. Did you know that a bee can visit between 50-100 flowers in one trip? And that each trip can be 1-3 km? And that in one day a bee can travel a total of 15 km? Amazing. If you love bees too or just want to find out more about them, why not come along to Ashway Gap on Saturday July 7th when, as part of our BioBlitz, our Date With Nature Assistant will be running some great bee-related activities - and you never know, you might find one we didn't know we had! And whilst you're at it let us know what plants the bees are on and help us beat that 170 from last year! See you at BioBlitz, Saturday 7th July!