Sunday 8 June 2014

Walsworth Common 3

After the rain yesterday, today had dawned bright and sunny with a cheerful blue sky greeting me when I woke up. By lunchtime it had clouded over a little and there was a light breeze but I decided that a trip over to the Common to see how the meadow was progressing would be a good activity, rather than the housework.

As I crossed a bridge over the River Purwell I noticed some Sparrows darting around, in and out, of the trees and bushes on either side of the river. On closer inspection I noticed they had reddish-chestnut colouring on the top of their heads and realised they were Tree Sparrows (as opposed to the House Sparrows which have grey tops to their heads). The Tree Sparrows appeared to be looking for insects and were hopping from branch to branch. When they found something interesting, presumably edible, they would disappear off and another one would take it's place. I spent a pleasant 10 minutes watching all their activity.

The grass on one half of the common was now up to about knee height and seemed to be mainly grasses at the moment. There were quite a lot of Dandelions around the edge and they were losing their seed heads in the wind – to the point where there was a good coverage of Dandelion seeds on the shorter grass. Underneath a Sycamore tree there were also some Sycamore seeds.
In the hedgerow at the far side of the Common a Dog Rose was adding a splash of pink to the greenery, as were the Buttercups. Everything looked fresh and alive, quite different to how it had looked when I'd come down in March. There was also a faint smell of plants that added to the sense of vegetation growing as well as lots of sounds from humming insects, leaves and branches rustling and bird song. It felt like everything was now definitely getting on with life!