To Explore, Enjoy and Enhance

Friends of Studham Common

East Common is looking rather bare now that the hay has been cut. It’s good to see that the cut is right up to the new path so our work has added a useful area to the Common and the path is becoming the one most used. Between the path and the hedge the vegetation is shoulder-high in places so there’s going to be a lot to do later in the year. On Middle Common the grasses have again produced that wonderful pinkish-brown haze but it may well have been cut by the time you read this. It has really done us proud this year with better-than-ever displays of flowers and grasses. The pink-lilac flowers of Rosebay Willowherb are providing colour on all three sections of the Common and along the Byslips Road edge of Middle Common they are joined by the yellow flowers of St John’s-wort.

At the time of writing (5th July) there were good numbers of Ringlet and Meadow Brown butterflies but rather few of other species, only a couple of Marbled Whites, a single very worn Painted Lady and a fresh Small Tortoiseshell. The latter was good to see as the numbers of this once-common species have declined markedly in recent years. The cause is thought to be a parasitic fly that has recently appeared in Britain and attacks the caterpillars.

See June’s Nature Notes

The Chilterns, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - website:

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St John’s Wort

Rosebay Willowherb

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Nature Notes:

Meadow Brown Butterfly

Ringlet Butterfly

Marbled White Butterfly

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Nature Notes