I Love Arnside and Silverdale: Snippets of wealth - Friday 13th Sept 2019 - Finding Gentians, Hawthorn berries in relation to Thrushes

Friday 13 September 2019

Snippets of wealth - Friday 13th Sept 2019 - Finding Gentians, Hawthorn berries in relation to Thrushes

If you want to check out the 2019 VISIBLE BIRD MIGRATION PAGES then please click over the following link: https://arnsidesilverdale.blogspot.com/2019/09/2019-visible-bird-migration-reports.html

Gentianella campestris (Field Gentian)

Photo: Hutton Roof on 13th September 2019

Gentianella campestris (Field Gentian)
Rare White specimen

Photo: Hutton Roof on 13th September 2019

Gentianella campestris (Field Gentian)
Rare White specimen

Photo: Hutton Roof on 13th September 2019

With this sunshine it was worth yet another visit to the Campestris (Field Gentian) to see if any of them had opened up their flowers and sure enough one or two of them were open.

I thought maybe I should search a completely new area. The new area was about two hundred yards away from the established population, I managed to find approximately 20 plants (80 flowers). I'll bet there are more when we do a more precise count in the next few days. All turned out to be Gentianella Campestris (Field Gentian)

On my way to todays gentians it was so pleasing to see all the hawthorn trees and there are numerous (scores to maybe one hundred or so), full to the brim with ripe (some overripe) berries. Although I could only hear one distant Blackbird cackling away today, I envisaged masses of thrushes converging on this spot over the coming days and they will strip these same trees bare. In most years the local thrushes will strip the trees of their berries before the continental visiting thrushes arrive and would expect their arrival to start in about 3 to 4 weeks time.

Also had one Painted Lady and one Red Admiral butterfly making their way South....