This Month
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May 2013
Posted on 1st May 2013
Arguably the most beautiful month of the year, we are spoilt for choice in May when deciding where to go and enjoy nature. In the early part of the month woodland flowers are superb. All of tge Trust's woods are different, so that, for example, Wood Forget-me-nots form lovely sky-blue carpets in coppiced areas in Prior’s Coppice, but are absent from Cloud Wood. The latter, however, has huge numbers of Early-purple Orchids, which are much less common in Prior’s. Over in Rutland, Hambleton Wood is our best site to hear the song of the Nightingale, a bird that is sadly on the verge of being lost from Leicestershire and Rutland. May is also the time to see Green-winged Orchids and thousands of Cowslips at both Cribb’s and Merry’s Meadows. Brown’s Hill Quarry holds our largest colony of the Dingy Skipper butterfly, which flies this month with the Grizzled Skipper, both uncommon species. At Ketton Quarry, on a nice morning, we may be lucky to see an Adder basking in the sun, while wetland sites such as Rutland Water and Cossington Meadows are places to see migrant birds in their fresh breeding plumage.
Photograph: Listen out for the beautiful song of the Nightingale (John Wright/LRWT)
