In the rough

Before we notice it, spring has gone and summer has arrived, ushered in by long days, warm nights and the first meadow browns and marbled whites.

The Leas at Kingsdown is a good place to see roosting marbled whites, often head down on the vegetation, and this year the grass here and elsewhere is thick and lush - pity the poor golfers finding their ball in the rough. Also thriving here is the naturalised everlasting pea, so if any long-tailed blues would like to fly over again, there's plenty of food here. Or if any egg collectors have any eggs collected from elsewhere?

Elsewhere, orchids are flourishing in the most unusual of places. Along the A20 and M20 around Folkestone and on the roundabouts there are hundreds of pyramidal orchids, while common spotted orchids on the Western Heights seem to be in thousands.

 In the dryer areas of the Folkestone area, however, profusion of another sort is seen - lawns of common cudweed line the A20.

A new plant for me was found under the Eurostar bridge..... fiddleneck Amsinckia micrantha which is a wool shoddy escape, and very infrequent.