Woolly thistle

As rain was forecast later in the day, I had an early walk to Castor Hanglands NNR, which is probably the last frequented of our local National Nature Reserves. I walked for about two hours and didn't see another soul.

The grasslands were looking superb, thanks to the  regular regime of winter horse-grazing, with immense sweeps of field scabious and harebell, punctuated by the statuesque forms of hundreds of plants of woolly thistle. This is the archetypal thistle, but is actually a fairly local species of chalk, limestone and calcareous clay mainly in central England, and is rarely seen in such quantity. It is very photogenic, and also provides a valuable nectar source. The black bee in the photograph is almost certainly a large garden bumblebee Bombus ruderatus, which is a rare and declining species.

The extra photograph shows a white harebell, a fairly rare mutation and one that I've not seen previously. This summer seems to hsuited many many species, and a consequence of the large population sizes is the increased chance of seeing different colour forms. In the last few weeks I've seen white forms of harebell, field scabious, harebell and greater knapweed.