Scabious

It was a beautiful morning so I headed out into my  patch to see what was about.

At Moorside the swallows and martins are gathering; more than fifty in this group which will probably soon sidle down to join the large flock that assembles at Dowley Gap sewage works each year. For butterflies there were plenty of Speckled Wood and the odd Small Copper, Small Tortoiseshell & Red Admiral.

Down at the edge of Spring Wood, Devil's-bit Scabious is now the dominant meadow flower. There weren't the hundreds of butterflies of mid summer, but a fair few Speckled Wood, Painted Lady, Red Admiral and Green-veined White (pictured) and Comma. Peacocks had been plentiful in this meadow all summer, but there were none today.   For dragonflies there were individual Southern Hawker, Brown Hawker and Common Darter on the wing.

After lunch I headed across the valley for another Bradford City Women's fixture. Today they were hosting top of the table Barnsley in this National League D1 North (Tier 4) fixture. After their opening day win against Durham, City have had a couple of narrow away defeats, and then there was Wednesday's abandonment against Leeds. Today they were outclassed from the off though, and Barnsley ran out 5-0 winners. On the weekend when the Women's Super League has started up again to record breaking attendances this interest doesn't yet seem to have trickled down to City, there only about 50 spectators most of whom seemed to be friends and family of the players. I'm sure the potential for growth is there though.