Summer hues

After all yesterday's rain the vegetation was truly sodden, with the lower-lying parts of our garden still shallowly flooded. I spent the morning catching up with a few admin tasks, and producing the first draft of a series of Phase 1 maps, ready for a (hopefully) final visit to the area tomorrow.

By late afternoon I'd had enough of my desk, so headed out to the Langdyke Trust's Etton-Maxey reserve to check the details of the route of our art trail, which I'm producing a map for. I then decided to walk round the whole site, which was looking beautiful in the soft light, the straw-coloured flower heads of  Red Fescue, the purplish hues of Wood Small-reed and the vivid green of Common Reed making so many interesting patterns. 

And there were plenty of Meadow Brown and Small Skippers fluttering through the grasses, as well as many dragonflies and damselflies. My perambulation was accompanied by the song of several pairs of breeding Skylark and the purring of Turtle Doves, although I only caught a fleeting glimpse of them. I managed to creep quite close to a Brown Hare, but it eventually spotted me and sped off into the long grass...