Fading

Pete and I made our last visit to Tolworth Court Farm Fields LNR today. The day didn't start as well as it could have, as the train we'd planned to catch was cancelled - although this did give us time to come back home and have breakfast before getting the next train!

As expected, the site was looking very parched, but all the grass species were still just about visible so I was able to complete my quadrats. The Common Knapweed (which is in peak flower in the garden) was all over, but stands of thistles and ragwort were attracting large numbers of Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper butterflies. I met a woman doing a regular butterfly transect - she commented that the Marbled White numbers had crashed after the excessive heat at the start of the week. I did see a few fluttering around among the bleached-gold heads of the False Oat-grass.

We left the site just after five and had a smooth journey to Finsbury Park where, yet again, we found that our return train had been cancelled. We've visited the site three times, with six train journeys in and out of London, and have had five trains cancelled (though three were all on the same day!). The uncertainty really makes travelling by train less appealing than it used to be - not good for a country that should be attempting to encourage more use of public transport.