The first field visit of the season, last Saturday, to Brook Vessons delivered on all promises; plants, weather, company, views and there is a lovely photo album on Dan's Facebook page
Next one is Sun. 6th June to Muxton Marsh SSSI and Shropshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve at Granville Country Park, north east of Telford. It combines industrial heritage with fabulous species rich habitats, with damp meadows, sedge fen, alder carr and some ancient woodland.
Muxton Marsh SSSI citation says "The site is part of a complex of habitats which have developed in an area of north-east Telford left semi-derelict by past coal-mining. Impeded drainage caused by spoil dumping has contributed to the formation of wetland habitats here... and this site is the best remaining example of unimproved grassland, fen and carr.
Shropshire Wildlife Trust reserve description is slightly more poetic; "An abundance of bird’s-foot trefoil now feeds generations of caterpillars of Telford’s speciality butterflies, the dingy skipper and green hairstreak. Orchids, ox-eye daisy, cowslips and yellow rattle, rarely seen now in agricultural fields, have miraculously appeared in what was, in the not-so-distant past, a grim and uninviting landscape."
