A Botanical Journey mostly from Kent & SE England

I'm well behind on my blogs and the temptation is to bin out of date photos and move on. however, this day had so many unusual and beautiful flowers, I had to write it up. Unusually we started on the coast near Littlestone with good views of Greatstone Bay out towards Dymchurch, Hythe and Folkestone. We had decided to walk the coast path from Littlestone to Dymchurch, quite a long walk, but hopefully with plenty of interesting things to see. While getting ready we even bumped into a botanical friend, Owen, who is also the Romney Marsh Ranger and a great source of information if you are new to the area. Sure enough we soon saw lots of Wild Onion growing, most looking like the plant on the left of the photo, however I did find one with the flower open. Also called Crow Garlic. Allium vineale The first of the season's Pyramidal Orchids were coming into flower. Of course, at the time of writing, they are in full bloom all over

It seems I have little hope of catching up with my blogs to give the species found the credit they deserve, so in order to catch up, I'm combining a few trips into one blog. First up was a recording trip to an urban industrial area with few records. Much of it was pretty parkland with not even a daisy in the grass verges. However, a lake provided some relief as a refuge for species other than grass. Above is Scrophularia auriculata , Water Figwort, growing on the lake edges. Below is Scrophularia nodosa , the dry land counterpart, found in a woodland strip nearby. Ranunculus sceleratus , Celery-leaved Buttercup, another lake margin inhabitant. Not all the grasses were sprayed. I found plenty of Torilis nodosa , Knotted Hedge Parsley by a road. A Holly Blue on a hedgerow at Crossways, Dartford. Stachys sylvatica , Hedge Woundwort has its own Shiedbug as shown here all on one plant. Woundwort Shiedbug, road ver

As we drove off towards East Kent we didn't really have an idea where to go. As we got onto the Thanet Way we decided to re-visit Monkton Quarry nature reserve, a place which we haven't visited since 2013. This venue is a medium sized old chalk quarry now given o ver to wildlife. As such, you get a huge diversity of plants, insects and animals there. We spotted Peregrine Falcons and Buzzards over the cliff edges. You can read all about it and see reserve photos here:   http://www.monkton-reserve.org/ It cost £8 for a family to enter, but is well worth it. It's much cheaper if you buy an annual ticket for about £15 (from memory). First off was a visit to a bird feeding area next to the entrance to hand feed live mealy bugs to a Robin which had a nest nearby. I couldn't quite get a photo of it in the hand as it was just too fast for me to capture. This is an excellent venue to see several orchid species as well as the usual chalk loving pla