The trees have slowly come back into leaf and there has been lots of blossom since March. The first chiff chaff was heard on the 20 March and the first swallow was seen flying over on 14th April. The first orange wing (a male) was seen on the 18th April – coinciding with the flowering of the Cardamine pratensis (also known as cuckoo flower, lady’s smock, mayflower, or milkmaid) which is its lava’s main food plant. This plant species is very abundant here and so are these pretty butterflies. You can spot the eggs if you look carefully. They start off pale and soon turn orange, hatching into green, well-camouflaged caterpillars in one to two weeks. They do have cannibalistic traits but mainly feed on the developing seedpods of the cuckoo flower. From April several large red damselflies were seen frequently around the pond. This is the commonest red damselfly and widespread across the UK. The males are red and the females vary from red through to black. It can be distinguished from the more uncommon small red damselfly by its black legs and dark pterostigma (wing spots).
Only one of the anemones we planted last year has flowered. We hope to dig some more up from our main woodland area to plant in late summer. We found a small forsythia, covered in yellow flowers, on one of the boundaries in the middle field and on another boundary, we found gooseberry plants. Neither of these species were planted by us and have just appeared!
The beautiful bracket fungus that has started to appear on some of the burial plot posts has been identified as the colourful turkey tail. This is a common polypore mushroom found throughout the world.
We have been working on managing bramble, dock and blackthorn to ensure these species do not take over. As we work we see several different species including day flying moths (mainly grass rivulets, silver-ground carpet and silver y’s) and one day a beautiful, well-marked fox sat watching Sally for some time. Spring bulbs, forget me nots and primroses were planted on the new graves.
We were pleased to hear that our application was accepted for all the woodland areas on our farm and the natural burial site to be included in the new National Forest for Wales. This is a long-term project which aims to link a network of woodlands across Wales and increase woodland cover.
Earlier in the year we took delivery of our new Welsh sign which has been installed at the entrance of the car park. In March we relocated and rebuilt the cairn and built a wall adjoining the sign. We planted daffodils, celandine, primrose and other wildflowers in the area below.
Alt-y-garreg is a 20-acre nature reserve created in 2010 from four fields that had been improved pasture. There are areas of new woodland (over eighteen thousand trees of eighteen native species), wildflower meadows, scrub and ancient hedgerows. Two of the fields are now a natural burial site. The area is teeming with wildlife. A list of species we have seen on the site can be found here.