Walking Through The MeadowToday's visit was to Town Close Hills Nature Reserve, Kippax, commonly known as Billy Woods. The reserve, which lies on Magnesian Limestone, is managed by Leeds Council through Forest of Leeds and is a designated SSSI. Special attention is paid to managing the meadows to encourage the growth of lots of different plant species and although we were a bit late for the orchids (although we did find a few late-flowering ones) there was a good varied display of other flowers and we did enjoy the abundant clustered bellflowers, greater knapweed and marjoram in particular amongst the 160 species recorded on the day. Amongst other botanical highlights of the day were wild basil, water figwort and gromwell - a first for the group this year.
Birdlife was once again a bit sparse but we did manage to note 19 species and we did enjoy the songs of yellowhammer and chiffchaff throughout our stay.
We kept an continual eye on the weather as a band of heavy rain was forecast for later in the day and for this reason we decided to curtail the walk a little to try and avoid the heavy rain. Fortunately we managed to do this but the day was overcast with light rain showers on and off throughout our visit and umbrellas were continually being put up and down. Despite the weather conditions there was a reasonable amount of butterfly activity and we did record 10 species including a marbled white which we were very pleasantly surprised to see.
14 members enjoyed today's trip which was organised and led by Eric.
Stuart