Can anyone think of a more pleasant way of spending a morning in early summer, albeit under a threatening dark sky, than wandering through a wildflower meadow? A small band of Nature Group members were privileged, courtesy of John Roberts, one of our members who is a volunteer for Cheshire Wildlife Trust, to visit the Trust’s Crown Farm Nature Reserve. Crown Farm is a sand quarry, near Delamere operated by
Tarmac, and the Trust have worked with Tarmac to restore old excavations. This restoration includes developing new meadows and lakes.

We spent some 2 hours exploring the meadows, which at this time of year host a variety of wildflowers and grasses. Modern technology crept in as most of us were using mobile phones to photograph and identify the flowers, using Apps such as PlantLife or Lens. Between us, we identified some 36 different species. A key species was Yellow Rattle, a semi-parasitic plant used to control grasses. The plants ranged from the majestic blue Vipers Bugloss to the tiny white Eyebright, with a variety of colours and shapes in between, including Orange Hawkbit (Fox and Cubs).

The icing on the cake was however not a plant but a bird. Suddenly this large heron like bird flapped into view and settled down by the lake. It was a Great White Egret, a bird you might see in winter in South of England, if you were lucky. But in Cheshire in summer? What a bonus!