Yellow Archangel

THE HEDGEROWS are frothy with white Hawthorn blossom and the umbels of Hedge Parsley. Purple Bush Vetch is in flower on grass verges.

Every time we walk down Millbank we hear the same monotonous warbler song, so it is now referred to as the Chiff Chaff Path. Willow Warblers are more plentiful around here, they are in almost every wood and larger hedgerow, the three Chiff Chaffs we've heard have been in medium growth woods on slopes. The chiff chaff has a more greyish cast to its plumage than the greenish willow warbler.

Our resident birds now have broods to feed. The elegant Fantail Pigeons that nest in a barrel next door now have unkept looking reddish chicks (Jim tells us the pair are actually two females, the eggs were from red fantails).

A House Sparrow feeds its insistent youngster, which acts like a child having a tantrum in a supermarket, chirruping continuously and quivering its little wings. There's a Song Thrush gathering food by the path into the wood.

A red narrow boat called the Bonny Lass contrasts with the snowy blossom of the canal-side hawthorns and the last of the yellow oilseed rape flowers in the adjoining field. A little terrier sticking its head out of the cabin has just the right bargee look. I'm glad to hear the Lapwing still calling in background.

A colony of green aphids encrusts the stems of Tansy.

Yellow Archangel is in flower by the path in the wood. This is one of my favourite flowers, I associate it with undisturbed hedges and woodland, and with this time of year.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@daelnet.co.uk'