A Picnic on Crab Hill Meadow.

After an unsuccessful trip to the country (always keep your maps updated or you too could find a large, well-established housing estate on your chosen country lane!) the editor plus other half fetched up on Crab Hill with an uneaten picnic. It became apparent while we ere eating our sandwiches that this was no longer just a grassy hill. Looking around at the grasses, it was quite noticeable that there was a great variety of different plants there supporting a range of different insects. We collected a few examples, but it proved rather difficult to identify many of them. Some of the insects proved a little, only a little, easier to name. There was the lovely soldier beetle (see picture), a relative of the glow worm, some developing field grasshoppers in an instar stage, some small long-horn beetles, ants, spiders, several types of bees and flies as well as butterflies.

There was a kestrel calling over at the Ravensbourne Station end of the field, blue headed parakeets and the usual  ring-necked ones. There was as much wildlife as you could hope to see out in the countryside.

It was the wide variety of grasses that was the most impressive on this occasion and on the Friend’s Boundary Posts and Ancient trees walk on the 20th June, a knowledgeable son came along to identifiy them.

This area is a fascinating miniature world and even if you don’t know the names of the plants and creatures just stopping and looking is very rewarding. 

List of Crab Hill meadow plants on June 21st 2009.

           Greater plantain                                    Wood sedge

           Meadow foxtail                                     Giant fescue

           Italian rye grass                                     Marsh foxtail

           Yorkshire Fog                                        Perennial rye grass

           Cock’s foot                                            Smooth meadow grass

           Common sorrel (in flower)                   Annual meadow grass

           Clover - white and some red                 Brown bent

           Buttercup                                               Lanceolate plantain

           Wall barley                                            Hogweed (not giant)

           Rough-stalked meadow grass                Red fescue

Reference: Grasses opposite from Field Studies Council laminated leaflet.