Thursday 1 June 2017

Whites

The highways and byways are currently lined by swathes of swaying, frothy, white-flowered Cow Parsley. Always good to see at this time of year, they provide millions of individual flowers for insects to take advantage of.
Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) is a member of the carrot family and considered edible, but it's taste is supposed to be quite strange and the possibility of confusion with other, poisonous members of the family make it not worth the risk.
Our walk along the trail towards Osborne's pond the other day, threw up another white thing. This time, it was a Green-veined White Butterfly (Pieris napi).
Coincidentally, this delicate little insect was also interested in a member of the carrot family, although this time, it was a Hogweed.
One more white thing for today. This one was a Mute Swan with its youngsters by the side of Pewit Carr a few days ago.
Sadly, we have had reports of a dog attack on one of the adult birds, leaving only one to raise these cute little bundles of fluff.
Given the large number of scum-bags with aggressive dogs around these parts, it's difficult to imagine that this family has much future, but we can only hope.

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