Round the Park

August already! The summer is slipping by and things are still full of colour on Shipley Park. Much of the colour is not coming from flowers, but from the ripening seeds of millions of grasses.

Seas of russet colours sway in the breeze and wait for the mowers to come and put an end to their growing year. These meadow grasses were to be found on the way to Cinder Hill a few days ago.

As always, it pays to get down to 'grass level' and get an insects eye view, particularly when the delicate seed heads of the grasses can be seen against a bright sky.

Occasionally, poking up above the grasses, tall spikes of Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) thrust up to add their colour to the palate.

Elsewhere, the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust have created a wildlife garden behind the large barn which they use as the centre of operations for the area. In this garden, two raised ponds provide a home for numerous water snails and the larvae of many crawling and flying things. Among all this fauna, a small, but rather beautiful White Water Lily was making its presence felt last Wednesday.

White Water Lilies (Nymphaea alba) have the largest flower of any wild flower. It is to be found growing all over Europe as far north as Scandinavia, from where it might well originate. This particular flower was covered with small flies as indeed seemed to be the whole garden!