What to Look For
Summer
Summer is the time of great colour at Abbey Fields. The trees a rich, verdant green, the grass morphing from green to golden yellow. And if we don’t get much rain soon, that yellow might go further, yielding a sun-burnt panorama.
Spot the dragonfly
Thick-Legged Flower Beetles
Insects are a plenty. And if you look closely, these can have amazing colours, such as these Thick-legged Flower Beetles Oedemera nobilis. For more information see https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/bug-directory/.
Close to water – or among long grass – you may find damselflies and as the summer progresses the larger dragonflies become more evident as they hawk for insects. These are often found whizzing past as you walk down a path. But they can also blend into the vegetation, hanging down as the Migrant hawker Aeshna mixta in the grass shown here.
Butterflies can abound in a good season: gatekeeper butterflies Pyronia tithonus patrol hedges and feast on bramble flowers: to find out more see here. Confetti-sized Brown argus Aricia agestis flutter amongst the grasses – perhaps drawn to our Dove's-foot Crane's-bill Geranium molle foodplant.
Continuing “small”, from July on the Small cudweed Filago minima (https://plantatlas.brc.ac.uk/ ) can be in flower. Low to short plants with very small flowers, at most 3.5mm across, these are rare in Cambridgeshire.
Much more spectacular are the orchids. We don’t have many at Abbey Fields, but the Common Spotted-orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsia will stop you in your tracks if you see one. As with all our wildflowers if you find this splendid flower it’s fine to photograph but please leave it alone for others to see.
In the early part of summer, our birds will be nesting or feeding young; they will sing less as the season progresses. But you may still hear the rich song of a Blackcap or the “breeze” call of a whitethroat. Come late July and many of our summer visitors will be fattening up to fuel their migration south. Meanwhile as autumn approaches our resident birds will become more reclusive while they moult, growing new feathers ahead of the rigours of winter.
Maybe if you are out late along Park Lane you might see the Common pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) foraging along the Park Lane hedge – possibly drawn by the insects attracted to the road’s lighting.
Top sights to look out for in summer:
| Birds | Invertebrates | Plants |
|---|---|---|
| Turtle Dove | Small copper butterfly | Common Spotted-orchid |
| Lesser whitethroat | Red admiral | Lady's Bedstraw |
| Linnet | Southern hawker | Upright hedge-parsley |
| Willow warbler | Large red damselfy | Rowan berries |
| House Martin | Red-tailed bumblebee | Pale willowherb |
Our Records
We are constantly adding to our records. We hope soon to make it easy for you to help us add to our species lists shown on the Monitoring Page.