Although many of the spring flowers are passed their best, the all-pervading smell of wild garlic fills the air! A few bluebells can still be seen in the shadier parts of the wood.
The green-ness of everything is the lasting impression you get as you wander noting how slowly the ash trees are in coming in to leaf this year. “Oak before the Ash; bound to get a soak” perhaps? The delicate white flowers of the cow parsley (I think. Never sure of the correct identification of all the Umbellifers!) light up the darker parts of the Wood with their luminosity.

The boardwalk path is becoming a little narrower as the Hemlock Water Dropwort spreads and grows along the edges. Cutting this back will be another job for the Work Party on Wednesday 15th June. Whilst I was there I had a look at how the Himalayan Balsam was growing in the marsh. Without the pink flowers to identify it, it takes a bit of concentration to see it growing amongst the reeds and other water plants such as Water Mint!
Once you get your eye in the number of small plants becomes obvious with dense populations seen especially at the eastern end. If we have a good turn out of volunteers for the Work Party we should be able to reduce the population of this alien species considerably.
Birds are still franticly feeding young fledglings and singing loudly, especially robins and blackbirds; also seen in a couple of spots were song thrushes and their offspring repeating their call phrases that helps to identify them.
A couple of firsts for this visit: a Rat was seen sitting near the entrance to the boardwalk, probably taking advantage of spilt bird food put out by generous regular visitors. Another first was seeing a couple picking up dry twiggy material under the beech tree in the car park. Talking to them they told me they were collecting dry tinder for the Scouts fire lighting practice on Thursday to take place on the Pembroke River edge just off the Coast Path and not in Holyland Wood!
John C