Brambles, Bumbles and Wildflowers

As summer begins to settle across Guildford's green spaces, the landscape is bursting with colour, scent and activity. From the familiar bramble flowers buzzing with pollinators to delicate wildflowers hidden amongst the grasses, June offers a wonderful opportunity to slow down and appreciate the intricate relationships between plants and wildlife. In this month's nature blog, local wildlife enthusiast Raymond Smith takes us on another photographic journey through Guildford's changing habitats. Along the way, we discover the often-overlooked value of brambles, meet some of the insects that depend on them for nectar, and explore a variety of wildflowers now coming into bloom across our local grasslands and woodlands. Whether it's the striking foxglove, the tiny blooms of heath bedstraw or the delicate trumpets of common cow-wheat, each species plays an important role in supporting biodiversity. Raymond's photographs capture these fascinating details, reminding us that some of nature's most remarkable stories can be found right on our doorstep.

Bramble can be a domineering plant but it does provide nectar for insects, fruit and seeds for birds, and relatively secure nesting sites for some birds.

Here they are seen giving nectar to a carder bee.

A honey bee...

White-tailed Bumble Bee

White-tailed Bumble Bee on a blossom flower

White-tailed Bumble Bee

and some white-tailed bumble bees.

As well as a Large Skipper butterfly (a male, identifiable by the dark stripe on the wings)

But there are of course many other wildflowers coming into bloom that are far less robust than the brambles.

Heath Bedstraw has a mass of tiny flowers.

En masse they can create a white haze across grass, but here are seen interspersed with Tormentil.

The Tormentil can be seen in isolation here amongst grasses

Common-cow-wheat with its delicate cream/pink trumpets is a semi-parasitic plant that exploits the roots of many other species of plants

In this case a bumble bee seemed to be intent on trying to extract nectar from the base of the flower rather than via the trumpet.

In spite of the hardly noticeable flowers, especially given the size of the plant, Water Figwort apparently successfully attracts wasps for pollination.

The ubiquitous Foxglove is amongst the more noticeable of flowers of course, but rather than just seeing them as the spikes of flowers they can be seen as here more in isolation in an almost minimalist composition.