Whitchurch Drive

Thanks Keith for this post whilst I'm enjoying the sun in Corsica

Isolated between Junction 6 of the M54, its slip roads going north and the old A5 is a tongue of land rarely visited by humans, mainly due to the fact that to get to it you have to highly developed skills of fast traffic evasion.

Once there, however you discover another little Aladdin’s Cave of a site. Were it not for the constant din of traffic you could easily forget its situation. There are various habitats – dark and dingy woodland – an open marshy area – meadow and the infamous “peanut” traffic island.

Where are all the cars?

We met in the car park of a well known supermarket where the risk assessment was restricted to “Mind the cars”. After a brief diversion identifying plants at the side of the road we waited and waited for a gap in the traffic to cross. Eventually we all made it safely!

Two groups were formed, one to explore the interior of the southern end and the other the edge. The interior group plunged down the embankment into the dark and dingy wood; but it was not bereft and a few hardy plants were identified. After a while we headed towards the M54 and came upon an open marshy area which was abundant with life, including lots of orchids, and death – we believe a fox (or similar) takes it prey here. We found dead pheasant (probably) shrew, rabbit and rat plus other odd bits of skeletons.

We met the other group to explore the peanut. Unfortunately the contractors had got there first and cut down the grass and any plants living there. Miraculously we found several bee orchids that had survived the devastation. I seem to recall that there had been protests in the past about cutting this area and destroying the orchids and the council responded sympathetically agreeing to take care – they need reminding of this.

Finally we ventured onto the northern end of the area. This was mainly grassland and plants with a central stand of Scots Pine. Again this provided rich pickings for the botanists and was busy with insect life including a beautiful cinnabar moth.

A fine area but it is likely to deteriorate due to the large number of seedlings that are establishing themselves. I can see a winter task for the group coming along.

A selection of Orchids