Spring is forcing its way in – I have seen in the last few days more than the odd violet, great swathes of kingcups in the nearby valley bottom and vivid carpets of Golden Saxifrage frankly everywhere.  The latter possibly due to the endless water running down the hills and ditches.  I also spotted my first butterfly of the year yesterday – a orange tip.

I am always asking for photos from the Group’s members but so far I have failed to take a camera whilst walking the dogs – may be this week as its due to get a whole lot warmer.

On to the first plug  – which is in fact the link to the Monmouthshire Meadows Group website and in particlar to their Spring Newsletter.

http://www.monmouthshiremeadows.org.uk/?p=3239

Go to the page – and click the link to access and download the newletter.  There are articles on meadow butterflies and aging your meadow by counting up the petals in creeping buttercup (Julian previously referred to this research on this blog).

The newsletter is the product of numerous contributors – the bold type being my big hint to all our members that if you have ideas for posts on this site or would like to write something this would be excellent.  We would love to hear about butterfly sitings (including the still common ones) and anyone’s efforts at aging their meadows as well as reports of bulbous buttercups or other meadow flower spottings.

So on to the next plug – Magnificent Meadows:

http://www.magnificentmeadows.org.uk/advice-guidance/section/what-type-of-meadow-do-i-have

The link takes you to a comprehensive guide to identifying what type of grassland you have. Please do bear in mind that it covers grassland types for all over Britain so you have to be careful to look out for the grassland types relevant to us in Carmarthenshire. It allows you to build on Richard Pryce’s talk to us at the Spring meeting a few weeks ago. The local “ish” case studies are interesting too.

No photos with this post – but plenty at the end of the links.  The forecast is for spring next week so photos in the sunshine.

Rachel