The bluebell season is lasting a bit longer than usual, due to warm weather early in April and then cold spells. A lesser-known local bluebell wood is Gutteridge. As with Perivale wood, where the glory was stolen to some extent by the Celandine, in Gutteridge wood its the white Greater Stitchwort that takes your breath away (and the bluebells as well of course).
This walk is unusually varied, with delightful ponds with a mysterious tower in the middle, open meadows with yellow cowslips, the Yeading brook and an area protected from deer with the best bluebells. I have never seen deer there, but there must have been such at some stage!
PS My initial identification of the plants and flowers is done with the help of iNaturalist. Amazingly enough, 5G on the phone is available in the middle of the wood! At any rate this identified both the stitchwort and the cowslip with the help of two iNaturalist “Gurus”, who corrected my initial identifications. Thanks Audrey and tiggrx! Oh, before someone asks, the ten acre wood we visited is NOT the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s stories about a bear and a tiggr.
Part of my regular Sunday patch there Henry & looking good. Last spring we had 2 singing Nightingales in Gutteridge Wood but no sign up to last Sunday, though one was heard for several days this week at Neasden Recreation Ground. No Cuckoos yet either which I’ve recorded the previous 3 years.
Cowslips as you seem to have now discovered for the yellow flowers. These were sown when gas mains work was finished & can also be seen on the Ealing side of Yeading Brook meadows along with other desirable species such as Meadow Cranesbill.
I forgot to mention that at the start of the walk you find the Golden Bridge. There has been a bridge recorded there since at least the 1500s and possibly much older than that, and which you can read about at https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol4/pp109-113 although the modern one is quite recent.
Fascinating stuff, Henry. Though I’m very familiar with the fauna & flora I’m totally ignorant on the history of the area. How I would love to go back in a time machine like Dr Who & experience it in the different eras.