Sometimes the rain can bring small delights! - Little Egrets

The common is wetter now than it has been for more than a year now.

It usually floods at some stage in the winter but it just didn't happen this year, so we missed out on all the geese, and ducks that would normally make the most of the flooded land for a month or so.
So imagine our excitement when these turned up this morning - a first for the common as far as we know, certainly we haven't seen any here in the fifteen years we've lived here.
A pair of Little Egrets.

Mottey Meadows

Mottey Meadows is a National Nature Reserve managed by Natural England found on the edge of  Staffordshire village Wheaton Aston. In the summer it is a mass of colour with plants like Scabious, Ragged Robin and Great Burnett, but at this time of year the wood anemone is just about coming to the end

whilst the Marsh Marigold, Cuckoo Flower and Snakeshead Fritilary are just starting to come into flower.

Mottey Meadow is the most northerly area in England where Snakeshead Fritilary grows naturally, there aren't hundreds like  North Meadow Cricklade and as a consequence they are counted, marked by a stick placed in the ground near by individual plants and protected against browsing hares and pecking pigeons with wire cages.

In Wheaton Aston Snakeshead Fritilary are also known as folfalarum

Trust me there isn't much protection out on those meadows when these April showers hit, we got soaked.

If you want to brave the weather and view these magnificent meadows to see these beautiful flowers up close there is a public walk organised for this Monday evening 23rd April for more details please click here.
If you want to know more about Mottey Meadows - you can view this fab video