It has been three days since I last saw a cloud, and the plane-free blue sky, while serenely beautiful, is also faintly unsettling. It is windy as well, is that not supposed to bring new weather?
Empingham Marshy Meadows sit alongside North Brook, to the east of the village, in a crease in the geology that cuts through the Lincolnshire limestones into the Whitby mudstones. A magnificent spring emerges high on the western side of the crease. The clear, cold water, having travelled through the limestone and being unable to penetrate the mudstone, spews out at the join between the two strata and gushes and tinkles down a braided stony stream into the bed of sedges along the valley bottom.
Six dead white willows stand tall, while slowly crumbling into the sedge bed beneath. These days, clumps of dead trees too often indicate the ravages of some new imported plant disease, but in this instance I am hopeful that it has been the very wet conditions that have caused their demise – which is positive, as it suggests that water levels, which are falling on so many wildlife sites, may actually be rising here.
The six-hectare meadow is verging on being undergrazed, which has allowed patches of different grasses, brambles and shrubs to grow, producing a good mixture of vegetation structure. Apparently eight cows and calves were billeted here last summer, which seems to be keeping the sward open enough, and in recent times half a dozen orchid species have been noted. Today, after hunting around the scrubby hawthorn bushes, I spy just two thumb-sized green-winged orchids, little splashes of bodacious purple. More abundant are the vigorously nodding heads of the cowslips, and here and there the pretty pink flowers of lady’s smock.
To the ebullient accompaniment of a chiffchaff, reed buntings cavort between the shrubs. The cocks in their springtime finery are one of the smartest of British birds: a pure black head, ringed by a white collar and sporting a bold straight white moustache; their black, grey and brown streaked backs are also notably dapper. I am delighted to have found a little site of special scientific interest that looks to be in decent condition; perhaps we can find more wildlife treasures here in due course?
Matt Shardlow
