Sheep grazing

154 sheep (North Country Mules) were delivered to our stewardship grassland yesterday.  The fields have been grazed since 2013 and are managed to comply with our higher level and entry level stewardship agreements.  The aim is to develop species rich dry acid grassland and there is already a marked increase in the number of wild flowers present and and a larger percentage of fine grasses.
The grassland is situated to the north of the main course beyond the woodland.

Some of the 154 North Country Mules delivered yesterday

Wildlife on the course

There's lots to see on the course at present, with many species of wild flowers putting on a show and the warm weather bringing out the butterflies and dragonflies.  We had some Egyptian geese on the river course last week and our first Pyramidal orchid.

Egyptian geese on the 3rd green on the river course

Pyramidal orchid on the river course

Gatekeeper

Small skipper (the very similar Essex skipper is also present)

Blue tailed damselfly

Ruddy darter

Weather summary for June

The temperature was very close to average for June at 15.1° for the month with a low of 9.8° on the 10th and a high of 22.6° on the 4th.  These were the lowest high and highest low for June since we installed the weather station in 2000 so the temperature range was tiny.  We had 62.8mm of rainfall which is well over the 43.7mm average for the month.  For the first 10 days we had hardly any rain and then four days with over 10mm spread through the rest of the month.