When I was kid with a small plot of my parents garden, I planted some snakes head fritilaries and I always wanted to find them in the wild. So it was great to find the reserves around Cricklade this spring. Its pretty close to the WOMAD site near Malmesbury
The meadow was at the end of a long high hedged bridleway that reminded me of my old stamping ground of the fen that runs between Fen Drayton and St. Ives, with marsh marigolds and willow, mixing with red campion and hazel. The opening to the meadow immediately presented a large group of green winged meadow orchids, and loads of cowslips, which the cold weather seems to have frozen in perpetual flower. The orchids here were in the early stages of blooming and finged the first meadow at the end of the track, with cowslips spread widely across the site.
Towards the far end of the meadow there were the first Fritillaries, but on entering the next field on the meadow, the picture changes with thousands of flowers in all stages of bloom covering the entire field. Amongst them I counted maybe 30 of the white form.
