Three members of the Cowbridge u3a Natural History Group took advantage of the exceptional hot and sunny weather on May Day to go for a Wild Flower Walk, starting off at Craig Penllyn. The parish field meadow there, an SSSI, is known to be an excellent area in which to find early purple orchids and cowslips, and we weren’t disappointed; the whole field was awash with them, but we found several other species there as well, such as red campion and germander speedwell.

Our walk continued through the Coed y Graig woods, where there were still plenty of bluebells, but which are now being eclipsed by the flowering ramsons (wild garlic). Other species such as yellow archangel were apparent here too.

As we walked, we also noted what birdsong we could recognise, we saw a variety of snails, and concluded that the new boxes being placed high in the trees were likely for bats.

Once in open fields again, we came across a jack in the pulpit with its ‘jack’ clearly already visible. This plant is known by many different names.

Our walk continued along the Valeways Millennium Heritage Trail, before heading up past Vistla Farm.

Other wild flowers observed were violet, forget me not, ladies’ smock, and greater celandine, to name just a few. In total, we came across well in excess of 30 species, many of which between us we could name. A useful app on Ruth’s phone corroborated what we knew, and helped with the identity of species which had left us stumped, and some we hadn’t even heard of.

For a leisurely walk of only about 2½ miles, we were pleased with this total, and the pure pleasure of walking on such a beautiful late spring day.

Valerie Monaghan