Patch of Life

If you visit Waitrose in Paddock Wood and perhaps park your car near the border with the railway land you may have noticed that there is a short drainage ditch about  80 - 100 metres long, which joins up with the main culvert near the John Brunt public house, just before it disappears under the railway.

The culvert is overshadowed by trees and bushes, but for about a third of its length sunlight reaches the banks & bottom of the ditch. 

Perched across one of the lower branches of one of these trees is an abandoned collard dove nest of twigs, which perhaps provided a place where new life began as young collard dove chicks started life in this nest.

However there is certainly life in the more open areas of the ditch, as a visit on Sunday 21^st August revealed.

The ditch had a wonderful display of late summer flowers, attracting honey bees and bumble bees to gather pollen and sip nectar. The flowering plants included Purple loosestriff, greater willowherb,, meadowsweet, greater birds-foot trefoil, ragwort as well as figwort & bulrushes.

Amongst the trees and bushes I found  buddleia still in flower and berries ripening amongst the guelder rose and a hawthorn bush.

Ok, so not exactly a nature reserve, but in this short stretch of neglected ditch, alongside an area covered in tarmac, nature has grabbed a toehold and was doing its best to bring colour and life to an urban setting. 

Lovely to see :-).