GB Gruffy

GB Gruffy – Mendip Hills, Somerset, UK. IMG_1090

I’m still catching up with May posts after a long break with a broken computer and trips away from home.

GB Gruffy is a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve with a very strange name. Gruffy, comes from groovy a local name for this uneven land.  It lives up to its name with lumps, bumps and holes everywhere. The entrance to GB cave is by far the biggest hole on the site.  This cave is named after F. J. Goddard and C. C. Barker who helped discover it.

Bluebell Fields

It’s not the caves that attract me to the reserve.  It’s the bluebells that grow out in the open grassland.

GB Gruffy – Somerset, UK. ID 803_1697

High up in the Mendip Hills the bluebells come out later than the warmer woodland below.  So long after the woods have finished their displays there is still time to explore up here.

GB Gruffy – Mendip Hills, Somerset, UK. IMG_1003

The flowers spread across the centre of the reserve.  Some years the carpet of flowers is broken up with lots of dead bracken that spoils the effect.

GB Gruffy – Somerset, UK. ID 803_1764

And Finally…

Scattered amongst the bluebells are patches of cowslips.

GB Gruffy – Mendip Hills, Somerset, UK. IMG_0997

This is where St Mark’s Fly (Bibio marci) can do its thing.

Cowslips and St Mark’s Fly (Bibio marci) – GB Gruffy, Somerset, UK. ID IMG_1054