Another rainy day, sigh. But a little ray of sunshine came along with Mr B today. What I a first thought to be Mrs B turned out to be a fledgling. This is great news, we've been reading that bullfinches have been red-listed, their numbers have declined rapidly in recent years.

Bright sunshine today and the bullfinch fledgling is back in with mum and dad. Today making independent forays for food and providing some entertainment too. The leaning garden chair looked like such a good perch, but the angle was too acute and junior slid down the edge in a quite comical fashion.

The mediaeval Church of St. John the Baptist overlooks the town square in Axbridge. It's a beautiful building whose simple and subtly coloured windows lend an overall light and airy feel to the interior. In the Lady Chapel to the south-east of the building, the early afternoon the sunlight casts light and shade across the stone floor and enhances the rich wood tones of the chairs.

The large patch of English Stonecrop on the exposed limestone outcrop by the side of the road is now in full bloom and makes an eye-catching sight.

A bit further along the way, on the gravel of the railway path, we encounter a Puss Moth caterpillar crossing (quite speedily) from the brambles to the open grass on the other side. Big chap. Apparently, when disturbed, it "raises its head and waves the twin tails, which have pinkish extendable flagellae". We didn't bother disturbing it, that gravel looks difficult enough to negotiate as it is and, from a vulnerable caterpillar's view, the open path must feel dangerously exposed.

The Bullfinch fledgling is now a regular visitor to the bird table usually tagging along with one or the other of it's parents. Today, it's Mrs. B being supervisor.

Today is warm and sunny. As usual, we get all hot and bothered and seek relief in the coolth of the cutting. Here, the lush ferns and the ivy that cover the slopes are sparkling in the dappled shade. Throught the tunnel and up into Slader's Leigh, we notice that the hazel trees are starting to produce this year's crop of hazel nuts.

Kings Wood can look almost sub-tropical in parts but actually it's just rampant ivy --- in which the squirrels make dreys. The lime grove is, as usual, gently shaded and cool. The late sun is slanting down from over Cross Plain and is backlighting these lime leaves to great effect.

Kings Wood is lightly managed, fallen trees are allowed to rot more or less where they fell. At one point, the path skirts the crumbling remnants of a 3' length of fallen trunk that seems to be providing a useful larder for badgers. Right now, the rotting trunk is supporting a group of small black fungi (about 1-2cm across). It's very shaded and a tripod would have been useful in the low light, this was the best I could manage hand-held. Unfortunately, we've not been able to identify them as yet.

The orchids have mostly gone over in Sladers Leigh and have been replaced with a heady display of Meadow Sweet and Betony speading throughout the long grass. The maturing grass seed head's subtle shades are most captivating as they wave about in the gentle breeze.

The National Trust have apparently been advised to graze cows on the slopes of Shute Shelve Hill, possibly in an effort to keep the encroaching bracken at bay. The cattle's tromping around seems have made rather a mess of the wildflowers on the lower slopes but we suppose that they'll recover.

However, what was once a rather attractive and extensive carpet of ground ivy has been trodden out of existence and has been replaced by this formidable but eye-catching stand of teasel and ragwort. It's probably not what the NT had in mind but the cinnabar moth's tiger-striped caterpillars will enjoy the ragwort and the local goldfinches will enjoy the teasel seeds after the bees have finished with the blooms.

Further along, an example of white self-heal needs to be added to our gradually-increasing collection of visual records of the wildflowers that we encounter.

[Update, the ragwort and teasels have been threshed, so i) the goldfinches are out of luck and ii) we're glad we took the shots when we did. It remains to be seen what will take over the space --- bracken, we suspect.]

It turns out that there are two Bullfinch fledglings - a little hard to see from the photograph, but neither bird here has the characteristic black cap of a mature bullfinch. Well done Mr. and Mrs. B!

Walking down to the Square I notice a moth parked up for the day in the shady portion of a window frame - a Swallow-tailed Moth.

One of the distinctive features of many of the local rooftops is the use of "pantiles", S-shaped interlocking clay roof tiles.

In sunny weather the warm colouring of the terracotta lends a somewhat Mediterranean feel to the place, an aspect that Ngaio has explored further in her "Heteroperspective II" series of works.

The tiles are usually subtly coloured by extensive patches of lichen. As is often the case, the locality has its own variety of pantile, we suspect that these may be "Bridgwater Double Roman" pantiles.

We sometimes indulge our fancies and stand by to see an insect safely across the Great Path Crossing to the long grass on the other side --- our macro photographs have brought home to us the very different scale on which insects operate. This Oak Egger moth caterpillar (Lasiocampa quercus) was a very noticeable feature on the path so we watched it safely across. We found it all the more satisfying to recall later that we have images of the rather cute adult Oak Egger moth.

It transpired that today was Flying ant day (I find it hugely entertaining that there's a wikipedia entry for Flying ant day). This is a fairly impressive feat, the ants have driven a passage right up through the tarmac pavement by the roadside.

The persistently wet and blustery conditions this summer have obviously made things difficult for butterflies, they have been noticeably absent. We were really pleased with this observation of a mating pair of silver-washed fritillaries, perched in the heart of some brambles bordering the Strawberry line.

To Charterhouse, with Steve and the girls. We were hoping to spot a lizard or two and had seen various scuttlings in the grass but hadn't managed to get a clear view until we encountered this half-size one basking on a sunny stone wall and who was relaxed enough for us all to get a good long view.

The old workings up at Charterhouse used a lot of water in the processing of the lead and the legacy is a couple of quite large ponds that are home to some fish, various water birds, grass snakes (an aquatic hunter, despite the name), marsh orchids and a rather fine patch of water lilies. I'm particularly taken with the glowing opalescence of the petals when they are lit by the late afternoon sun.

Try as we might, we have been unable to identify this pink flowering umbellifer-like plant that we found growing at the edge of the pond. Our efforts have not been helped by the fact that despite explicitly setting out to photograph its leaves to aid identification, we failed miserably to get a useful shot - sigh. Any suggestions as to what this is would be welcome.

Our drive home from Charterhouse takes us past Tynings Farm up at Rowberrow, where there are a beautiful westerly views down the rolling hillside to the Bristol Channel. The clear conditions today revealed the Welsh mountains, looking blue in the far distance, which are normally obscured by haze.

To take in the view properly we pulled into a lay-by next to a large cereal field bordered by a low dry stone wall overgrown by vetch, columbine and hogweed.

It's quite a different landscape up on the top of the Mendips, the ridge beyond Tynings Farm leads on to Beacon Batch, something of a blasted heath and the highest point of the Mendips at 325m above the (sea) levels.