Six Kent Field Club members met on 1st July to record the wildlife of the undercliff at Folkestone Warren.

A small team of Club members, led by John Badmin, assembled on Sheppey on the 22nd July to see what could be found at two community woodland sites. Thistle Hill woodland, planted in 1999 and covering 13 hectares, has different densities of young tree cover and areas of open grassland while Eastchurch woodland is smaller, consisting of an area of open grassland encircled by trees. Find of the day was the stripy caterpillar of Helcystogramma rufescens, a first record of the species for Sheppey.

On 25th June, Club members were led around the meadows at Jenkey Farm by Camilla Blackburn of KWT. This 25ha property, adjacent to various local wildlife sites, has recently entered into a Higher Level Stewardship agreement, so some baseline records were welcome. The meadows were full of grasshoppers and butterflies (including a purple hairstreak) and yellow rattle was so abundant in places that it really rattled with every step.

KFC members are invited to test a key to the Kent species of the genus Carex by KBRG and KFC member Lliam Rooney.

Rainfall for June was a moderate 53.7 mm, but 19 mm of this fell on the 6th, and 20mm on the 28th, leaving a paltry 14.7 mm for the rest of the month. Temperatures were generally very warm, reaching 30⁰ C on the 21st with 19 days during the month having a maximum daytime temperature of 20⁰ C or more. The coldest day was the 6th, with a maximum temperature of 15⁰ C. There were fresh-to-strong winds between the 5th and the 8th, with many green leaves being stripped from the trees, and small and medium sized dead branches coming down in the woodland on the 6th, when force 7 gusts were felt for much of the day. Perhaps the magpies knew what they were doing last December 13th, when they started building their nest in a low hawthorn instead of at the top of a tall oak tree.