Where have all the cows and cuckoos gone?

It's a good year for Cuckoo Flower but Cuckoos have not been heard or seen at Filnore Woods since May 2015.

Cuckoo Flower is also known as Lady's Smock or Milkmaids. 

Not to be confused with Cuckoo Pint, that strange flower of the lily family, which is also known as Lords and Ladies, Wild Arum, Jack in the Pulpit, Parson in the Pulpit, Parson's Pintle, etc.

Cowslips are not usually woodland flowers but we do get some on the woodland edge

All the flowers hang on one side of the stem

More commonly cowslips grow out in the grassland, where the cows used to graze.

We could do with some cows, or better still sheep to maintain our grassland flowers.  But we don't have either a pure water supply or stock-proof fencing.