Mammals lose out, insects benefit

This has been a glorious sight for over a week now on my cycle route to the Lea Valley: It is a small stretch between a path and the Ruckholt Relief Road (now officially "Orient Way"). Orient Way runs between Ruckholt Road (A106)and Leabridge Road (A104). For years it has been some small trees with scrub underneath. Then last year they cleared all the scrub - Olympic clear-up work, I think. On the one hand I was pleased as the brambles tend to grow out onto the path making cycling along it difficult, and risky for my cuycling jacket, and usually means I had to ring the Council to get them cut back. On the other hand it was rather worrying that all that habitat for small mammals, etc, had been taken away (a feature of a lot of the Olympic clear-up work it seems). I didn't see any insects while I was taking the photos, but hopefully a lot are taking advantage of all these wonderful flowers. Hopefully too, they will be allowed to seed, then cut and removed, so we can have this again next year even though the Olympics will all be over by then.