meadow in the quad

Up for my tutorial, I saw this through a window. Often University quads are monocultural overclipped tabletop greens, fertisized and deweeded and forbidden to stand on (bar the occasional game of croquet) - a bare step up from astroturf in biodiversity. But the Marston Campus at Brookes is a bit of a wild place in some ways, and they have a wildflower meadow quad:



    
   



Joy of joys, some of the doors were open, as the verges were being clipped, and I was able to sneak out and bury my camera for a bug's eye view. The place was buzzing with bees and hoverflies. I was trying to focus on a bee when I got the inevitable "can I help you?" challenge. I put on my best haughty I-am-a-student and explained I was being careful, snapped a few more photos and scarpered. As I left I heard the groundsman say, 'Nah, she's alright, just a student' to the receptionist who was probably a bit nonplussed before she remembered that some students come in every day and others once a term, or even almost never, as nowadays we can all be constantly plugged into the great university in the cloud.

I'm glad I'm not always in the cloud though, or I'd never have seen their magnificent wildflower quad in June, bright and buzzing under the blue sky.