Tennyson Down, Isle of Wight

Tennyson Down is a wind-battered down on the south-west side of the Isle of Wight. It is an area of short calcareous grassland where most of the flowers are extremely short because of the constant wind and rabbits .
It is an area that supports early gentians and glanville fritillaries in spring. Today the flower life was very good, but because of the size of all the flowers I had to look quite hard.
First flower of the day was rock-samphire by the sea quickly followed by a meadow of common knapweed and saw-wort (finally found this after months of searching ). On the down I found yellow-wort, burnet-saxifrage, weld, lesser centaury and lots of autumn gentian. The gentians were only 5cm high, but it was great to finally see them!! A peregrine flew past and I spotted male and female chalkhill blues, the pale silvery blue of the males upperwing easily distinguishing it from its cousins.
We then entered the wood where I found Ploughman's-spikenard and dwarf thistle before emerging onto an old quarry which was a lot less wind-battered. Here there were lots of chalkhill blues (good photos ), common blues and speckled woods. I also found more ploughman's-spikenard, clustered bellflower and viper's-bugloss and then carline thistle and bristly oxtongue back out on the down.
It was a very good day with 6 flowers I've never seen before and 8 new photos (a very good number these days)

FLOWER OF THE DAY: Autumn gentian
BIRD OF THE DAY: Peregrine
INSECT OF THE DAY: Chalkhill blue