September 2008

August proved to be a very fruitful month but next we move on…
…to September which started in the garden, with Dad mowing the lawn, and I found two female Roesel’s bush-crickets, which are quite rare, in the long grass.
On the 2nd I was lucky enough to be invited to Dean Hill Park by Pat Woodruffe who readily showed me the wonderful flora and fauna there.
There was quite a lot of red hemp-nettle (well - two patches) and I got some great photos!! Along the old railway we also found dewberry, small toadflax, blue fleabane and juniper. There were lots of butterflies around including a brown argus (!), common blues and a couple of small coppers. There was a little owl flying around as well and we got great views of its speckled back as it flew.
Up on the ridge of Dean Hill there was a very nice bit of chalk grassland, sheltered by trees. In the spring there are regular sightings for Duke of Burgundy and grizzled and dingy skippers which feed in the shelter of the trees. We saw carline thistles, small whites and a couple of small heaths. It is an amazing place and I was very fortunate to have been invited there.
A few days later, we went to Grimstead Down which is the place I am going to do a study on (like with the Top Field) next year. It will be great: a rich chalk grassland/scrub four times the size of the Field with a huge butterfly population and instead of pyramidal orchids there are bee orchids and instead of common centaury there will be yellow-wort and autumn gentians!! I…can’t…wait!!!!
Anyway, a nice surprise when we pulled into the car park and saw a clump of spearmint and a couple of dark mulleins! Over the hill where the scrub/grassland is I found lots of old yellow-wort, blue fleabane, hawkweed and bristly oxtongues, eyebright and wild parsnip. I also found one Blackening Waxcap fungus growing in the short grass.
Back through the woods there was wall-lettuce and lots of dewberry. Then, finally, I went into a steep field full of harebells where I discovered hundreds of autumn gentians (most had already gone over), the highest of which was 18cm.
On the 20th, we went for a quick walk round the Back Drove Fields and, now that they had harvested the wheat, I could explore the arable land. I found field madder, black bindweed, scarlet pimpernel and some beautiful round-leaved fluellen. I took my camera to look for fungi and I didn't find any, apart from a patch of some sort of Coprinus sp. I didn't fancy photographing due to the fact that a dog had decided to 'use' the place right next to it. Anyway, I didn't expect to get two new flowers (round-leaved fluellen and black bindweed)!! You never realise how much life there is on arable land…
The last action of the month was on a geography trip to Highcliffe, down on the south coast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, but I found one yellow-horned poppy, some sea-rocket, a big patch of spotted medick, black nightshade, Babington’s orache and an old sea lavender. Oh I wish I had taken it…
With the flowers almost gone, the months seemed to get shorter and shorter