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| 1 | 2 | 3 |  » Stats |
Members: 48,643
Threads: 78,869
Posts: 821,189
Top Poster: glsammy (14,777)
| | Welcome to our newest member, Penali18 | |  | Posted 25-08-2008 at 12:30 PM by leifus It has been a very good year for the Top field in 2008. It is an amazing haven for butterflies and wildflowers and supports a strong breeding population of skylarks that nest in the long grass each year. Having just persuaded the farmer not to plough the field I am going to make a study of it in the next 4 years, recording and monitoring the wildlife found there.
I will start with the flowers because that is the field’s “main attraction”, with some scarce species growing there. Firstly the... | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Comments 0
 | | Posted 25-08-2008 at 09:54 AM by leifus Pewsey Down's support a huge number of wildflowers (including round-headed rampion, frog orchids, burnt orchids and green-winged orchids) and butterflies such as the adonis blue and marsh fritillary (there is a lot of devil's-bit scabious there - Marsh fritllaries food plant).
Today, a bit late for the orchids, we set off over the Downs to the steep slopes the other side. Round-headed rampion only grows on the steep chalk slopes of wiltshire where the land is undisturbed from ploughing. Unfortunately... | Commander of the Wild Empire | | | Comments 0
| | Posted 24-08-2008 at 10:27 AM by leifus We all cycled through Bentley Wood today.
Most of the flowers are just starting to finish now, especially the hemp agrimony which lines the tracks. The meadow saffron has finally arrived - this year including about 100-150 flowers! Wild parsnip, wild angelica, common fleabane, smooth tare and common centaury can still be found in the ditches as well as two goldenrod flowers there as well. I finally got good photos of fringed water-lilies that grow in the Draining field pond and also found... | Commander of the Wild Empire | | | Comments 0
| | Posted 23-08-2008 at 09:01 AM by leifus So, no field cow-wheat at St Lawrence. We then headed off to St Helen's Duver, an area of saltmarsh and sand dune. On the dunes it was hard not to step on all the autumn squill which was growing among the marram grass - that was great!! There was sea mayweed and thrift as well, but the thrift was finishing, with only a few flowers left. By the saltmarsh grew common glasswort, greater sea-spurrey, sea purslane, annual sea-blite and common stork's-bill.
Finally, my third small copper of the... | Commander of the Wild Empire | | | Comments 0
| | Posted 23-08-2008 at 08:55 AM by leifus We went in search of the rare 'weed', field cow-wheat, but unfortunately didn't find it. Apparently there is a patch that grows in a field somewhere there. Otherwise, I found green alkanet and black horehound in the fields and rock-samphire, common restharrow, sea-beet and sea carrot on the cliffs. We also saw a wheatear and lots of kestrels. | Commander of the Wild Empire | | | Comments 0
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