The advantages of getting lost, and other stories

Continuing the theme of butterflies, last Sunday we headed out to Bentley Wood, in the hope of one again seeing the silver-washed fritillary spectacle. Last year they were just amazing - so many of these huge bright orange butterflies flitting through the rides and glades. This year, the weather wasn't quite as good (gusty and a bit cloudy) but it makes a nice walk anyway, so we thought we'd give it a go.

Bentley Wood is a large area of SSSI woodland - mostly conifer plantation, it has remnant areas of ancient woodland, lines of gnarled oaks, and the network of rides and glades makes it one of the top places in the country for spotting a wealth of butterflies, including purple emperors.

Now, I never usually visit my local haunts with a map, being familiar with the various loops we use. However, on this occasion, we both remarked that we had not been up this path before and set off down it. It did not take us where we thought it was going to go, winding its way through conifer plantation instead of being a straight track. Nonetheless, we found ourselves at another carpark - useful to know to explore this other part of the wood. At this point we felt we had better retrace our steps a bit, then took a path that we hoped would link up with one of the forestry tracks.

We found ourselves climbing over various stiles and passing through kissing gates, emerging into a wide meadow area with the path lined with ancient old oaks along the old Anglo-Saxon earth boundary bank. Beautiful flowers and butterflies surrounded us, including betony in the meadows, although no silver-washed fritillaries. The path took us to a confluence whereupon we thought the track looked familiar - this turned out to be incorrect but we persevered and found ourselves along another forestry track that definitely looked familiar this time! We set off in one direction, only for me to realise that we had already passed a particular earth bank before, which meant we were heading away from the carpark. Finally, we knew where we were! A short retracing of steps and we were back at the car, and next time we'll come a bit more prepared to explore this large area we weren't even aware of before.

And yesterday, on a day off, I decided to venture further afield to Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset to drink in the azure blue sea, amazing fossils and landscape, including a spot of underwater photography in the rockpools - beautiful!

Butterfly time

It's amazing how quickly the environment can change - barely two weeks ago I was up on Martin Down marvelling at the orchids and waiting on the butterflies to burst out with the knapweed. I went back last Sunday, and after a 'scorchio' period during the week, all of the fragrant orchids have withered, but the knapweed is out and with it a whole host of butterflies.

Most were marbled whites, but the dark green fritillaries were also making an appearance - I always feel that they're a bit too exotic-looking to belong here. Actually, I feel we're pretty lucky with all our butterflies!

I was out attempting to keep the plants in the garden from completely dessicating this morning, and with the privet hedge in flower, together with the wallflowers, it was abuzz with activity. Lots of meadow browns but also heaps of small tortoiseshells - absolutely beautiful and it only required a little effort to get the garden in order. I need more flowers now but what with the lack of rain, many have - poor lobelias :(

Orchids everywhere

Yes, it's orchid time (well, actually, slightly overdue) so I headed off to Martin Down for a fix.

Typically, as soon as I stepped out of the car, it started to rain, but thankfully the floristic spectacle made this seem inconsequential. It was truly amazing - one of the best years I've seen in a long while - carpets of orchids and cloudy drifts of dropwort, together with various hawkbits, vetches and thyme.

I was lucky enough to not only see the beautiful bright pink pyramidal orchid, together with tonnes of common spotted orchids, but also many fragrant orchids with their delicate scent not dampened by the rain, together with one magnificent specimen of greater butterfly orchid.

At the moment we're still in the 'yellow season' of flowers - i.e. the hawkbits and various vetches (horseshoe, birds foot trefoil, kidney vetch), but the knapweed is on the cusp of emerging, bringing with it an explosion of butterfly life, including the amazing dark green fritillary.

Although the rain meant I didn't get to see many butterflies (apart from those disturbed by me walking!), a brief foray up to Cockey Down yesterday afternoon more than made up for it.

This is a small SSSI of chalk downland above Laverstock on the edge of Salisbury, owned and managed by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. You pass through a small area of open access land called Laverstock Down to get to it, which was alive with butterflies - meadow brown, small heath and lots of marbled whites - a taste of things to come.

Emerging onto the SSSI, I looked back towards the Cathedral spire, over rolling countryside of ripening arable crops. The down itself had an excellent display of flowers again. There are two basic types of chalk grassland - CG2 (short) and CG3 (longer with a grass called Upright Brome frequent). Martin Down is a combination of both, but with more areas of CG3. Cockey Down is mostly CG2, with carpets of thyme, squinancywort, birds foot trefoil, together with taller spikes of ladies bedstraw and fragrant and pyramidal orchids, all alive with marbled white and small heath butterflies fighting each other for territories.

This largely made up for a week stuck inside various offices - although there was a notable and surprising encounter with wildlife in the form of a pyramidal orchid spotted on a verge whilst standing outside the office in Blandford during a fire drill!

Different downs!

Last weekend I ventured north to collect a painting from Devizes, which enabled me to meet up with a friend, who took me to his local downs - Pewsey Down NNR.

I've been wanting to go here for ages, but have never gotten round to it (well, with Martin Down on the doorstep, why bother?!!). It was well worth it - such a contrast from my usual haunt. The views from the top of the ridge of hills are stunning, and the topography perhaps more typical of some of the Dorset downs. The NNR forms part of a larger chain of hills running in a ridge north of Devizes in the Vale of Pewsey, some of which are Iron Age hillforts. The steep slopes - enhanced by archaeological alterations - provide excellent habitat for a wealth of typical chalk downland plants, together with associated invertebrates. And the recently-restored Pewsey White Horse - which you can walk up to - provides another focal point in the landscape.

On the car journey to the NNR, along a scenic minor road, a weasel ran out in front of us - don't worry, it timed it perfectly and survived - but I saw this as a good sign of things to come!

The flowers seemed a bit behind this year, with the orchids only just starting to get going - however, my friend Tom knows the site well, and located a great sheltered spot with lots of orchids - mostly common spotted, but also fragrant and lesser butterfly orchid.

The thyme was out in abundance, noticeably covering the ant hills (with their associated micro-climate of increased temperature - all those busy bodies!), together with the mass of yellow hawkbits, mouse-ear hawkweed and other dandelion-types, the delicate flowers of fairy flax, and with kidney vetch just going over. In amongst the flowers, I spotted a forester moth - these are beautiful iridescent green day-flying moths, in decline nationally due to the loss of their unimproved grassland habitat.

So, overall, a very successful walk and I hope to be back on this down in the future - although, I do hear the call of Martin Down again (it has been ages since I popped down)...

Unexpected spectacles!

Phew - what a week! I started a new job on Monday, but despite that, managed to find the time for some unexpected immersion in the natural world.

It got off to a good start on Monday whilst driving to work - only just heading out of Salisbury and there was a red kite above me, just next to the crematorium - very incongruous! It's great to see these once-threatened birds making such a successful comeback. It's taken them a while to get a good talon-hold in Wiltshire, but I'm starting to see them not infrequently around Salisbury.

That evening was the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. As the holder of one of the original copies, Salisbury played host to an extravagant pageant through the streets. As much of the city centre was shut down, I had walked in across the Harnham watermeadows, admiring the little egret along the way. On the return journey, the distant sounds of the choir in the Cathedral calling the event to a close seemed to goad the local bird life into a cacophony of song in the twilight - so atmospheric, and blending perfectly with the human voices echoing in the distance.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the week was spent in various offices, but having just spent today sorting out the mess of a garden, I am very hopeful that I can have my very own local patch right outside the flat! Fingers crossed, as I am not known for my green fingers at all.

Getting to know a new patch

I've not yet had the chance to get out since coming back from Turkey, but I am going back to the archaeological dig in North Wiltshire tomorrow for the final time. The reason I bring this up, is that I find encounters with the natural environment pop up in the funniest places.

For example, when digging down, down, down in a trench, we were exposing a lot of bare earth, leaving it to bake in the summer sun. This proved to be excellent habitat for some solitary bees, although, as we shared the trench with them for much of the day, we were able to observe they were not entirely solitary.

I'm no bee expert, and with 30 000 bee species worldwide how can anyone hope to be, so I'm not sure what species they are (they seemed different to the masonry bees commonly seen nesting in walls of buildings). However, each bee seemed to share an entrance to a particular burrow (there were several in the wall of the trench), going to and fro collecting pollen to feed their grubs inside. This sort of communal living - sharing a common burrow, but not working towards furthering the survival of other's young - is a fascinating halfway-house on the evolutionary scale towards full social living, such as in the honey bee or bumblebee.

Hopefully, by the time we have finished excavating, the bees will have raised their young and we will be able to fill in the area without any impacts on them. But so interesting and unexpected to find this whilst excavating a 12th century chapel in someone's front garden!

Next weekend, I simply MUST get out on the Down - now I have even more of an incentive, as I have just secured a promotion as a team leader in Dorset, so need to get out and get to know that patch more. Don't worry though, the surrounds of Salisbury will still be my main love and focus of this blog!

Missing the UK

I'm just back from a week's walking in Turkey, which was fabulous albeit hot! Although much of the wildlife was very different to that here, there were some similarities in strange places! For example, high in the mountains, often the only bird we heard was the humble chaffinch!

Whilst I was away, the annual burnt tip orchid count on martin down was held - this usually means that they count more, as I seem to have an effect on them! And yes, this was true this year, with over 230 spotted in the localised patches surveyed via walking transect with volunteers.

They are beautiful if diminutive plants, and easily overlooked, but a real speciality of unimproved chalk grassland.

I'm looking forward to getting back out on the reserve as it is now butterfly season properly - and after chasing butterflies in Turkey I'm pining for our lovely species such as dark green fritillary and the humble marbled white. Bring on summer!