A sunny start to the day, with a fresh WSW breeze sending white clouds scudding like boats across a blue sky.
As the downland grasses ripen to a mellow, late summer bronze, the display of flowers among them is looking really spectacular.
The short turf is studded with the spiky purple flowers of Stemless Thistle (often known as ‘Picnic Thistle’ as it’s the one you will often not spot before you sit on it!). Tiny ‘forests’ of white-flowered Eyebright can be found. Like the ‘dusty’ looking Red Bartsia growing alongside, it is a semi-parasite, supplementing the nutrients it gets from the poor downland soil with energy ‘stolen’ from the grasses around it.
Constellations of white and pink Squinancywort carpet the shortest grass – their four petalled flowers looking like little stars, among tangled patches of pink-flowered Restharrow, Wild Thyme, Selfheal and Birdsfoot Trefoil to name just a few.
Taller plants include Wild Parsnip, Wild Carrot, the majestic, ferociously spiky Woolly Thistle, Yarrow, Burdock, Nipplewort, Common Woundwort and Rough Hawkbit. A nice patch of Devil’s Bit Scabious near the quarr is an intense shade of purple – much darker than the Field Scabious.
Despite the wind, a few butterflies on the wing, including a relatively uncommon sighting of a Small Tortoiseshell (growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I’m sure they were one of the most familiar butterflies to me, but now sadly, it feels like a treat to see one. Red Admirals, Walls, Marbled Whites, Commas, Gatekeepers and Lulworth Skippers also seen this morning, though the wind means you are best of finding more sheltered spots. Plenty of red and black day-flying Six-spot Burnet moths also on the wing – easily identified by their 5 spots!
A Kestrel quarters the meadows, where plants in bloom include the umbellifers, Corky-fruited Water Dropwort, the green-tinged Pepper Saxifrage and the much ‘chunkier’ Hogweed (round the edges of the fields).