Martin Down - 19th July 2006

The hottest day of the year so far. At least there was a bit of a breeze across the Down today. Nine people braved the heat and joined me for a walk to look for butterflies and flowers on this rich area of chalk grassland.

The area holds many wild flowers and over 40 species were seen. The highlights among the plants seen were Pyramidal Orchids (although these were mostly over), Squinancywort, Common Rock-rose, Musk Thistle, Hoary Plantain and Broomrape. Some areas were purple with the flowers of Marjoram and Common Knapweed. These spots seemed to be a favourite with the butterflies and moths.

Several Dark Green Fritillary were seen. Mostly they whizzed past, but a few stopped to nectar giving good views of the underside of the wing, which is green with silver spots. Small Skipper, Marbled White, Six-spot Burnet moths, 1 Dusky Sallow moth and many Silver Y moths were also seen here. We continued to the old rifle range, a high short dyke. Near here there is more scrub and tall plants. Several Ringlets and Meadow Browns and a few Gatekeeper and Peacock butterfly were here. A few Cinnabar moth caterpillars, ringed yellow and black, were found on Ragwort and 1 or 2 Brimstone butterfly flew by. Surprisingly we did not see any of the blue butterflies that the chalk downs are famed for.

After the walk on the open grassland of the down we crossed the road and had a short wander in the more wooded areas. There were many more butterflies here as there was less of a breeze and higher temperatures. The commonest butterflies were Silver-washed Fritillary with many seen. Many Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown and Ringlet were also seen and it was nice to compare these fairly similar species. Several Red Admiral and Large Skipper were seen and a few Small Whites. In one or two spots White Admirals flew by, but didn’t settle. However the most colourful species seen was a moth, the Scarlet Tiger with hind-wings of bright scarlet spotted black and forewings black spotted white.

The flora of this area was different too. Not so much in the way of chalk downland plants, but flowers of longer grass such as Great Mullein, Hemp Agrimony and Marsh Thistle. It was lovely to compare the butterflies and flora of these two habitats.