Firstly, it was back to the Wessex woodland that featured in the last blog posting to see if the fox family were ready to make their public debut. No such luck, I'm afraid. But I left them with a large Canada goose corpse that had been in the freezer (too long) as a small offering. They will appreciate this delicacy far more than I would have done. However, sitting in my hide as the sun goes down is wonderfully relaxing and always interesting. It is a natural hide under a hawthorn bush that affords a good background in the shadows and a I use throw-over hide that goes over the tripod, camera, lens and me. It overlooks a narrow, dry valley and there is always plenty going on. I watched two young roe deer for a while, then listened to the chattering of magpies in the wood as the fox family tumbled out of the earth, but remained unseen. I watched a half-grown rabbit selecting grass stems to eat and counted three species of orchid in the grass in front of me. Close by the hide is a broom-rape, a parasitic plant that lives off grass roots and has no chlorophyll in it's single priapic spike.
As with all the valleys around the chalk massif of South Wiltshire, this one abounds with badgers. A large boar badger ran across my front, pausing briefly to give me a rather hard stare. I could see another large badger foraging on the other side of the valley and then a sow ran along the same path as the boar.
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| Badger on the move |
The next day and I was out in the afternoon. My trusty guide decided that we should head out to a stretch of downland that has some great views across Salisbury Plain Military Training Area. As it was Trusty Guide's birthday, we went with her plan and as usual, it was a really excellent plan! We wandered across acres of herb-rich grassland, thousands of other grassy acres stretched out to the horizon. The grassland is coming to it's best right now. Tares and vetches scramble through the ripening grass. Chalk milkwort and Star of Bethlehem stud the sward like jewels on baize. Buttercups and birds-foot trefoil are sprinkled throughout. What really draws my eye are the taller spikes of orchids. Common spotted, lesser butterfly, early purple and fragrant orchids are all in flower; and to my huge delight several burnt-tip orchids as well.
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| Burnt-tip orchid |
This is a truly lovely plant. It looks as though someone has taken it and dipped it's perfect flower. It always reminds me of the iced cream cones you could get in the late sixties; a dollop of vanilla iced cream with sickly-sweet raspberry sauce poured over the top.
A good time for plants is usually a good time for insects as well. Leaf beetles, soldier beetles and six-spot burnet moths flew randomly around the down. I was on the look-out for two species in particular and I was not disappointed.
Salisbury Plain is one of the last strong-holds of the Marsh Fritillary butterfly. This species has recently gone extinct in two European countries, populations are dwindling rapidly, so the Salisbury Plain population is ever-more important. These butterflies had been flying for some time, so most of them were tattered and washed-out, but still wonderfully beautiful.
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| Marsh Fritillary butterfly |
The other speciality of the area is blue butterflies. A large number of Common Blues and some very washed-out and tatty Adonis blues were concentrated around the Birds-foot trefoil; their food plant. Even worn and tatty, the Adonis is one of the absolute stars of British wildlife. The blue is so vibrant that you just can't believe it's British; it should be on the banks of a rainforest river or the hot rocks of a Greek limestone pavement.
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| Adonis blue: worn and torn |
So a great summer weekend, lots of "Wow"s and "There they are!" and "Look at that!" Such huge excitement, such joy.
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