We travelled up to Martin Down in the morning, specifically Kitts Grave the part of the reserve that belongs to the Wildlife Trust. This area of the reserve is a patchwork of chalk grassland and scrub, this type of diverse, herb rich habitat with lots of shelter is preferred by lots of insects, it offers lots of possibilities.
musk thistle and marbled white
Plants like thistles and knapweeds are very good nectar sources used by lots of insects.
greater knapweed
The scrub offers both shelter and an additional variety of flowers, bramble being very important and popular. I found the large hoverfly Volucella inflata feeding on a bramble flower.
Volucella inflata (female)
As I was photographing it a male flew in and mating took place.
Volucella inflata pair mating
A few years ago when at Old Winchester Hill I found a rare bee-fly, the downland villa Villa cingulata , at the time it was only the second Hampshire record in recent times. It appears it has been spreading as I found several, easily five or more, egg-laying females at Kitts Grave, I am not sure if they are recorded from there before.
Downland Villa Villa cingulata
We saw a good range of butterflies including very recently emerged silver-washed fritillary and white admiral.
We retired home during the heat of the afternoon so I was briefly in the garden….
What’s in My Meadow Today?
One plant I was keen to establish was lady’s bedstraw, it has tiny yellow flowers unlike most of our bedstraws which have white flowers. It grows on dry chalk soils mainly but also turns up on dry sandy areas even in acid areas.
lady’s bedstraw
I seem to have only got one plant to establish but it is spreading to form quiet a significant patch.
Once the day started to cool we ventured down to the coast to Lepe Country Park. Years ago I established another meadow area at this site, although in this case it was from a deep ploughed cereal field, it is now a SINC (Site of Importance for Nature Conservation) for its wildflower community. Creating grasslands of real wildlife value is relatively easy and gets quick results, helping to redress the massive loss of these habitats. Planting trees is much more popular, despite the fact that it will probably take hundreds of years for them to achieve significant value for wildlife. As anyone who manages open habitat will know trees will colonise and grow quite happily without encouragement. In fact colonising trees are one of the threats to herb-rich grasslands.
However we were on the beach, looking at beach species. Stabilised sand and shingle has its own specialist plants, one of which is sea spurge.
sea spurge
Rather more attractive is the yellow-horned poppy.
yellow-horned poppy
The long pods which give this poppy its name can be seen in this shot.
It was getting late and there were lots of small moths flying about, in the end I managed to get a picture of one, it was a Pyralid moth, quite a common one found in a variety of dry habitats, called Homoeosoma sinuella.
Homoeosoma sinuella
Off the beach an adult gannet was flying about, quite a regular sight in The Solent these days.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 