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(2009) In the company of two wildlife experts, John Puckett and Hazel Ryan, twenty Society members recently enjoyed the warmth of a beautiful July afternoon near Torry Hill investigating local plant and animal life. The landowner, John Leigh-Pemberton, had given the Society permission to wander about his 30-acre of chalk downland. He started us off on the walk by telling us how this large area of chalk land had come to escape being dug up for agricultural production. The land had been used for army training during World War 11 and so contained hidden mortar shells thus escaping being ploughed up. He further explained that in farming he sought a balance between fattening stock on reasonable grass and keeping the soil impoverished to encourage wild flowers. It was these wild flowers that were our main interest.
The type of flowers that grow in any place depends on the composition of the soil in which they grow and we were to learn about many chalk loving plants during our stroll. These included black medick, birdsfoot trefoil, common centaury, self-heal (used as a cure-all in the Middle Ages) and numerous bright pink pyramid orchids. As we moved on to a wooded ride we found a different miscellany of plant life. John and Hazel showed us the salient features of weld, bittersweet, eyebright, viper’s bugloss, rock-rose and rosebay willow-herb and many more too numerous to mention.
On this scorching hot and windy July day there was not much animal life readily visible. The ground was, however, alive with acrobatic grasshoppers and the occasional meadow brown butterfly caught our eye. The rabbit and hare population was also in evidence and we were fascinated to learn how to tell the difference between their two types of droppings!
After a couple of hours of happy meandering with eyes eagerly searching for something new to identify, we drove back to Hare Cottage where Jenny had the kettle on for a welcome cup of tea (Lynsted special blend, or course!). It was in Neil and Jenny’s lovely garden that we spied our most spectacular insect – the hummingbird hawkmoth, which was very interested in the tubs of flowers.
Norma Baxter
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