Denbies Hillside (16 July)
Nine people met on an overcast but warm afternoon at another beautiful National Trust site. If it hadn’t been for the 40°C temperatures earlier in the week it would have seemed hot! It’s a dramatic, south-facing, chalk escarpment with panoramic views towards Leith Hill. The paths are narrow so butterfly and bird watching has to be done carefully and in single file! Chalkhill blue butterflies are a speciality at this time of year and we saw dozens, mainly on marjoram, knapweed and scabious. The silvery blue males really stood out as they fluttered low over the ground searching for the brown females. As usual, on closer examination, the group clustered together turned out to be on something disgusting! Chalkhill blues far outnumbered the meadow browns. Crimson and emerald six-spot burnet moths were a handsome sight on mauve scabious but mating pairs looked like some sort of bizarre caterpillars at first glance. We managed to work out that a very tatty fritillary was a dark green and not a silver washed because we could see the white spots on its underwings. Marbled whites far outnumbered the singles of painted lady, small copper, small skipper and peacock.
New member Doug Garlick had excellent botanical knowledge and enhanced our walk by identifying such beauties as carline thistle, clustered bellflower, wild parsnip and bartsia. We found a few funnel-shaped webs and watched a couple of the owners lurking in their lairs. A ‘web’ search at home told me that these weren’t funnel web spiders (found in Australia) but completely harmless labyrinth spiders.
This was mainly a butterfly walk but four distant birds on telegraph wires across the valley kept us occupied for quite a while. They were at the edge of our binoculars’ ranges but we eventually realised that they were young kestrels. Every so often they pounced down into the long grass below to hunt for insects, probably. An adult hunted overhead, up and down the valley. Buzzards could be heard calling but were frustratingly not seen until one soared over near the end of our walk. A red kite also flew along the valley. One whitethroat was seen plus jackdaws, crows, goldfinches, starlings, woodpigeons, a magpie and a couple of blackbirds. For the last part of the walk, we changed habitat and walked back through cooler, shady woodland. A great spotted woodpecker was heard and seen but the goldcrests we heard couldn’t be found in the dense, dark yew trees. The other odd calls were from grey squirrels.
The usual refreshment van was unfortunately absent from the car park so four of us went to Denbies Vineyard for a cup of tea. Here we had the best bird sighting of the day. Dozens of house martins were nesting under an overhanging pitched roof and feeding their fledged young on the tiles above. This was more house martins than we’d seen all summer…except at Welney!
By Rebecca Dunne