Land of the Giants

Really, it's a bit early in the year to be doing a survey of downland vegetation but since our project is due next week we had no choice but to spend a gruelling 8 hours on the hillside yesterday! A few weeks later and we would have found a lot more (and it would have been easier) but we did have a fairly productive day.  The funny thing about downland flora is that most things are tiny little dwarf versions of their normal selves due to the tough growing conditions so you feel quite massive when poking around the different species.  

We recorded mouse-ear-hawkweed (note the first picture will old man whiskers), birds-foot trefoil (2nd pic), early and common-spotted purple orchid (not flowered yet but distinctive spotted leaves), chalk milkwort, cowslip, germander speedwell, plenty of daisies, plantains and thistles, lady's and hedge bedstraw, selfheal, salad burnet to name a few.  I'm sure we missed a few but our ID skills are still pretty immature.

We also noted this moss sp on most of the samples but not sure which species it is:

Couple of wildlife moments - this roe deer bounding off along the downs (see if you can spot him!) and this ant dragging a small caterpillar...

The miniature world of downland is fascinating!