Waterside Natural History Society visit Magdelen Down near Winchester
The lack of rain since early spring has made the Waterside area unusually dry. Even the rain of the last week or so has not been enough to make a difference since the high temperatures mean that any water evaporates before it has a chance to soak into the ground. Garden plants and wild flowers cope with the lack of water in several different ways. Their prime object is survival but survival in the plant world means survival of the species and not of the individual plant. With this in mind the plant first of all withdraws water from the leaves and puts all its energy into producing a flower. The flower may be smaller than normal and last for only as long as it takes for fertilisation to take place but only when seeds are produced will it wither and die completely. Some plants do not normally flower until late in the summer and these have adapted to cope with a dry season. They have small spiky leaves with a small surface area or leaves with a hairy covering which reduces evaporation.
The dry season was obvious as soon as we began our walk over Magdelen Down. Grasses were a straw brown colour and flowers which were abundant had numbers which had already gone to seed. Ladies Bedstraw and Heath bedstraw gave a yellow and white covering to the ground with both greater and lesser Knapweeds adding a purple tinge. Field Scabious with its sky blue flowers and the dark red of wild Marjoram were also at their best. All of these plants have slender leaves and stand up well to the dry weather.
Magdelen Down was seeded with wild flowers in the 1990’s which gives it an artificial provenance but there is no doubt that the plants are thriving. The ground is not grazed so has the appearance of a meadow rather than the downland from which it originated. It will be interesting to see how the area develops but already some of the shorter downland plants such as Thyme, Birdsfoot trefoil, Kidney vetch and Horseshoe vetch are in short supply. One small area that has been scraped down to the bare chalk is starting to be inhabited by these plants.
Insects have had a bad winter but the dry warm weather of the past months have led to a resurgence in their fortunes. The empty chrysalis cases of the Six Spot Burnet moth could be seen on many grass stalks and the moth itself covered many of the plants in flower although they are supposed to feed on vetches. Tufted Vetch and Meadow Vetchling were the only vetches tall enough to grow above the uncut grass. The yellow Melilot, Wild Mignonette and Agrimony provided a suitable alternative. Another moth seen was the small Purple Barred moth and every Ragwort plant was covered in the black and yellow ringed caterpillars of the Cinnabar Moth.
We counted eleven different species of butterfly during our visit with meadow Brown and Gatekeeper being the most common. The Small Skippers provided a challenge at identification as we suspected that some of them may have been Essex skippers in disguise. Whenever anyone brushed against the grasses a sudden movement was the only sight of Grasshoppers or Crickets. Occasionally they could be seen or heard and identified as Crickets by their long antennae whereas Grasshoppers are short. Some people can identify different sorts of Cricket by their sound but this ability deteriorates with age; along with many other faculties.
Many other flowers were present including one plant of Chicory near the entrance with its sky blue flowers. Sainfoin with its rose pink pea like flowers was past its best as was the Black Horehound being propped up in the hedgerows. Black Horehound is a member of the mint family and has a strong tar like smell. St. Johns Wort on the other hand was just coming into flower together with the Hemp Agrimony which is particularly attractive to butterflies.
Magdelen Down is a pleasant and unexpected place to visit being so close to Winchester but is not extensive and requires little effort provided you don’t go too far down the hill and have to walk back up again.