Ditch pickings

We spent the morning in a ditch, and what a pleasant morning it was. The ditch is part of the earthworks at Cissbury Ring, the largest hill fort in West Sussex. More importantly, for today's purposes, is the diversity of plant life in the unimproved chalk grassland. It means Cissbury is rich in butterflies. The ditch was sheltered from the wind with a good variety of plants. We haven't done a full count up yet but think we spotted between 15 and 17 species today.

The one above is a common blue (I think) but the most common blue here is the chalkhill blue.

A lot of butterflies had red dots on them which I thought were eggs before the comment below. Apparently they are red mites called Trombidium breei.

This is another place to put in the diary for early July next year or earlier still to get a hairstreak which is high on the list of "must sees". Seeing our own butterflies in their native habitat is so much more rewarding than seeing the greenhouse-reared exotics that they display in Wisley during the winter.

At lunchtime we popped down to the front at Goring where there was an even greater diversity of buses, ranging from the common red of London Transport to the rarer greens of the Southdown bus company.

Some more from today on the first page here.

Species seen at Cissbury today:

Common blue
Chalkhill Blue
Brown Argus
Large skipper
Small skipper
Marbled White
White Admiral
Red Admiral
Dark Green Fritillary
Small Tortoiseshell
Peacock
Wall Brown
Meadow Brown
Ringlet
Gatekeeper
Green veined white