Wild Garlic or Ramsoms

Wild Garlic in Ashurst Woods

Of all the plants that carpet our woods, Ramsons are perhaps few people's favourite, but I like them and I welcome the pungent smell they give off and I like to pick a leaf and crush it to catch the smell.  They tend to favour wetter areas than the bluebells and here they take over from them and occupy a slope leading down to a stream and a very wet meadow.

Ramsons or Wild Garlic Allium ursinum

Green-winged Orchid

Green-winged Orchid Orchis morio

We walked around Beeding Hill and Anchor Bottom today, mainly to see the Cowslips, and without much expectation of seeing many other downland plants in flower.  The Cowslips were out and made a lovely show, but best of all were the Green-winged Orchids on Anchor Bottom.  This is a little early for them and these were among the few that we found in full bloom, but there were hundreds of them coming up and they will make a great show in a few days time.  There was a little Milkwort coming into bloom too.

We saw and heard our first Whitethroats in the scrub on Beeding Hill and I got my first sighting of a Willow warbler, which was singing heartily on the quarry side of the coombe.  Two days ago I saw a second cuckoo near Daylands Farm and this morning a house martin was the first thing I saw as I opened the bedroom curtains.  We also heard a third nightingale in Ashurst Woods, so more spring visitors are arriving all the time.

Spring Flowers

Bluebells in Ashurst Woods

Greater Stitchwort Stellaria holostea

Spring flowers have been early and abundant this year and here are just a few examples.  Bluebells have been terrific and Ashurst Woods has been a wonderful sight.  There are lots of other flowers besides bluebells in the woods and some are easily overlooked - we tend to take them for granted.   But they are worth a closer look as these examples shoe.  Stitchwort and Celandines seem to have been especially abundant this year.

At first glance, Wood Spurge does not seem to have much to recommend it, and it can often look rather scruffy, but the curious flowers are very striking when you see them close up. Green flowers are an adaptation to living in shady conditions.

Wood Spurge Euphorbia amygdaloides

More signs of spring

We have not seen many lambs so far this year, and it was a delight to see these very young onesa few days ago on Westburton Hill.  The building in the background is a shepherd's barn and yard, built of flint and a reminder of the dominance of sheep in this landscape in times past.  Our walk took us past Barkhale Iron Age enclosure where we saw a small flock of wheatears, not spring visitors to these parts, but passage migrants taking a break on their way north.  While we were watching them we thought we heard a snatch of willow warbler song, but it did not repeat and we had to wait until we had reached Stane Street, the Roman Road from Chichester to London at the point where it starts to run down hill to Bignor and the Roman villa before we were treated to full song and a good sighting of two in a Hawthorn.

Steyning Downland Scheme Birdwatch

Here is the full list of 23 species from last Sunday's bird survey:

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coot, Dunnock, Goldcrest, Goldfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Green Woodpecker, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Linnet, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Marsh Tit, Moorhen, Nightingale, Nuthatch, Pheasant, Robin, Skylark, Songthrush, Treecreeper, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Woodpigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer.

The only summer visitors we have so far are Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Nightingale and Whitethroat.  We were delighted to hear the Nightingales, but many others were in full spring breeding song. 

Nightingales

Steyning Downland Scheme birdwatch group set off this morning at 6:30am very hopeful that we would hear a nightingale.  A couple had heard one singing loudly on Friday night at about 10:30pm near the ponds where one took up residence last spring.  So we were delighted to hear another on the path near the entrance to the south side of the rifle range, where we had not heard one before.  Not only that, we got very good views of it too.  It was perched in the top of a hawthorn which was not fully out in leaf and we all had good views of it, a real treat as this is a bird that is much more often heard than seen.   One team also reported hearing one in the expected place by the ponds, too.  The wide, scrubby hedgerow that runs up by the path may be developing into suitable nightingale nesting habitat, but somehow I doubt it.  Nonetheless, we will all be listening out for it in the weeks to come.

Steyning Coombe area seemed very quiet.  It is an area that promises much, but often delivers little when it comes to birds.  There was a noticeable lack of nuthatches and treecreepers in the woodland areas, but great spotted and green woodpeckers were drumming and yaffling all round.   The south side of the rifle range was busy with at least two pairs each of yellowhammers and linnets and a very confiding chiffchaff. Other groups reported hearing willow warblers, whitethroat and marsh tit, but we did not.  A wonderful spring morning with the sight and sound of the nightingale more than making up for the other things we missed.  

The track up to Blackdown

It is a steep climb up to the top of Blackdown; it is after all the highest point in Sussex.  Tracks like this one were old drove roads to move cattle between the heathland on top and the better pasture on the lower ground.  This one ran along side a boundary bank of neatly laid sandstone blocks surmounted by a beech hedge.  This has not been tended for years, so it has grown into a row of precariously balanced trees.

The sides of Blackdown are covered in beech woods with an understory of holly.  This too dense to allow any ground flora. but there are lots of mosses on the stone walls.  Holly would have been browsed by the cattle as they walked up and down.

The height of Blackdown means that it is one of the few places in West Sussex where you will find bilberry.  It is in flower now, as is the gorse.  The National Trust have been restoring the heathland on top of the hill and have cleared a lot of conifer plantation. They keep belted galloway cattle there to manage the regrowth of heathland flora.  They are small, hairy and inquisitive.  One took quite an interest in us as we sat down to have lunch, before moving on to continue feeding on bramble leaves.