Reserve of the Month - Martin Down
I thought I’d start a regular thing of highlighting some of my favourite nature reserves up and down the country, and what better way to start than with Martin Down, one of the largest uninterrupted chalk downlands in the country? I feel bad writing about this place because when I was a child this was where we went for quiet family walks, mostly to see the wildflowers and butterflies that are abundant there, but also for the lovely views across the gentle Hampshire/Wiltshire/Dorset borderlands where I grew up. These days the reserve has been thoroughly “Discovered” but it still retains a sense of remote beauty and it teems with biodiversity.
Martin Down lies at the point where three
counties meet (The actual point is in a corner of Vernditch Chase north of the A354) and is a National Nature
Reserve, mostly for its assemblages of rare flowers and butterflies. It hosts
species that make botanists, ornithologists and entomologists drool, from burnt
orchids, to marsh fritillaries and turtle doves. All this was rather surprising
to me because to me it was a place for a really nice walk.
Yellowhammer are numerous around the reserve
The main point of interest we knew it for was the orchids,
and there are a number of species found there including the endangered burnt,
or burnt-tip, orchid. I’d only ever seen them there once when, at the age of
nine or ten, we went on a walk there with the New Forest YOC group with one of
the rangers and he showed us where they grow. We’ve never found them since, even though my parents regularly walk up there and actively
look. The greater butterfly orchids that
festoon the sides of Bokerley Dyke we knew about but we could never find the
burnt orchids. Turns out we were looking in the wrong place!
There are two car parks, and we’d usually
park at the “Lower” car park, being the easiest to get to from Fordingbridge.
This time we parked at the “Upper” car park just off the A354, and turns
out this is where to go for burnt orchids! Even in the car park you’re
immediately surrounded by the sounds of the chalk downs in late Spring –
yellowhammers, corn buntings and whitethroats are singing from the
top of every bush. The path from the car park leads on to the reserve and
you’re already high above the farmland below with sweeping vistas ahead of you
towards the main down where we would usually walk. On the right are the beginnings
of a raised bank of soil, the earthwork of Bokerley Dyke which has stood here
since the Bronze Age and presumably marked an ancient boundary. In places it is
high and steep and was a favourite to walk along when we were children. There’s
also more recent evidence of the use of the area by humans in the form of an
old rifle range from WWII.
Small blue Mating dingy skippers
In the lee of the rifle range we made our first discovery of
the day – we noticed a lot of people staring intently into the scrub and this
could only mean that there was something interesting there. Numerous
butterflies were flitting around and most of them were dingy skippers, little
brown butterflies with quite a lovely checked pattern on the wings. The Bronze
Age ditches and scrub on the rifle range are amazing habitats for butterflies –
that day there had been plenty of sightings of marsh fritillaries and even the
rare Duke of Burgundy had been found. Sadly we didn’t spot any
of these rarities, but we did find small blue fluttering around, the electric
blue of the adonis blue and best of all the lovely and very well hidden green
hairstreak pretending to be a hawthorn leaf.
Cryptic fun with a green hairstreak
As we approached the first of many path junctions along the
dyke we found the main target for our trip, the diminutive flower spikes of
burnt orchids. In my day, they were called burnt tips, but at some point the
nomenclature changed! These orchids are very rare in the UK, and Martin Down is
a bit of a stronghold for them. There were several on either side of the path,
and with some care I was able to take some photos of these delicate little
flowers. They’re pale and lightly spotted but before they open their buds are
deep red and look like they’ve been scorched, hence the name. Care has to be
taken when photographing wildflowers and the orchids were marked with little
chalk pebbles to try and stop people from stepping on them. A short distance
away, going into the ditch, another botaniser pointed out some rather boring
looking yellow flowers – these are fleawort, a species even more endangered
than the burnt orchid that I wouldn’t have paid the slightest attention to
otherwise. The moral of the story is to always look where you step...
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| Burnt orchids - our main objective! |
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| Fleawort - very rare indeed, but kind of looks like a yellow daisy! |
We walked on to the crossroad where the main path runs down to the lower car park by the steepest, tallest parts of the dyke. This is where the greater butterfly orchids grow and usually late May is prime time to see them. Rather unfortunately the cold weather had taken its toll and these impressive flowers were still firmly in their buds, but give it a little longer and hopefully they’ll be blooming again. In spite of the name, these orchids are pollinated by moths, not butterflies, and produce a strong scent at night although I’ve never been walking amongst them late enough to smell them. I had been to this very spot 21 years previously to see the Perseid meteor shower with a friend from Damerham, but by mid August these orchids will be well gone.
Greater butterfly orchid. Er... give it a couple of weeks to get going...
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