Anchor Bottom – Beeding

An evening visit to Anchor Bottom, Beeding, a small area of downland managed by the South Downs Joint Committee, recently given public access status.
The site is striking for its richness of flora, on this occassion the Ox-eye daisies stand out most prominently but soon you become aware of masses of Scabious. The next thing I noticed was Centaury, the Common variety of the Gentian family member i think, lots of it every where. Less frequent are patches of Pyramidal Orchids, they seemed to be in a similar spot to where Green Winged Orchids occurred earlier in the year. Occasional appearance of Restharrow and Stemless Thistle in the shorter turf areas. With such a wet season the grasses have grown tall and particularly in the bed of the valley it is knee high, as we discovered when crossing from south to north slopes. There were many other species of plants but i was not intent on making a list.
Not many butterflies about but it was getting late and some were discovered when disturbed from their resting positions on the grasses. Such as Meadow Browns and a couple of Marbled Whites.

Wildflower meadow

Wildflower meadow
Originally uploaded by Ray Haych.

If you go into McIntyres field now you would hardly know that it was a mass of flowering Grass Vetchling last week. It has all but gone but now there are hundreds of these Pyramidal Orchids in flower.