North Common

After yesterday's excitement with the wasps (still buzzing around) I eventually found the violet helleborine. It took me nearly two hours but I was really pleased as I hadn't seen one before. I'm going back on Friday evening with a botanist friend to look for some more. In the meantime a bit more excitement as I've just been told of a broadleaved helleborine in full flower which I shall go and look for shortly.

Its not far from the spot where I took this panorama at 06.30 this morning. This is where I live and, belive it or not, its the south-east of England. This is the rather rare habitat known as 'sub-Atlantic lowland heath' stretching south towards the chalk hills of the South Downs in the distance. Much of the common is overgrown with bracken, gorse and birch. The foreground bracken has recently been crushed by the heavy horses with rollers from the Working Horse Trust. After a very long campaign and a public enquiry we have finally got permission to fence the boundaries of the common land and to re-introduce grazing which should help to restore the open heath. The wooden pen on the right has been built to hold livestock prior to crossing the main A road that lies unseen in the dip.