Hartslock Nature Reserve is located on the north side of the Thames between Whitchurch and Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. The site is owned by The Wildlife Trust for Berks, Bucks & Oxon (BBOWT) and managed by its staff and volunteers.
The reserve is a beautiful south facing, unimproved chalk downland hill with stunning views over the river Thames and the Goring Gap region. The grassland is surrounded by ancient hedges and mixed Yew woodland and, although it is only small (11-acres or 4.4 hectares), it is home to a very wide variety of plants and animals, some of which are extremely rare. For this reason the government has designated it and the surrounding area a ‘Site of Special Scientific Interest’ (SSSI) and the whole Goring Gap region is an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ (AONB).
The wildlife on Hartslock is typical of unimproved chalk downland but unfortunately, due to modern farming methods and the increasing pressures on land in the south of England, this kind of habitat is becoming increasingly rare.
Popped up today to check the progress of the orchids … and the answer to that question is – “very, very late”. I am estimating they have another 2 weeks before many will be in flower – monkey orchids might even be later than that. It all depends on the weather of course and things will accelerate if we have warmth and some rain.
On the plus side, there was my first Grizzled Skipper of the year and quite a few Orange-Tip butterflies. There were also the first Gymnocheta viridis of the year, sunning themselves on the fence posts by the entrance gate and lots of Osmia bicolor bees, investigating old snail shells. Talking of bees, I also saw Bombus terrestris, lapidarius and pascuorum queens.
Cowslips are looking magnificent and the views are spectacular, as usual.
A few days ago I popped up to walk around the site and was pleasantly surprised to see that all of the Pasques were flowering brilliantly. Each clump seems to have multiple flower heads and they have even shown signs of spreading a little further away from their original grid formation.
Hairy violets and cowslips are also flowering well but the orchids are showing very few signs of stirring. The leaves are up but are at least 2-3 weeks late when compared to previous years. If we get warm showery weather in the coming weeks they will accellerate but if not then they are likely to only be flowering from about the third weekend in May.
For any of you that didn’t catch our moment of fame on Radio4 you can listen to the program here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ntg59
After a really wet start to the summer that kept me off the site for months, it was a real delight today to have a walk across the slopes with some volunteers and to really take in and savour the gorgeous condition of the grassland.
If you haven’t been to Hartslock in mid summer then you really should try to get there soon. The slopes are really covered with flowers – knapweeds, scabiouses, wild carrot, wild parsnip, hairbells, clustered bellflowers, marjoram, thyme, rock rose, yellow wort, centaury, squinancywort, bastard toadflax, dodder, fairly flax, to name just a few. The Bastard Toadflax was also sporting some Bastard Toadlfax bugs and its specific mildew.
Butterflies & moths weren’t lacking either with plenty of Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns, Small Heaths, Large & Small Whites, Brimstones, Common Blue, Chalk-hill Blues & a Dark-green Fritillary. Plus Mecyna flavalis, 6-spot burnets, Pyrausta purpuralis & a Silver-Y.
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Autumn Gentian
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Carline thistle
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Chalk-hill blue
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Chalk-hill blue
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Phania funesta (parasite fly)
 One of Hartslock’s less well known, but still very important residents is the Downy-fruited Sedge (Carex tomentosa).
It has only been recorded in a handful of UK sites and so we are very lucky to have any at all. Even on Hartslock it is rare and restricted to a very tiny corner of the main orchid slope, which we protect each year because it would be very vulnerable to trampling of visitors.
The stems are very difficult to find unless you have your eye in and know exactly where to look and it is easy to mistake the tiny heads for those of Glaucous Sedge (Carex flacca), which is found all over the slope. If you look very closely at the flower you will see that the tiny fruits have a covering of tiny hairs that look a little like velvet – it is this that gives the sedge its common name. Later in the season these fruits will darken but the velvet covering will remain.
Last week I had the fun of being part of a new BBC Radio 4 series called “In Pursuit of the Ridiculous”, with Matthew Oates, Brett Westwood and Andy Byfield. The Hartslock episode covers the conservation of hybrids and whether we worry too much about hybridisation. The weather wasn’t all that good but luckily Wendy Tobitt from BBOWT was on hand to take some photos:
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Brett coaches me on what to say after Matthew has done his intro
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Giles Alder wonders when the drizzle will stop while we discuss the merits of hybridisation as a natural process
(all photos copyright Wendy Tobitt & BBOWT, 2012)
This year the orchid mapping has been beset by problems – not least of which has been the incredibly wet weather – but with the help of Gerry and the other volunteers we have kept roughly on schedule to complete it on time (or a little late). The only slight problem has been that I haven’t had time to update the databases yet and so haven’t been able to keep you all updated on the numbers.
Suffice it to say, that we have been finding plenty of plants and it looks as though this year should be as good as last year. But the flowering season is likely to be later than in the previous 2 years. There will be plenty of Monkey orchids flowering (we have seen the pikes forming) and the same goes for the hybrids. Two Lady orchids have sent up spikes and one of them has opened the first buds, but the plants are quite short this year.
If the weather warms a little then growth will progress faster but at the moment it looks like the second week in May is the earliest that visitors should come to the site to see the orchids. At the moment the lower gate is locked to prevent access and there are no guide tapes but we hope to open it up this coming weekend.
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NOTICE 17/06/2012: The Monkey, Lady and hybrid orchids have finished flowering.
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