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.
Lovely weather today so just walked around the site enjoying it. Lots of Dodder, Clustered Bellflower, Yellow-wort, Knapweed, Field Scabious, Carline Thistle & Centaury in full flower. Buzzards & Kites were overhead the whole morning and the views were magnificent.
Butterflies were very good too, with lots of Chalkhill Blues, Common Blues, Meadow Browns & Small Heath and single Small Tortoishell, Painted Lady & Dark-green Fritillary.
BBOWT have been working on a large-scale ‘Chiltern Grasslands Project’ for some time and part of that will be to re-fence some of the compartments at Hartslock - mainly slopes 1 and 2. Today we decided to do some work to open up a corridor along the bottom of the site, through the woods, where they will put a new access gate. The gate will eventually let people walk the length of the site without climbing to the top of the hill - very useful on hot summer days! It will also allow us to make a circular walk that tales in both the top and bottom of the compartments.
I popped up to the reserve in the afternoon today to look for new orchids and to see if I could help out any visitors. I found 1 more new Monkey orchid near the top of the slope - bringing their total to 448 plants, of which 136 have been spotted flowering or trying to flower. The number of flowering plants is likely to be much lower than the real number because it is very hard to count them all.
The most surprising thing was to find that all of the Lady orchids had gone over and even a few of the hybrids had gone to seed. Most hybrids are doing fine but I think the rest will start to go over in the next week - especially if there isn’t significant rain soon. Most of the Monkey orchids are flowering OK but a significant proportion of them have wilted and died - either due to being eaten by small animals or having aborted due to drought.
It seems quite clear to me that we just haven’t had enough rain during April & May and the small showers kept the orchids alive for a while but in the absence of some serious downpours the plants are starting to fail as the tubers decide to abort flowering to save the plant itself.
The drought has also contributed to the large worn patch of ground around the hybrids (see below).
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a nice Monkey orchid in the first compartment
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a nice Monkey orchid in the first compartment
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Erosion around the hybrids
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hybrids in flower
Today 22 members of the London Natural History Society (LNHS) visited Hartslock for the orchids and all other wildlife. We had glorious, hot, sunny weather all day and it seemed as if everything came out to be photographed.
Monkey, Lady & the hybrids are all flowering very well at the moment and will probably continue to flower for another 2-3 weeks more.
I personally saw Grizzled & Dingy Skippers, Green Hairstreaks (everywhere), Small Heath, Orange Tip, Brimstone, Large White, Peacock & Common Blue. Club-tailed dragonfly, Banded & Beautiful Demoiselles were also on the wing.
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the group jostle to see the butterfly
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the subject of everyone's attention - a pristine Green Hairstreak
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later we spread out and look for Bastard Toadflax & the associated bug
Went up to the site today for a walk round - plenty to see, even though the wind was still a bit chilly. The hybrids and the Lady orchids are flowering very well, with a few still in bud. The Monkey orchids are all still in bud with onloy a handful looking like they might open some buds in the coming days - the rest (maybe 200 plants) should flower in 1-2 weeks, depending on the weather.
Lots of butterflies and other insects on the wing too - Orange Tip, Green-veined White, Brimstone, Peacock, Comma, Small Tortoishell, Dingy Skipper, Grizzled Skipper, Small Heath, Green Hairstreak, Common Blue, Small Copper, Pyrausta nigrita, Pyrausta purpuralis, Common Swift moth, Burnet Companion moth, Osmia bicolor (a solitary bee), Gomphus vulgatissimus (Club-tailed Dragonfly), Tachina ursina (a parasite fly), Dioctria rufipes (Common Red-legged robber fly).
Pretty good for birds too with Hobby, Red Kite & Buzzard all seen and Chiffchaffs in every hedge.
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a calliphorid
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Comma
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Dioctria rufipes
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Club-tailed dragonfly (male)
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Club-tailed dragonfly (male)
The first part of the mapping, where we try to locate all previously recorded rare orchids, has finished - many thanks to Becca and all the other helpers!
The big news has been the massive increase in the number of hybrid Lady x Monkey plants - partly a real increase and partly due to some under-recording last year. This year we have mapped 299, 66 of which are in bud, but all in roughly the same area as they have always been. Only a few have been found in the woodland edge outside the orchid enclosure and a few possibly Lady orchid seedlings have come up in the path.
This increase in hybrids has not been at the expense of the monkey orchids though, as we have already recorded 418 of those. Last year’s record was 427 and we usually find another 10-20 new plants through May as they pop up and flower.
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Latest news Monkey, Lady & hybrid orchids all going/gone to seed - orchid slope closed.
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