{"id":4376,"date":"2019-05-27T10:15:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T09:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/?p=4376"},"modified":"2019-05-27T10:15:33","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T09:15:33","slug":"streatley-18-may-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/streatley-18-may-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Streatley – 18 May 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jan Haseler led a walk on the\nbright and intermittently sunny afternoon of Saturday 18 May at the National\nTrust land at Streatley. The walk started out across Lardon Chase, the steep\nsouth-facing slope above the village. A sign on the gate warned about grazing\ncows, calves and a bull, but the animals did not appear to have arrived yet for\ntheir summer grazing task. At the very top of Lardon Chase is a small area of\nClay-with-flints and this section was covered with long grass and buttercups. There\nwas then a sharp transition onto the Chalk, with shorter grass and a much more\nvaried flora. Flowers here included Horseshoe Vetch, Kidney Vetch, Mouse-ear-hawkweed,\nGermander Speedwell, Common Bird\u2019s-foot-trefoil, Ox-eye Daisy, Hoary Plantain, Clustered\nBellflower and Field Scabious, and Yellow-wort leaves were seen. There were a\nfew Small Heath and Common Blue butterflies and a Lesser Whitethroat was\ncalling from the boundary hedge. An area of disturbed soil around a cluster of\nRabbit holes had Common Gromwell, Field Madder and Cut-leaved Crane\u2019s-bill\nplants. At the eastern end of Lardon Chase were sheets of navy blue and white Chalk\nMilkwort and Horseshoe Vetch, together with a few spikes of Common Spotted-orchid.\nThe Whitebeam trees on the far boundary were covered in creamy-white flowers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The walk continued through the gate\ninto Lough Down, the north-facing part of the site. Several clumps of Field Mouse-ear\nwere found on disturbed soil just past the gateway. Much of Lough Down is\ncovered by a fine set of anthills. Common Rock-rose was growing on some and Wild\nThyme covered others. There is another small area of Clay-with-flints at the\ntop south-west corner of Lough Down and this is where a number of clumps of Meadow\nSaxifrage were found, with more plants amongst the anthills on the Chalk slope\nbelow. Also found here were a number of Early Forget-me-not plants, with tiny\nblue flowers. Part way down the slope amongst the anthills is an old sunken\ntrackway and this is where there was the best display of Cowslips. A few plants\nof Common Milkwort were found here, and a flower spike was compared with a\nspecimen of Chalk Milkwort. The Common Milkwort flower had a more purple hue;\nthe veins on the sepals had closed loops, compared with an open branched\nstructure on the Chalk Milkwort and the broadest part of each leaf was near the\ntip for the Common Milkwort and near the base for the Chalk Milkwort. On the\neastern side of Lough Down was a patch of bare ground where scrub had been\ncleared recently. On it was a big clump of Deadly Nightshade which was about to\ncome into flower, together with White Bryony, Wild Strawberry, Dense-flowered\nFumitory and more Common Gromwell. A Whitethroat was heard on the walk back\nacross the top of Lardon Chase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n