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Wharram and Fordon 22nd June 2004

led by Nan Sykes (species lists below)

Ten members met at the car park in Norton for this trip to the chalk of the East Riding on a fine day: sunny but with a cool westerly breeze, and some small cumulus clouds later in the afternoon. Chalk is, of course, a form of limestone, and supports a characteristic suite of wildflowers such as rock-roses, wild thyme, field scabious and orchids. There is sadly very little semi-natural downland remaining on the Wolds, but many of the flowers have survived in pockets such as old quarries.

Wharram

The first stop was at the YWT reserve at Wharram Quarry which is renowned for its flora. We were not disappointed. The site consists of the old quarry with an extensive flat floor, steep banks running along behind this, and scrubby woodland around the edges and along the roadside. Perhaps the most exciting find was the bee orchids – not that they were hard to find, indeed one had to be very careful not to stand on them as there were so many flowering spikes, with up to five flowers on each though two or three was more usual. I have never seen these beautiful flowers in bloom in Britain before. Each spike was about 6" tall, and from a distance of a couple of feet or more the furry lower lip of the flower really did look like a bumble bee visiting a 3-petalled purple flower. From close range they were quite fascinating and very beautiful (left).

The floor of the quarry was almost like an alpine garden, with many tiny plants such as fairy flax, scarlet pimpernel (right), wild thyme and birdsfoot trefoil together with taller species such as rough hawkbit and quaking grass (a real lime-lover). Rather to my surprise there were very few rock-roses growing here, either on the quarry floor or the steep stony banks that form the back wall. The site is managed to encourage a wide variety of flora, and this involves scraping some areas almost bare of soil, and leaving others with a thicker covering. This leads to a patchwork effect, with each area having its own distinct plant assemblage. One of these had a wonderful show of clustered bellflowers. This is a plant that is now rare in its wild form. The specimens here varied from a mere 3" tall with about three flowers to almost a foot high with 10 or so flowers in a terminal cluster plus others lower down the stem – almost as showy as the garden variety! Towards the old quarry buildings the vegetation is taller, with shrubs such as roses and small trees including hawthorn. We also found both pyramidal and common spotted orchids here, the latter growing in profusion on one small bank together with rough hawkbit (Leontodon hispidus) which is superficially like a tall dandelion. There were many other plants here, including the leaves of the splendid woolly thistle that will flower in a month or so, and one or two surprises such as the yellow hayrattle that is normally associated with damper, less alkaline conditions.

Clustered bellflower

Spotted orchids and rough hawkbit

Dog roses

Two members admiring the “rock garden”

Fordon Bank

After lunch we headed east to Fordon Bank, another YWT reserve, this time on a steep south-facing hillside near Wold Newton. This bank is a rare survival of herb-rich downland grass, kept cropped to a large degree by rabbits, although cattle also graze the hillside. The flora is in many ways similar to that at Wharram, although there are more and taller grasses, as well as some development of scrub (mostly hawthorn and elder). There were yellow rock-roses everywhere (which were conspicuous by their absence at Wharram which was a surprise), with wild thyme, birdsfoot trefoil, quaking grass and many other plants. We also found the clustered bellflower here, as well as field mouse-ear, hop trefoil (another surprise), dropwort, one plant of kidney vetch, field scabious and the leaves of hairy violet under some trees. Perhaps the most striking flowers were the numerous nodding or musk thistles with their fragrant heads almost 2" across. There were also numerous plants of the curious carline thistle, but these were not yet in flower. Surprisingly the only orchid we found was one poor specimen of common spotted, which I suspect the rabbits had chewed – perhaps this is why there were no others? In addition to the plants on the reserve itself there was an interesting corner of unsprayed arable land by the roadside which had typical “weeds” including a wonderful show of poppies but also, more interestingly, a good many plants of Venus’ looking glass (Legousia hybrida), scarlet pimpernel, field pansy and sun spurge. Unfortunately I found the Legousia almost impossible to photograph (the flowers are only about 3mm across), but I have included a picture here as it is somewhat of a rarity. The field pansy was much bluer than the typical form which is uniformly cream, at least in this part of Yorkshire.

Venus’ looking glass

Field mouse-ear

Field pansy

Insects

Given the wonderful variety of flowers, it was no surprise to see plenty of butterflies and colourful moths, as well as bees and flies, at both sites. Unfortunately I am not an expert and could not identify many of them but they did include common blue, small heath, meadow brown, marbled white, ringlet and painted lady butterflies, cinnabar moth and a burnet moth caterpillar as well as the attractive black-and-white Wood Tiger moth (thanks to Stuart Dunlop for the identifications). All the specimens below were about ¾" (2cm) long.

Cinnabar Moth	Cinnabar Moth	Burnet Moth Caterpillar	Wood Tiger Moth

Birds

I did not see many birds although I did hear several different species. I think perhaps the botanists were making too much noise, and all the birds kept a low profile in the trees and bushes. Tom Denney has kindly provided the list below.

Warblers: chiffchaff, willow warbler, whitethroat, blackcap.
Hirundines: swallow, house martin, swift.
Others: yellowhammer, greenfinch, chaffinch, linnet, wren, blackbird, corn bunting (on wires en route to Fordon), wood pigeon, stock dove, collared dove, kestrel, rook, magpie, jackdaw.
(on village pond en route): mallard & Canada geese.

Mammals

Apart from the ubiquitous rabbits, we saw one hare at Wharram, and a fox cub at Fordon.

Gill Smith, June 2004

Plant lists

This is not a complete list, and only contains those grasses that I could identify easily. One or two of the plants were only noted as leaves (e.g. cowslip, hairy violet). I have produced separate lists for the two sites, but clearly there is an enormous overlap.

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