Chalk grassland is very much an artificial habitat around here, requiring management to prevent natural scrub progression occurring rapidly. The usual way to deal with this is by winter grazing with sheep or goats and on Banstead Downs there are a number of areas that have been grazed for over twenty years on a three/four yearly rotation. This year a small flock of Herdwicks did the sterling work through all the snow and cold weather (below). Their grazing opens up the sward and helps to maintain a low soil fertility level, in addition they do tend to nibble at some of the scrub. The important thing is they are removed in the early spring so that they do not eat the hopefully burgeoning flora!
A similar pattern of management on Park Downs to the south of Banstead has been interrupted following a dog attack a few years ago that resulted in the death of a number of goats. One of the the dogs is still around and forage harvesting has been used to keep the herbage down. Not ideal.
Recently however, nature has decided to help in the form of the local rabbits. Park Downs has had a rabbit population that for the past ten years at least has varied over a fairly regular two to three year cycle. Once they reach a certain density, myxamatosis appears and the numbers drop down, they then recover and the cycle repeats itself. The past two years have seen a break in that cycle, numbers have increased continuously and have reached very high levels with no sign of myxomatosis yet.
Rabbits tend to have "favourite" feeding areas and rather than graze the whole site lightly they create small areas of close-cropped lawns and although the botanical diversity increase in those lawns, they have only a small impact on the site overall. This cold winter and increase in numbers has however seen a dramatic increase in the area grazed and the effects are beginning to be seen.
On the good side rabbit grazing tends to favour the growth of less coarse grasses offering an advantage to other chalk grassland species that cannot normally competee hence species diversity increases, It also alters the physical characteristics of existing species, for example Cowslip, the picture below shows this plant growing fairly typically in a non-grazed area (left) and a grazed area (right), the plants are about 1/3 of the size, quite a difference. It doesn't help that in the latter example something nibbles the flowers just as they open, neverthless the species is increasing even in those areas.
On the bad side, in the short term rabbits do not restrict themselves to grass and many plants fail to flower especially orchids that have there flowering stems renmoved as they elongate. In the long term, the effects can be more serious in that in well-grazed areas rabbits tend to dig for roots etc (I assume) and this can lead to rapid degradation of the sward. This is just beginning to happen in some areas on Parks Downs.
It is a great shame that the rabbits can't be removed for the summer, proper conservation grazing!
Locally, south-facing chalk downland has turned yellow over the past couple of weeks. It seems to be a great year for Bird's-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), Horseshoe Vetch (Hippocrepis comosa), Common Rockrose (Helianthemum nummularium) and in some places Kidney Vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria), these coupled with the odd buttercup all have similarly coloured flowers and are in full bloom at the moment. Good news indeed for many invertebrates especially the different species of blue butterflies that variously utilize these as food plants.
Common Rockrose normally has bright yellow flowers (above) with papery petals that benefit from close inspection. However, on this occasion I was lucky enough to find a much lighter variant (left), that seem to enhance the ephemeral appearance of the normal flower, almost poppy-like. Although this variant is not uncommon, on this occasion I only found one amongst literally thousands of the normal form, I have seen it before and it is well worth looking out for.
This time last year we made a visit to the Sussex coast to see a veritable confusion of Dactylorhiza species and hybrids.
A similar pattern of management on Park Downs to the south of Banstead has been interrupted following a dog attack a few years ago that resulted in the death of a number of goats. One of the the dogs is still around and forage harvesting has been used to keep the herbage down. Not ideal.
On the bad side, in the short term rabbits do not restrict themselves to grass and many plants fail to flower especially orchids that have there flowering stems renmoved as they elongate. In the long term, the effects can be more serious in that in well-grazed areas rabbits tend to dig for roots etc (I assume) and this can lead to rapid degradation of the sward. This is just beginning to happen in some areas on Parks Downs.
Those orchids are however symbolic of one particular antisocial habit that really gets my goat, namely that of casual garden rubbish disposal. We are lucky in Banstead, the town is almost encircled by countryside, whether it be downland, woodland or farmland, public or private. Unfortunately a small proportion of the population regard this as an opportunity not to walk and appreciate the flora and fauna but to rid themselves of assorted garden rubbish. Some literally throw it over the garden fence when they are lucky (!!) enough to live in a situation where this is possible, others take more trouble to transport it to the site. Some will even barrow it many yards into woods to hide it from obvious view.
The November rain and winds has reduced the local downland to a grey/brown mire. The last leaves have been ripped from the trees and the only remaining colour is from the fruit left on scrub species. Most of them are the black of Buckthorn, Privet and Dogwood but standing out amongst those are the scarlet/crimson fruit of Spindle (Euonymus europaea,left ). It seems to have been a very good year for Spindle on the Downs, some plants are still laden with fruit with the orange seeds protruding from the scarlet flesh.
For some reason on Banstead Downs there are a good proportion of plants with fruit ranging in colour through to white, the latter being rather attractive (right). As far as I am concerned this is unusual in itself, I have never seen this anywhere else (other than gardens) not even on Park Downs close by. It has been suggested to me that it is quite likely that because Spindle used to be widely planted for its timber and perhaps in the dim and distant past someone rather liked a white variant that appeared and planted this rather than the more normal one, hence enriching the population. I am not too sure of this explanation, I suspect that planting for timber on common land (as Banstead Downs is) stopped a very long time ago but who knows.
I have always rather simply assumed that colour variants usually result from a simple genetic mutation, in this case meaning the plant is unable to synthesize the relevant pigments to give the fruit its normal colour. However this year I have noticed a couple of plants with predominantly white berries but here and there just a single normal-coloured fruit (see poor picture taken in gloom, left) I assume this suggests it is a bit more complicated than that. 
I was lucky enough to see the plant flowering in the Chilterns back in the nineteen seventies and eighties, (hence the poor scan from a slide) when it flowered almost annually for quite a few years. It seems the habitat has got considerably drier over the past twenty years and it was assumed that it had gone forever. However apparently not, great news!
At this time of year I start looking back on the year and re-examining photos taken, none of which are ever as good as I thought they were at the time! One that caught my eye however was taken not by myself but by a friend and it is a picture of Fly Orchid (O.insectifera). 
I should point out that there are two similar species found in S.France and Spain O.subinsectifera and O aymoninii (below) that have lips with yellow edges but this is not they!
Yes, this is a crop of flax!
