Landport Bottom

Friday 4th August 2023

I attended a grass identification course today. We went up to Landport Bottom and sent the first few hours in the church hall going through the various parts of grasses! Then about 1130 we went up onto the Downs and spent the next 4 hours looking at everything. It turned out to be a bit about grasses but also lots about everything else that caught the lecturers fancy - very interesting and I had a great time - but not sure how much wiser I am about grasses! It is chalk grassland, some of which was dug up in the 1940s for agricultural land and some was left. About 20 years ago the council bought it all and since then it has been manged for chalk grassland. Given the history some of i is more diverse than others but it is all beautiful! Pictures above top left going clockwise. 1. A cinnabar moth caterpillar on ragwort (ragwort is seen as a terrible weed by farmers as it can kill horses if they eat too much of it - but without it you dont get beautiful moths and caterpillars!). 2. View back down to Lewes and across to the downs and Mount Caber the other side (beautiful place Lewes!). 3. The blue flower is a Rampion - called teh Pride of Sussex - which I thought was great! 4. Grassland verge. 5. A thistle that had lost all its fluff and turned silver - looks like a wonderful brooch! 6. View down to Newhaven and the sea (the white blob near the sea is the very large incinerator which is a blight on the Newhaven landscape!).

The sun was out for once so in the evening we had a street BBQ - lovely to chat to all our neighbours on a sunny day.