Badbury Rings in the north wind

[puddleshark]

Badbury Rings in May. A Stonechat perched on every briar on the ramparts.



The Met Office promised us sunshine today, but they lied. I went hunting orchids, and, on the ramparts of Badbury Rings Iron Age hillfort under overcast skies, the north wind was very cold indeed. The skylarks were not singing.

Made one circuit clockwise of the middle rampart, wishing I had worn a coat.


Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor).


Common Twayblade (Neottia ovata) - a green orchid in the green grass.


Lots of Greater Butterfly Orchids (Platanthera chlorantha) on the slopes of the middle rampart, but most of them not yet in flower. I always forget that Badbury Rings is too far inland to have a coastal micro-climate, and everything flowers a little later here.

After a circuit of the ramparts, a circuit of the ditch between the middle and inner ramparts.



A ditch filled not with water, but with buttercups and forget-me-nots. It was out of the wind, at least, but still very cold. Far too cold for any butterflies to be on the wing.

Comments

[nikonf3]

This is lovely. It's hard for some of us to imagine living in a place with human made objects that old.

[puddleshark]

There are Neolithic long barrows and Bronze Age round barrows everywhere on the hills here. As kids we ran up and down the ramparts of Iron Age hillforts.

Mostly I take the landscape for granted... except sometimes I suddenly realise I am walking where someone once walked two thousand years ago, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck.