Kempshott Conservation Group

In Down Grange Meadow the drought conditions during May and June with a very warm spell in mid June meant that flowers were very slow to get into growth and this had a knock on effect on the early butterflies.  However, for butterflies things started getting into their stride by the end of May.  Our first flush of Small Blues was recorded in the meadow on 28th May.  While our friends at Old Down record a lot of this uncommon and priority species, we are finding more and more of this charming little butterfly, albeit in small numbers.  As the season developed it was clear that we have our own (very) small breeding population.

As the weather turned wet, at long last, the flowers started growing.  Bird’s-foot-trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) was appearing in places in the meadow that have not been seeded and existing clumps were expanding where we have scraped and seeded.  B-F-T, as we’ll call it, is an important plant with a number of species of butterflies and moths that use it exclusively.  It can often been seen growing as a mass of yellow flowers in roadside verges around the town.  It can, fortunately, cope with the ravages of regular cutting.

It was a great year for orchids with them popping up in places where we expected them as well new sites scattered across the meadow.  The two triangles that were scraped and seeded in 2014 looked a picture this summer, demonstrating that it takes 3-5 years for a newly seeded flower meadow to come into its own.

At the end of July, Basingstoke Disc Golf Club, which has been using meadow for five years, hosted the World Overall Flying Disc Championships.  The club approached us and asked if they could cut areas of the meadow in readiness for the event.  As we had the mechanical equipment to do it, we volunteered our services for the grass cutting and, while we knew roughly where they wanted to cut, there were areas that had to be avoided.  There were also places that had some pernicious weeds, such as Ragwort, Hogweed and Creeping Thistle, that needed to be cut and we saw this as an ideal opportunity to see what effect summer cutting would have on these weeds.

The World Overall Flying Disc Championships take place every two years and the last time they were held in the UK was 19 years ago.  There were a number of different events held between 24th and 29th July, so it was not just about disk golf.  Around 100 competitors from a dozen countries took part, with large contingents from Sweden, Taiwan and the USA.  In addition to Down Grange Meadow, they also used the Down Grange Sports Complex and Down Grange Home Park opposite the Toby Carvery.  Indoor events were held in Maidenwell Pavilion, the home of Basingstoke Hockey Club.

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For more information about our activities on Down Grange Meadow, please call Marion Wolstencroft on (01256) 470171.  Alternatively, send an email to kempshott-conserve@tiscali.co.uk or visit us at www.kempshottconservationgroup.org.uk