I had a look at the Kent BBCS recording page the other day and tried to work out which squares needed to be visited and butterfly records gained. Yesterday's trip around Pierce Mill worked out well and I got four species fairly easily. It seemed to me that the only reason why it had no previous records was simply due to people not visiting the sites.
Today however when I looked at the square to the South of Laddingford I thought I could see several clues as to why this square had no records. There were very few roads and less than a kilometre of footpaths. Most of the square appeared to be farmsteads and large arable fields with some orchards at West Pike Fish Farm. There are only a few tiny copses of woodland and relatively few houses with gardens. I could therefore only hope to see a few butterflies with the commoner browns and whites. I imagined my main technical problem would be finding somewhere to leave the car.
However when I got through Laddingford it was easy enough to find a place to pull the car off the road, but much more difficult than I expected to get along the footpaths themselves. Poorly signed, often obstructed with vegetation and often with dangerous stiles, cutting across gardens and agricultural yards, it was really rather unpleasant today. The worst moment was when I though that an overbearing pony might give Monty a kick. Luckily the horse responded when I shouted at him, and Monty co-operated by quickly jumping over the stile out of the horse pasture when encouraged to do so - what a good bit of dog common sense!
The roads were easier to walk than the paths and there were usually a reasonable array of plants along the ditchsides. There are a lot of ditches because of the low-lying nature of the Low Weald and the very heavy clay soils.
Today however when I looked at the square to the South of Laddingford I thought I could see several clues as to why this square had no records. There were very few roads and less than a kilometre of footpaths. Most of the square appeared to be farmsteads and large arable fields with some orchards at West Pike Fish Farm. There are only a few tiny copses of woodland and relatively few houses with gardens. I could therefore only hope to see a few butterflies with the commoner browns and whites. I imagined my main technical problem would be finding somewhere to leave the car.
However when I got through Laddingford it was easy enough to find a place to pull the car off the road, but much more difficult than I expected to get along the footpaths themselves. Poorly signed, often obstructed with vegetation and often with dangerous stiles, cutting across gardens and agricultural yards, it was really rather unpleasant today. The worst moment was when I though that an overbearing pony might give Monty a kick. Luckily the horse responded when I shouted at him, and Monty co-operated by quickly jumping over the stile out of the horse pasture when encouraged to do so - what a good bit of dog common sense!
The roads were easier to walk than the paths and there were usually a reasonable array of plants along the ditchsides. There are a lot of ditches because of the low-lying nature of the Low Weald and the very heavy clay soils.
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