Dodder
Common dodder is quite rare (despite the name) but easy to spot. It’s characterised by its parasitic vine of reddish threads that grow over other plants for sustenance.
Plants
Click on the images above to find out the name of each species. You can also click on most of the species names in the table below to learn more about it.
You’ll typically see a wealth of wildflowers, scrub, and bushes at healthy chalk downlands. As for wildflowers, you can look out for:
Species | Habitat | Appearance | Attracts |
Specialised chalk grassland plant. | Its small, white flowers bloom on wiry stems. | Loved by pollinators. | |
Specialised chalk grassland plant. | A scrambling herbaceous plant in the pea family with yellow flowers. | The muse of the Adonis blue butterfly. | |
Round-headed rampion | Specialised chalk grassland plant. | A plant in the bellflower family with purple clustered horn-like buds. | Supports many bees and butterflies. |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland. | Another plant in the pea family with yellow, pod-like flowers. | Favoured by bees. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland. | Unique, distinctive plants that resemble seeded thistles with their brown/golden heads. | A nectar source for a wide variety of butterflies. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland. | A low-growing herbaceous perennial plant with blue, pink, or white flowers. |
| |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland.
| A fragrant, drooping yellow flower in the primrose family. | An important food source for many species of insects and birds. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland.
| A low-growing herb with reddish flower heads and leaves that smell like cucumber. | Loved by pollinators. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland.
| A plant with dense froths of small yellow flowers and a sweet scent. | Attracts butterflies, bees, and hawk moths. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland. | A hairy plant with purple flowers and protruding red stamens. | Bees, hoverflies, and butterflies all enjoy them. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland. | A tall herbaceous perennial plant with delicate clusters of lilac pin-cushion flowers. | Hoverflies, bumblebees, and peacock butterflies especially love it. | |
Frequently found in calcareous grassland. | A perennial herb with clusters of purple and pink flowers. | Loved by ladybirds, hummingbirds, and green lacewings. |
Two of the rarer or perhaps more intriguing types of plant found on chalk downlands, though, include dodder and various orchids.
Orchids
All kinds of orchids thrive in the thin, chalky soil of calcareous downlands. Most commonly, you will see the common spotted, fragrant, and pyramidal orchids. Rarer are the musk, bee, man, autumn lady’s tresses, burnt, and early spider orchids.
Scrub and bushes
Typical chalk grasslands are dominated by wildflowers and grasses as you may imagine. Clusters of shrubs and bushes are dotted around healthy sites – but sometimes take over when left ungrazed and unmanaged.
Scattered bushes may include red-berried hawthorn, guelder rose, dogwood (occasionally white-berried), and the purple-berried blackthorn and juniper as a low-growing shrub. Hawthorn and blackthorn provide shelter, nesting habitat, and berries for birds, as well as nectar for pollinators!
Salad burnet
Viper's bugloss
Lady's bedstraw
Common milkwort
Carline thistle
Bird's Foot Trefoil
Kidney vetch
Insects
Feeding on and pollinating all those wonderful plants are a huge variety of butterflies, moths, and more. In the chalky undergrowth and crawling amongst the grasses are crickets, beetles, and bees galore. Let’s take a look...
Butterflies
Because of the density of wildflowers, you’ll see quite a range of different butterflies at healthy chalk grassland sites. In fact, nearly a third of all British butterflies can be found in these habitats. Just a few include:
Small white (aka cabbage white)
Adonis blue
The adonis blue – the butterfly in our logo – is one of the most characteristic butterflies of chalk grassland. The males have bright blue wings, while the females are a more conspicuous brown. Both sexes share the distinctive white fringes around their wings, framed by black lines.
The adonis blue overwinters as a caterpillar (green with yellow stripes) and feeds on horseshoe vetch, before emerging at the end of summer.
During its time as a chrysallis, it has a special relationship with ants, which bury it in chambers connected to the ant’s nest so they can feed on its sugary secretions! In return, the ants protect it from parasites until it’s ready to emerge.
Because it only feeds on horseshoe vetch, the loss of chalk grassland habitats poses a threat to the adonis blue.
Duke of Burgundy
The small and striking Duke of Burgundy butterfly has brown wings with stained-glass-like orange panels. Its eggs are typically laid under the leaves of cowslip or primrose and, like the adonis blue, it overwinters as a chrysallis – until the following spring.
It is listed as a high conservation priority with a ‘threatened’ status, with a rapid population decline of 35.1% since monitoring began in 1975. They’re only found in a handful of places across England, with chalk grassland being one of their preferred habitats.
Silver spotted skipper & grizzled skipper
Both skippers are characteristic of chalk downland and are both rare, having been forced into smaller and smaller areas of the UK.
The silver spotted has a green-ish underwing and orange-to-brown gradient on the upper, while the grizzled is brown with white splotches and a thick fluffy body.
The best time to see either species is early in the morning when they bask in the sun to warm up – otherwise, their fast flight makes them rather hard to spot!
Silver-spotted skipper
Duke of Burgundy Butterfly
Adonis blue
Moths
As for moths, chalk grasslands are known for:
Bordered gothic
Pale shining brown
Four-spotted
Chalk carpet
A rarer species that was close to extinction in 1995 is the black-veined moth – an almost entirely white moth with, you guessed it, black veins running through its wings. It feeds on marjoram, birds-foot trefoil, and other herbs.
Crickets and beetles
All the usual critters can be found in this habitat: ants, ground beetles, grasshoppers, and the like. The bloody-nosed beetle, in particular, can be seen with their bead-like antenna, feeding on lady’s bedstraw. They deploy a bright red defensive secretion if attacked – hence the name.
Wart-biter bush cricket
The wart-biter bush cricket takes its name from its purported ability to bite off warts in early cosmetic procedures! Now, it’s considered one of Britain’s most endangered species and is confined to just 6 sites in England. They need a mosaic habitat of both short and tall tussocky grassland, and lay their eggs singly in bare soil.
You might spot them on a sunny day, but you’d be more likely to hear them stridulating!
Hazel pot beetle
The hazel pot beetle is a lovely bulbous beetle with a black thorax-covering and red wings – they could be mistaken from afar for ladybirds. It belongs to the leaf beetle family and is named as such because of the protective shell-like ‘pot’ that its larvae live in.
They’ve suffered dramatic declines in the UK and are now classified as rare.
Bees and hoverflies
Of course, with any wildflower-rich habitat comes a variety of bees and hoverflies that play a pollination role in the ecosystem.
Some special species include:
Phantom hoverfly
Blue carpenter bee
Downland furrow bee
The potter flower bee, a solitary digger species, is considered one of England’s rarest bees, now confined to just a few sites along the southern coast. It has a unique nesting behaviour whereby it uses mud to build pot-like nests for its eggs. It’s also unique in its food preference, opting for plants like viper’s bugloss for nectar!
Birds
Despite the lack of trees and foliage we typically think of as suited to birds, a few species reside in and rely on chalk grassland. Most often, you will spot ground-nesting birds like skylarks, but you might also see woodpeckers and linnets, particularly if there are scrubs or wooded areas nearby.
The presence of ground-nesting birds is one of the reasons to be cautious when visiting chalk downland sites. It’s easy enough to simply not see their well-hidden eggs and tread onto them, so be sure to walk carefully and keep to pathways with dogs on leads.
Mammals
Mammals like sheep, horses, goats, and cows once played a key role in the delicate ecosystems of lowland calcareous grasslands. Their trampling and grazing behaviours turned the soil and trimmed back domineering plants, making space for a richer variety of species – including rare ones.
Today, most grazers are long-gone from wild spaces, but some conservation groups are reintroducing them as a nature-based solution to restore and protect chalk downland habitats.
Reptiles
Finally, no list of chalk downland species would be complete without a firm nod to the many reptiles that reside there.
Adder and viviparous lizards are frequently found basking on warm ground in areas with shorter vegetation, but they also rely on the nearby cover of shrubs and tall grasses to hide from predators.
Chalk downland infographic
