A busy season for National Park rangers in Hampshire
March 11, 2022
Ranger Chris Lickley gives an update on two key projects the Hampshire team have been working on.
The Western area team and volunteers have been working hard these past few weeks on Hillhampton Down, part of Butser Hill National Nature Reserve. Hillhampton Down can be found on the southern side of Butser Hill, just a short detour from the South Downs Way.
A National Grid project aims to enhance the landscape and biodiversity for both wildlife and visitors, while opening up alternative views to draw the visitors’ eye away from the power lines surrounding Butser Hill. Part of the project’s planned works is at Hillhampton Down, as well as Grandfathers Bottom and the Butser Hill car park.
The team have worked hard removing a lot of the scrub, using a mixture of hand tools, brushcutters and the flail mower, which has been key in removing the densest growth. We’ve also started work establishing a walking route which leads up to the yew woodland as part of the project’s plan for visitors to better enjoy the views. We were really encouraged to find patches of good quality chalk grassland in between the areas of scrub.
Meanwhile, the team has also been working at Fawley Down, a thin, 8-hectare north-facing downland slope roughly two miles east of Winchester. It sits in a valley surrounded by arable fields with no public access and is an “ecological island” of strategic importance for rare butterflies and moths.
As a long and steep slope, scrub management using hand tools is a tough task and we have found it difficult to complete. So instead, for the past two years we have used contractor support to remove areas of very dense scrub and to dig out tree stumps using excavators, as well using our own mower to complete the scrub management.
Fawley Down was originally identified in 2014 as a site of potential to provide additional habitat for rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly, connecting to the nearby Butterfly Conservation reserve of Magdalen Hill Down to the north. Ongoing annual management since then has seen species diversity increase, with blue butterfly species appearing in the last four years.
We’re still awaiting the Dukes but the cowslips are surviving well thanks to site management and will be there ready for when they do decide to take the leap!