The theme of this month's blog is blooming! This describes the habitat the best at this time of year. We see waves of wildflowers and minibeasts as the seasons progress.

It all starts with the cowslips in April, bursting through with droopy yellow flowers. Followed by the speedwell and then they come in droves; rock roses, fairy flax and horseshoe vetch to name a few. The orchids of course deserve a special mention we have fragrant, common spotted, pyramid, bee and lesser butterfly orchids all on site. The lady’s bedstraw has just begun to brighten the meadows with a new wave of yellow and the scabious are adding a nice purple contrast.

You’ve probably already guessed, I’ve been on a wildflower course! We’ve kick started the Coombe Bissett training sessions with a great workshop by Dominic Price from the Species Recovery Trust. Dominic taught me and 15 attendees about the sheer diversity of the chalk grassland habitat. We sat down on one of the slopes and easily found 10 species around us. Which made the course lovely and leisurely in the sun. My favourite finds were the clustered bell flower and the delicate fairy flax.

With the wildflowers of course come the insects. The site is well known for its Adonis blue butterfly, but I’m unfortunately not quick enough on the camera. So our next course was naturally on butterflies! The fabulous Hugo Brooke from Butterfly Conservation came along to help our keen group identify butterflies and moths. The weather wasn’t too kind for butterflies but the moths were caught overnight and are much more rain tolerant!

Of course butterflies aren’t the only insects on site, but gosh there’s so many to learn! I took Coombe Bissett School out on Thursday 14 July and we found an absolute abundance of weird and wonderful minibeasts. The children were amazed and so was I! Caterpillars big and small, leafhoppers, crickets and grasshoppers. Flies including lots of unknown crane fly species in red, black and green. Beetles in every colour too… the ‘inordinate fondness of beetles’ commented on by Darwin is true! I’m going to need to swat up so please get in contact with pictures of insects seen on the Coombe Bissett Down site and I will do my best (ask an expert!) what they are.

Soon when everyone feels confident we’ll start species quests (as I like to call them) for longhorned beetles, rare moths and of course their food plants which are the whole reason they are here.

There will be plenty more opportunities to find out about the creatures on site and as the courses have taught me, we’re all still learning! So email us if you want to get out and learning more CBDproject@wiltshirewildlife.org