Discover hidden gems of winter landscapes

10:59am Thursday 7th February 2008

BLEAK lifeless winter landscapes can be rather depressing but there is always a little and colour and interest to find if you go in search and I decided that Habberley Valley was going to be just the place for my next quest.

Habberley Valley is a fantastically varied wildlife haven, having some very different yet rare wildlife habitats all contained within a waterless valley.

Much of flat valley floors are dominated by sandy acid grassland and remnant lowland heath which is populated by many rare and unusual invertebrates like the strange three horned triceratops like minator beetle and the fearsome solitary predator wasps called bee wolves.

The slopes leading away from the sandy valley floor are dominated by different types of woodland. There is younger oak and birch woodland that supports the strange and nationally scarce land caddisflies that hide away at the base of the trees, camouflaged in an armoured coat which it makes out of pieces of wood and sand glued together with its own saliva.

There are areas of bilberry woods with rich green understoreys and mature semi-natural ancient woods with damp dark humid interiors which support purple hairstreak butterflies in their canopies and white admiral butterflies on the dense strands of honeysuckle that thrive on the woods margins.

There is even a small beech wood and an area of old sweet chestnut parkland that supports a wonderful and colourful array of fungal species.

At this time of year, what I came to see were the rock outcrops that punctuate the landscape and make up the easterly most boundary of the valley.

The largest of these rocks is called Ridgestone Rock and this rock itself has a variety of extremely rare ecosystems, bell heather and spring hair grass heath and a wonderful wood that defies gravity clinging perilously to the sandstone and is composed of unusual wild service trees.

There is even a strange little garden of sweet wild strawberries, its location a closely guarded secret.

These wonders are at their least spectacular at this time of year but the lack of foliage did mean what I had come to see was a lot more obvious. I had come to look at the rocks themselves or more precisely the lichens that cling to their surface just like a second skin.

It takes a couple of moments of just looking before you start to see the beauty of the dozens of different species of lichen that live upon the rocks but then you soon start to marvel at their rusty shades that can vary from eggshell blues to almost sunshine yellows.

There are lots of different textures and patterns of growth which also add to their effect. It is also worth marvelling at the sheer uniqueness of these strange organisms, as lichens are actually a pair of organisms co inhabiting. The outer body of the lichen is made of a fungi, that provides structural strength and protects the second partner organism, an algae, from the desiccating and other harmful effects of the sun, whilst the algae partner photosynthesises the sun's rays into a carbohydrate which the fungi consumes.

This partnership has allowed lichens to inhabit some of the most inhospitable places on earth even if it takes individuals a very long time to do so.

This slow lifecycle means that some lichens on the rocks of Habberley are much older than even the oldest of the trees.

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