FOLKESTONE WARREN

CARDINAL BEETLE

SPECKLED WOOD  JAVELIN NAGS HEAD PRIMEVAL PLANTS

I thought I would revisit my youth today and went down the cliff path from Capel to the sea at the warren,spent a lot of time here in my late teens and early twenties,like everything else its changed quite a bit and not for the better.The cliff path is basically the same,but the beach is now a small strip of sand at low tide as large boulders have been dumped against the sea wall to prevent erosion.There were some butterflies around, speckled woods in the sunlit glades,common blues on the grassy banks,holly blues,dingy skippers,wall and a single green hairstreak. A Cardinal beetle was seen in the undercliff area which is now largely overgrown with weed trees ash and sycamore and the undergrowth is mainly ferns and nettles,it has a primeval feel about it.Birds were thin on the ground with just the odd blackcap and whitethroat among the wrens robin and blackbirds. Out of the woods you could hear the gutteral chuntering of fulmar petrels  tumbling down from their high nest ledges,but that was about it apart from the hourly high speed trainshooting through.Down on to the sea wall and a pair of rock pipits were seen,gathering food for a hungry brood no doubt.The Nags Head is an old feature of a long ago landslide called saucering where the land slips down at the back forcing the front up and leaving this pieco of chalk cliff high and dry.