My first view of the Needles, at the western tip of the Isle of Wight, was a long time ago when I flew round them in a light aircraft. The weather was much like it is below and it was quite a spectacle!
The Needles looking across to the Isle of Purbeck. Old Harry Rocks are the thin sliver of white chalk in the distance at 11 o’clock from the lighthouse
I’d heard it said that the Needles were at one time joined to the Old Harry Rocks at the southern end of Studland Bay, around 15 miles away on the Isle of Purbeck. I’d thought it entirely possible but never had it confirmed. And then just after I took this photograph I overheard a very knowledgeable old gentleman telling his companion all about the local geology, so I stood close by and earwigged the conservation.
As you can see, the Needles are made of limestone and apparently they were once a single strip of rock with a gap in the middle from which a single calcareous stack protruded, known as ‘The Needle‘. And then in the 18th century a storm caused a collapse which resulted in the Needles of today.
But before that, Old Harry and the Needles were a single limestone structure and the Isle of Wight wasn’t an Isle, and the Solent – the stretch of sea which separates the Isle of Wight from the mainland – was the River Solent. But around 4-5000 years ago a storm breached the limestone wall and the River Solent became a seaway overnight and the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were cast adrift on a new island. And interestingly, all the rivers on the mainland from Poole Harbour in the west eastwards to Portsmouth: the Meon, Itchen, Test, Avon, Frome and Piddle all flow southward, and those on the Isle of Wight: the Eastern Yar, Western Yar, Newtown, Wootton Creek and Medina all flow northward, and they all drained into the River Solent.
Pyramidal orchid – Anacamptis pyramidalis
The terrain all around the Needles is chalk downland which has very characteristic flora and fauna, amongst which is the pyramidal orchid and this lone flower was lurking at the edge of The Needles carpark. It thrives on the chalk downs to such a degree that it has been chosen as the county flower of the Isle of Wight. In the air high over the car park was a peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus, Dansk: vandrefalk) but I didn’t have a telephoto lens with me on this trip, so alas, no pictures. From the car park it’s about a mile to walk to The Needles themselves and on a sunny day it’s a terrific walk, the views are magnificent.
To the east, north and west the air was full of falcons, songbirds, bees and butterflies, and when we got to the very end there was a historic naval gun emplacement. In WWII the gun guarded the Solent and the strategically important ports of Poole, Southampton and Portsmouth against enemy shipping, and just over the top of the cliff from the gun emplacement was a test site for missile engines which had been hewn from the rock – a hangover from the Cold War. The whole thing was fascinating, geologically, biologically and historically!
Teasels – Dipsacus fullonum
Whilst trying to photograph a stonechat which was darting around next to the path I noticed these teasels which were still sporting their downy purple flowers. I have lots of photographs of the dried out brown seedheads of teasels after they’ve flowered but but I’ve been after a good one of the flowers themselves. And I think this is the best backdrop I could have found, looking out across the Solent towards the New Forest on a sunny day.
Also flitting around in the chalky grassland were hundreds of chalkhill blue butterflies. It was a very windy day and I think the butterflies may have been staying down low becausse of the wind, preferring to be stationary rather than risk being blown away. Consequently they were fairly easy to get close to:
Chalkhill blue male (Lysandra coridon)
I absolutely love blue butterflies. In fact anything living and blue – insects, flowers, fish reptiles – blue seems to convey a unique beauty on a creature, so to see so many of these blues was a real pleasure. And the chalkhill blue is a big butterfly too, with a wingspan of 33-40mm.
One of the curious facts about blue butterflies is that some of them are actually brown, and with chalkhills as with common blues, the females are brown:
The female chalkhill blue. She’s brown, not blue, but still a beauty!
Chalkhill blues mating, the brown female is on the left
Apparently this year was a particularly good one for the chalkhill blue. Despite being a devastating one for most other butterfly species in the UK, there were huge numbers of breeding chalkhills recorded in their traditional territories, and in my humble opinion that’s very good news indeed.
The view along the north of the island looking east towards Southampton, with yachts racing toward us
The geology of this part of the south coast is remarkable too. Limestone was formed at the bottom of oceans by the compaction of dead shellfish over millions of years, so it may seem odd to find it at the top of the cliffs. Or indeed whole cliffs made of it. There is a clue to how this happened in the cliff below, which is looking round to the southeast from The Needles, in which there are clearly delineated strata in the rock running upwards from left to right at around 45 degrees. The reason for angled strata is that in this part of the world tectonic shifts have concertinad the rock strata all the way from the east of England along the south coast as far as Dorset to the west forcing them upwards.
This folding of the rock means that in the east the rock is relatively young but the deepest, oldest, layers have been exposed in Dorset around the town of Lyme Regis. So the region around Lyme is referred to as the ‘Jurassic Coast’. Of which more in a subsequent post.
Would be very interesting to visit. And very interesting orchid, unknown for me.
Hello Bente, if you ever find yourself in the south of England I can recommend a visit to the IoW. And if you visit the chalky part at the right time of year you’re guaranteed to see lots of pyramidal orchids. Do you have any orchids growing in Norway?
That butterfly is stunning, Finn! I saw a blue butterfly in Costa Rica once…
I get a little thrill every time I see blues. They’re beautiful and iconic.
Did you get a picture of your Costa Rican blue? Those rain forest butterflies are unreal, like childrens drawings
Hi Finn Holding,
Good news! I have nominated your blog for the Blog of the Year 2012 award.
The rules of the award are at
http://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/blog-of-the-year-2012-award-thanks-miss-marzipan-2/
Congratulations!
Thanks Kitty! That’s awesome. ‘argylesock’ also recommended The Naturephile for the BoTY and I’ll respond to you both soon.
Suffice to say I’m very pleased to be recognised by you because I think your ‘Dear Kitty’ blog is excellent. In fact after being recommended by argylesock I compiled a short list of blogs I would recommend and yours was on there!
Hi Finn, congratulations with those two stars! Let them shine brightly
Keep blogging!
Thanks for your kind words on my blog!
Credit where it’s due, your blog is ace!
Agree completelyy–I love your chalkhill blue! He helped to make an already special outing even more so. Must get there some day!
I can highly recommend it!
How bizare! I was only just revelling about discovering Bory’s Anacamptis on our property the other day and here you are sharing a fellow Bory’s Anacamptis on the other side of the world! I hope our little fellow doesn’t starve to death because our local conditions are more adicic than chalky alkaline but it seems quite happy to be growing in the bushland on our back block. As I previously commented on another one of your wonderful posts, I love teasels and am going to collect some seed to spread them over our property. Serendipity Farm is part of a 10 acre churchgrounds that was broken up years ago when the manse was sold off to raise funds for the upkeep of the convict built church. The elderly lady who bought the property next door to us sold off 4 acres of it to a friend who sold it to my father when she was unable to manage it on her own. My father let it run to seed for 20 years and we have been turning it over to permaculture and the local native wildlife ever since we inherited it 2 years ago when he died. It’s been a hard slog but more of a privilage to allow the native wildlife and wildflowers to reinhabit the property. I love reading about other peoples wild life watching habits. I can see that this blog is going to become a firm favourite over my 5am rss feed reading marathons
Your self sufficiency project is awesome. I’m really looking forward to following how you get on with that and keeping up with your local flora and fauna. I think your decision to up sticks and live sustainably is extremely brave and at the same time extremely imporatant. We can all learn lessons from your experiences and it’s great that the internet is there so you can publicise your adventures around the globe! I’ll keep you updated from Cambridge and I hope youe crack-of-dawn rss explorations are worthwhile
I am a natural night person and my decision to get up at 5am was a most important and enlightening one for me. It showed me that there is a whole different world out there in my 2 hours of intense contemplation before the rest of my household starts to wake up (including the dogs
). It was SO worth learning to wake up earlier and there is a lot of truth in that old “Early to bed…early to rise” saying! I found 2 really wonderful blogs in Argyle socks (must ask her what her name is! 
) recommended science blogs, yours being one and cowgirls being the other. I feel like I have just settled down with one of those “can’t put it down…must read!” books that you sometimes get hold of and it is an incredible privilage and luxury to read when I started to read both of your posts. You are both credits to the U.K. and you both deserve incredible kudos for your ability to share your own little neck of the woods with the rest of us. You are both natural writers and very good at your craft and I will be sharing your wonderful blogs with as many people as I possibly can because good blogs need to be shared 
I LOVE the picture of the male Chalkhill butterfly! Like you I have a bit of a blue obsession. I have taken this very walk a few years ago and it is as stunning as you describe. Did you go to Newtown? as well, there were some lovely meadows there. Lovely post.
Isn’t he a beauty? I don’t know what it is about blue, maybe it’s the colour contrast, but watching a blue butterfly flutter over a green meadow with lots of wildflowers in is magical. We didn’t get to the meadows at Newtown, but I’ll bear them in mind next time we go. Thanks for the tip.
This is a very enjoyable post, with great photos and very interesting descriptions of the history and geology of the place. I would love to see it!
It’s a lovely place and I’m pleased you found the post interesting, there’s a little more geology in the next post too
I think the geology in that part of the world is what makes it so interesting by giving it a diverse range of habitats. Also the folding of the rock means that it’s youngest in the east in Kent and gets older in the west where the deepest and most ancient rock strata have been forced up to the surface. And they’re the ones that contain the oldest fossils too.
Completely fascinating… I love the bits about the area’s geological history. And SO very beautiful. Put a cottage on that cliff, and I’ll never leave.
I’ll race you to that cottage!
The geology is amazing in that part of the world, it’s created a spectacular stretch of coast line
Magnificent! Your photos are, as ever, an utter delight, and you have well and truly sold the Isle of Wight to me. That photo of the teasels is wonderful and, as you say, what a backdrop! I love blue creatures too and it is possibly my greatest ambition to see a blue whale. If I’d seen the last picture on this post in isolation I might have suspected it to be in the Mediterranean, what wonderful lighting. Any chance of a part 3?
Thanks Lorna, I hope you get to see a blue whale! I think seeing any type of whale is a wonderful experience – not that I’ve seen that many. But a blue would be very, very special.
The cliffs in that last shot were tricky, the light was really bright with stark congtrast and I wanted to show the layers in the rock. I just about managed it, but it is a lovely view on a sunny day, I guess it could be mistaken for the Med.
Every chance of Part 3, but I’ll need to go back and visit again. Woo hoo!