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Poppies, seen almost everywhere on the South Downs in summer

But it is the skylark that will suddenly rise from the ground trilling its mellifluous song, then hovers as a tiny speck, singing all the while. No song could better conjour a landscape than this; it is the unmistakable soundtrack to the South Downs.

Typical butterflies, such as the adonis blue, chalkhill blue and common blue all feed on chalkland plants like the horseshoe vetch, while the marbled white is attracted to thistles on rough grassland.

Animal life ranges from tiny spiders and grasshoppers to roe and fallow deer. Rabbits and hares graze the open grasslands; badgers, being nocturnal creatures, usually emerge from their setts in the evening to feed, while foxes can be quite brazen in their daylight journeys.

Used by the SDW, this track carries the walk beyond the Clayton windmills (Walk 15)

Walking on the Downs

Discover some excuse to be up there … and, if not, go without any pretext. Lands of gold have been found, and lands of spices and precious merchandise; but this is the land of health.