With its unique landscape of coastal habitats and limestone grasslands, Portland is steeped in wildlife. The island is well known as a haven for migratory birds and seabird, but you can also find rare butterflies, bees and bugs, as well as lizards, badgers, foxes and bunnies, as you journey through the landscape.
Dorset Wildlife Trust helps manage some of the disused quarries, which form the Portland Quarries Nature Park, helping to regenerate the natural habitat by managing invasive, non-native species. These quarries include King Barrow Quarries Nature Reserve, Tout Quarry Sculpture Park (internal link) and Verne Yeates Local Nature Reserve.
Limestone grasslands turn yellow in mid summer when swaths of kidney vetch and bird’s-foot trefoil are in flower and attract butterflies and moths. You could also spot a rare bee orchid.
The Butterfly Conservation organisation had also turned a disused limestone quarry into a nature reserve making it the perfect spot for rare Silver-studded Blue butterfly as well as other rare butterflies native to Portland.
Further Information
Butterfly Conservation – Broadcroft Quarry