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species, great crested newt and a good breeding population of grass snake.
The pit is also part of the important foraging corridor that the Gipping Valley provides for bats. Daubenton’s bats that tend to feed repeatedly over the same stretches of water have been regularly recorded foraging over the pond area of the pit.
The exposures of chalk and sand and thin soils have been colonised by an interesting combination of plants associated with early successional, chalk and dry grasslands including species such as blue fleabane, common centaury, bee and pyramidal orchids and yellow-wort. The latter is strongly associated with chalky soils and is decreasing in the county.
The mix of sand cliffs, bare ground and grassland provides valuable habitat for a wide range of invertebrates. Of particular interest is the site’s significance for aculeate hymenoptera. 50 species have been recorded on the site. Two of these species, bee wolf Philanthus triangulum and the 5 banded digger wasp Cerceris quinquefasciata are nationally rare and a further six species of solitary mining wasps are nationally scarce.