Plant life
The cliffs were originally covered in trees and our ancestors cleared large areas of forest for grazing with stone and bronze tools. The resulting bare cliff-top was hostile to plant-life. A very thin, dry topsoil, a high amount of salt in the air and strong winds has lead to diverse and highly adapted plants which thrive on these hostile conditions and utilise the grazing animals and human interference.

It is a strange fact that the plants thrive most on areas where the soil is thinnest, so that ironically man's construction works and worn pathways have provided ideal living conditions for some of Britain's rarest and most beautiful plants.

Nowadays the shepherds with their sheep are gone and without grazing animals to eat the seedlings of taller plants, eventually the trees would return, turning the cliff tops back into windswept forest. At Langdon Cliffs, Exmoor ponies are used in place of sheep to keep the grass short. The grass around the visitor building is cut several times a year.

Living on the edge
This diversity of plant-life in turn supports an equally varied insect life; butterflies bees and wasps all enjoy the warm conditions and feast of flowers. Birds feed on these and other insects as well as the rich sea life that is exposed at low tide, including crabs, shrimps and fish.

The cliffs provide a good roosting place for a variety of birds including black-tipped gulls, fulmars and kittiwakes of which there are now over 1100 breeding pairs - the only kittiwake nesting site in Kent. Peregrine Falcons also take refuge amongst the cliffs and feed on birds and the small mammals that live on the cliff tops. The White Cliffs are also a regular stop off point for migrating birds and the National Trust leaves some areas of scrub to shelter birds such as whitethroats, blackcaps and warblers. Butterflies such as the Painted Lady and Red Admiral also enjoy the shelter the scrub provides.