WILD FLOWER SPECIAL

In this issue ...

Meadow Farm

Make space for wild flowers

Where to see orchids

Making wildlife count

O
n our nature reserves we are continually monitoring what we are doing to find out how wildlife is faring in our care. We can do this thanks to a huge volunteer effort rigorously surveying on the ground and busily processing the data in our back offices. Every three years this information, based on sound scientific principles, is compiled into a Conservation Report to assess the progress we are making towards our vision of a region richer in wildlife. Despite setting high standards, the report shows that the overall condition of BBOWT sites continues to get better and the Trust manages these sites well: 97% of habitats and species now qualify as favourable or becoming favourable, compared to 91% in 2009. Focusing on specific habitats, the report details our challenges and successes. On our floodplain meadows, a national rarity, our priority has been to control water levels, which are fundamental to wetland ecology. At Iffley Meadows and Chimney Meadows in Oxon we have cleared out ditches to get excess water off-site after winter floods and allow more water on-site when it is needed. On our heathland sites weve been battling fiercely, and successfully, to keep invading scrub under control. While were winning that war, our big heathland challenge now is maintaining public access while limiting disturbance to scarce groundnesting birds. The report also highlights issues that are not entirely within our control. In our woodlands we are doing what we can to contain escalating deer populations that can decimate native woodland plants, but the problem goes beyond our boundaries. This year we are introducing deer impact surveys on our reserves and we will be working with other landowners to address the problem of woodland damage. Records for our priority species also present a mixed picture. Thanks to a concerted effort through the Water Vole Recovery Project our strongholds for water voles have expanded since 2009, which is great news. But within the last twelve months egg counts of the rare brown and black hairstreak butterflies reveal a decline in colony numbers. And following two successive dry winters the snakeshead fritillary population at Iffley Meadows fell dramatically in 2012. Colin Williams, Reserves Ecology Officer explains, By using the same surveying methods each year, the Trust can identify both shortterm changes as well as long-term trends of species populations and habitat quality on our reserves. The long-term trends are important in establishing whether what we are doing is working. The Conservation Report informs our decisions about how we manage our nature reserves. A summary of the report will be available later in the spring at bbowt.org.uk

NEWS IN BRIEF

The support
This year, thanks to support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, we welcome ten new trainees to the Trusts Developing Green Talent project. They will undergo an exacting programme of classroom, practical and onthe-job training on nature reserves and Living Landscape project areas that will provide practical skills and experience. This first step onto the career ladder has proved very successful for previous trainees, who have all gained employment in the conservation and outdoor education sector.
Children enjoying minibeasts with DGT.
(Rick Mellis)

Horse power
Looking after our more delicate ecosystems can be a tricky undertaking and often the old ways remain the best. Since the soft, marshy ground at Lashford Lane Fen in Oxon is too sensitive for heavy machinery, we use horse-logging to remove felled trees and manage the woodland. Last December, under the expert guidance of trainer Ralph Mankee, Leonne the powerful Ardennes horse carefully hauled the large logs from the site.
Leonne with Ralph.
(Wendy Tobitt)

10 green trainees

To get the Bernwood Forest Project underway we need volunteers to form a new work party at Finemere Wood and join groups at Rushbeds Woods and Whitecross Green Wood in Bucks. At Rushbeds we will manage the woodland rides. Across all five Bernwood sites we will improve the grassland by tackling ragwort and thistles. To find out more please email timread@bbowt.org.uk or tel. 07725 242801. This project is partially supported by WREN through the Landfill Communities Fund.

This spring you may glimpse lambs gambolling at Chimney Meadows for the first time, as our flock of Hebridean sheep has moved from Woolley Firs in Berks to their new home in west Oxfordshire. Louise King, newly appointed Chimney Meadows Estate Manager, has also moved to Chimney so that she can show local landowners and managers how we manage the farmland efficiently (raising income from a hay crop and livestock) while benefiting wildlife.

Bernwood needs you

Lambs at Chimney

(Andy Fairbairn)

(Andy Fairbairn)

Silver-washed fritillary.

Hebridean sheep with lamb.

Red Kite Ramble for BBOWT

Raise funds for BBOWT by joining the Red Kite Ramble on Sunday 23 June. You can choose a 6-, 11- or 17-mile walk through the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside, starting and finishing at the Clare Charity Centre in Saunderton.

Wildlife news

Your continued supp ort is making a difference

ON YOUR PATCH:
Oxford Community Wildlife Officer Andy Gunn sets about planting a wildlife-friendly orchard with local varieties.
We like to think of orchards as part of our heritage. The sad truth is these habitats are disappearing from our countryside due to intensive farming and the importing of cheaper foreign fruit varieties, which are available throughout the year. Yet traditional orchards are packed with wildlife habitats including scrub, hedgerows, grasslands and fruit trees, which differ in age and also provide dead wood. They offer refuge for over 1,800 species including nationally declining mistletoe, the rare orchard tooth fungus and the endangered noble chafer beetle. At the Trusts Oxford office in Littlemore staff and volunteers have clubbed together to buy eight apple trees, including seven local varieties such as The Oxford Hoard and Shilton Sherbert, together with a selection of plum, cherry, pear and damson. In February, Andy Howard of The Heritage Fruit Tree Company helped us to plant the trees, which are now standing proud in the wildlife garden, protected by wire, until they establish. We will be following Andy Howards three golden rules of traditional orchard management: first year sleep the trees will be settling in and will not produce any fruit; second year creep the growth should go into the trees and not the fruit; third year leap! the tree should bear fruit and continue to produce fruit with steady growth. In the ensuing years staff and volunteers will have the opportunity to learn traditional management techniques and experience tasty fruits not available in the supermarket. We also hope that our orchard will provide nectar for insects, food for birds and homes for small mammals. If you would like to plant a fruit tree on your patch or if you have space available for a small orchard why not choose one of the many interesting local varieties that are available?
Bullfinch (Andy Sands/naturepl.com)

Iffley Meadows (Peter Creed); water vole (Kiran Garside); clearing ditches at Chimney (BBOWT)

you give to BBOWT means more wildlife is protected thank you

Lending a hand for heathland
With BBOWTs help 1st Owlsmoor Cubs and Scouts are getting to know Wildmoor Heath and how to look after this special habitat on their doorstep. Using basic hand tools such as bow saws and loppers, they have cleared scrub and self-seeded trees in an area of heathland used by breeding nightjar in the summer. Back at their HQ the children learned the craft of broom-making using birch that they had cut down.
1st Owlsmoor Cubs and Scouts.
(BBOWT)

United Biscuits volunteers hedge planting.

(Sarah Munday)

Wildlife and business

Schoolchildren visiting Woolley Firs will be able to explore a new hedgerow thanks to volunteers from United Biscuits who planted saplings donated from one of the royal forests as part of the Woodland Trusts Jubilee Woods Project. We would also like to thank Blenheim Palace, Oxford Science Park, The Gillie Partnership, Lafarge Aggregates Ltd and RWE npower, Didcot Power Station, for renewing their corporate membership. For more information about corporate partnerships please email partnerships@bbowt.org.uk.

Find out more

Visit Heritage Fruit Trees at www.heritagefruittrees.co.uk For detailed information about the wildlife value of traditional orchards see The Peoples Trust for Endangered Species most recent survey at www.ptes.org

April 2013

To register online and nominate BBOWT as your charity visit www.theclarefoundation.org

Red kite. (Peter Creed)

College Lake orchard (Robert Lewis)

ann 1 0 t h iver sary

The wild flowers of Chimney Meadows

F
rom April, Chimneys colourful pageant of wild flowers begins across this expansive site. Our newly purchased meadows at Upper Common are awash with thousands of cowslips, a sure sign of unimproved grassland. From the Thames Path, in the old meadows on the National Nature Reserve (NNR), you may spot a purple patch of snakes-head fritillaries, only found growing wild on the remaining fragments of traditionally managed floodplain meadows. It is only ten years since we were able to buy 200 hectares of land surrounding Chimney Meadows Farm thanks to members and donors. During that time we have undertaken one of the largest projects of its kind by spreading seed containing green hay from the NNR to transform intensely farmed fields into more than 70 hectares of new wildflower-rich meadows. While most modern meadows are farmed with the use of fertilizers to produce multiple silage harvests, which is disastrous for wildlife, our more traditional once-a-year hay cropping at Chimney maintains the right balance to allow delicate meadow plants to flourish. In April, you can now find adders-tongue and the green-winged orchid. By June and July, pepper-saxifrage, yellow rattle, common knapweed and oxeye daisy fill the site, attracting myriad butterflies. Its not just the wonderful wild flowers and insects that you can enjoy at this time of year. The evocative songs of skylark and curlew can be heard across the meadows and at Chimney you are in with a great chance of spotting a brown hare. By late summer the species-rich, high-quality hay that were now able to produce is cut and sold on the open market, yielding dividends by fetching good prices. Whats more, Chimney Meadows is at the heart of our Upper Thames Tributaries Living Landscape work, and provides a model for combining a refuge for wildlife with economic activities, as well as providing important ecosystem services such as floodwater storage and water quality improvement. In 10 years, through a lot of hard work from staff and volunteers, Chimney Meadows has become a multi-faceted nature reserve. To mark the tenth anniversary of our largest nature reserve, why not see for yourself how these nationally important wildflower meadows are thriving in the Trusts care?

Celebrating 10 years

Thank You Event, 2627 April, for all supporters of the 2012 Chimney Meadows Appeal Join us for guided walks to find out what makes Chimney so special. See website and diary for dates. Visit our Anniversary Exhibition in the Chimney barn.

ITS TIME FOR

(David Kilbey) (BBOWT)

Birds are singing their hearts out in April as the breeding season is underway. Its the starlings that often make the most noise: chattering, whistling and clicking their way through a song, while also mimicking the melodies of other birds.

As chicks are hatched you may see egg shells and egg fragments on your lawn. One female blue tit can lay up to 16 eggs in a single brood and both parents work hard to keep their offspring fed with a constant supply of small caterpillars.

Otherwise known as May tree or quickthorn, the white frothy blossom of hawthorn transforms the hedgerows. The pungent flowers provide a nectar source for more than 150 different types of insect and deep within its thorny twigs nesting birds are safe from predators.

Wildlife news

(Peter Creed)

Birdsong

Chicks

Hawthorn blossom

(Stephen Dalton/naturepl.com)

Dancing grebes
Great crested grebes are delightfully elegant waterbirds with an elaborate mating display in spring. Almost defying gravity, a paired male and female will rise out of the water, paddling like fury with their feet, shaking their heads with long strands of weed in their bills. This bizarre sight is often referred to as Penguin display. In April Foxcote Reservoir and Calvert Jubilee in Bucks and The Loddon in Berks are all perfect places to watch this spectacular performance. Great crested grebes are also excellent divers, often travelling long distances underwater to catch fish and it can be quite entertaining working out where a submerged bird will pop up next. On land, though, theyre incredibly clumsy because their feet are placed so far back on their bodies. Later in the spring look out for the striped and fluffy young that hitch a ride on their parents backs when in need of a rest!

Displaying grebes. (Fabrice Cahez/naturepl.com); The Loddon reserve. (Jim Asher) Common lizard. (Paul Hobson/naturepl.com)

Basking reptiles
Catching a glimpse of a reptile soaking up the spring sunshine is a thrilling sight. These cold-blooded creatures rely on external conditions to regulate their own temperature. Choose a slightly overcast but warm day to give yourself a good chance of a sighting. Our heathland reserves in Berkshire are the best places to head to with plenty of sandy and stony basking areas as well as dense vegetation for cover and a quick escape. At Decoy Heath take a look around the new log piles built by our volunteers. You may find adders, grass snakes, slowworms and common lizards. Bowdown Woods borders the heathland of Greenham Common and among the trees the oncemilitary buildings dotted around the bomb site are now home to snakes and lizards basking on the concrete rubble. Pockets of heather spreading from the common provide the ideal habitat too.

Decoy Heath Nature Reserve.

(Peter Creed)

Find out more For locations of all nature reserves please see your Where to go for Wildlife handbook or visit the reserve pages at bbowt.org.uk For our calendar of spring guided walks go to bbowt.org.uk/whats-on

For more information about wildlife near you visit bbowt.org.uk/wildlife/species-a-z

(Macro-Photo.co.uk) (David Kjaer)

Common dog-violet
In May the delicate purple flowers of the common dog-violet can be found. It is the most common of our native violets and grows on the woodland floor and in hedgebanks. Dog means it lacks scent, unlike its cousin the sweet violet.

Bank vole
The UKs smallest vole with its russet-brown coat and a rounded, mouse-like appearance is out and about and producing young from April to October. In woodland, riverbanks and hedgerows it uses a network of tunnels in dense undergrowth to search for food and avoid predators.

April 2013