Next wildlife walk on Saturday June 28th at 2.30pm is 'The breeding habits of Bird of Traditional Orchards'.

  This walk promises to be very interesting indeed and will be led by Ben MacDonald, who has been visiting these orchards for several years to observe and monitor our breeding birds.  Ben is a natural history film-maker, working currently for the BBC's Natural History Unit, having recently worked on Springwatch, The One Show, and various other programmes.  He is extremely excited about our spotted flycatcher population this year!  Please come along for this walk and talk and find out more about the teeming wildlife in our orchards!
Refreshments will be provided after the walk.

A small but enthusiastic group showed up for Gerald's fascinating talk on the botany of marginal areas recently.  We were well supplied with a plant list of 90 different plants, and succeeded in spotting a good many of these, including 'Town Hall Clock', Pignut, Wood-dock, Goldilocks, Mouse-ear Chickweed and Marsh Orchid.  Gerald's erudite researches and humorous style kept us all enthralled so that two hours passed very quickly.  Many thanks also to the members of Ledbury Naturalists and documenters from Bringsty Common for their contributions.  It was quite magical after all the recent cold and rainy weather to dawdle home  through the beautiful 'back meadow', a patch of unspoilt grassland near the old sand-pit, a place thats full of wild-flowers thanks in part to the current management regime.  We all now await Gerald's new book with some impatience!

The next walk is on Thursday evening, 5th June, 6.45 (its going to be fine!) and will be looking at Moths and their habitat.  This is something not to be missed!

The Farm Walks Programme for 2014

Gerald Dawe begins this season's walks programme with 'Botany on the edge', a look at edges, hedges and margins.  I look forward to another helping of Gerald's entertaining humour and knowledge.  The walk is to be held on Saturday 31st May at 2.30pm, with refreshments to follow .

Peter Garner and Tony Simpson will present 'Moths and other Insects and their associated plants' on Thursday June 5th at 6.45pm, a new topic for us when hopefully the evening will provide plenty of airborne examples to examine.

Ben MacDonald, our frequently visiting ornithologist, is to give a walk and talk on the weekend of June 28-29, in which I have no doubt he will speak about his work in our traditional orchards monitoring and observing woodpeckers and other birds, providing them with nest-boxes and subsequently filming them. Exact time of this event to be announced.

In early July we will be holding another 'Bat evening', when we will tour the farm buildings an neighbouring fields with our friendly experts and their machines which translate the bats' calls.
This is a popular event and I can testify that the amazing sound of the Lesser Horseshoe Bat in particular is quite addictive! Will's barbequed sausages are also rather nice!

On 9th August we shall be hosting a day organised by Dave Lee and Denise Foster explaining their work monitoring Bats, to which the public is invited.  This is a rare chance to see not only some interesting mammals and their habitat but to learn from some very dedicated and knowledgeable people. The details will be put up on the blog in due course.

Spring 2014

Its been a strange winter here on the farm - we spent much of the Autumn working on our large traditional apple trees, many of which needed urgent pruning, not only to deal with fallen branches and to improve their shape but to remove the enormous growths of Mistletoe which have taken over as the winters become warmer and wetter. Its even harder work than we remembered! involving straining one's eyes in the winter gloom to identify which branch to cut, stretching up as far as possible while balancing the telescopic saws, trying to stop the debris and sawdust going straight into your eyes, and avoiding the heavy growths as they crash to the ground! Then the gathering up and dragging to bonfire sites at suitable places in the orchards... The plan was to carry on after Xmas but the weather soon saw to that! So we only did about half the necessary work, and missed having the bonfires altogether. However, many birds (dunnock, blackbirds, robins) are very grateful, building early nests in the huge heaps of cuttings! So, no bonfires now until autumn.

The twisted, springy apple branches and fleshy mistletoe are not suitable for chipping - but fallen willows are, and we have laid down a good area of home-made chippings around the Studio as a thick mulch to suppress weeds and provide a nice floor for the picnic area.

Sadly we lost another huge old oak tree in the gales, as well as many older apple trees. Alot of tidying up and replanting to do!

The fence in the orchard behind the Lighthouse had to be replaced, and this time we opted for a cleft chestnut paling fence to divide the grazed orchard from a woodland edge, and were delighted to find it being made by coppice workers locally just outside Bromyard. It was no more expensive than anything I could find online, very strong, and should last a long while. Best of all, it is flexible and so looks beautiful in its setting. If you need nice home-grown and made fencing, look at Say It With Wood. 

Meanwhile dormouse and bat monitoring has continued through the winter and the Herefordshire Mammal Group is planning three special days here this summer, one of which is open to the public. If you'ld like to come along and learn more about the small mammals being studied here, and about how the scheme works, the date is August 9th, and it will be free, with refreshments. More details will be posted on this blog in due course. You'll also find details of upcoming walks in Botany, Insects, Woodpeckers and Bats!

There was good attendance for Peter Garner's Wildlife Walk last month, when we ambled around the old sand pit and adjacent meadows, looking at the more unusual plants to be found on these sandier fields (most of the farm is heavy clay), before ending up in the farm kitchen for refreshments as usual. We found 'Townhall Clock' and also a large patch of Helleborines in the shady woodland in the old pit area. Many small toads (tiny, just developed from their tadpole phase) were observed, one tiny frog!, butterflies of course, although it was evening, and we heard a blackcap singing well. I am very grateful to Peter who has such a detailed knowledge of this area of the farm.

Since then it has been hot - I've been concerned about the trees and damper areas and was pleased to get some rain at last. A Spotted Flycatcher is nesting on my house and I am living peaceably alongside wasp and hornet nests. Just to observe the wasp nest being constructed and organised is awe-inspiring. Young birds are still turning up to the bird table for soaked bread (home-made!) and other left-overs, in particular Robins, Blue-tits, and Hedge-sparrows. A family of tawny owls regularly uses my bedroom balcony rail for their night-time parties and I heard a badger down below in the garden the other night. The wild areas in my garden are a huge success, with birds, bees and butterflies as well as amphibians and even a stoat making use of them. Each year they are cut back down in spring, to grow again such plants as thistle, dock, teazel, vetch, moon-daisy, convolvulus, willow-herb, wild rose, etc. We've added some feverfew, foxgloves and buddleia too. Its so easy! beautiful in flower, and rewarding to watch, even in the winter when the goldfinches and others feast on the seeds. The areas are about 15 foot across and surrounded by short grass which can be easily mown, and offset from each other so creatures can cross from one area to another in peace. I rather enjoy hiding in there myself!

Walking on the Wild Side

Good weather for last Sunday's Wild Plant Walk, (attended by a small but enthusiastic group), when Gerald Dawe discoursed expertly and amusingly on the habits and history of our wild plants. We found many plants which were indicators of ancient woodland, and of course the rare 'Goldilocks' and 'Town Hall Clock' and also 'Pignut'. Even an insignificant short grass or patch of moss is interesting when you look at it closely and consider its staggeringly long history. Since then the weather has remained cold and wet and this morning I was amazed by the sight of a Spotted Flycatcher on the bird table choking down the tit food! We have several pairs of these lovely little birds here this summer, haunting the old buildings and the orchards in their quest for insects. Clearly they are having a hard time this season. The apple blossom itself is very late, and a number of fruit trees look ill, I think the very wet winters have done them no good. Worse still, last week, in the gales, I heard a terrible rending sound and went outside to discover a huge oak tree, apparently healthy and in leaf, had wrenched itself out of the ground and lay across the farm track, fortunately damaging little and hurting nobody! Looking at the roots, we could see they had become rotten, and I speculate that might have happened from compaction around the roots as in the 50's and 60's heavy lorries passed along that track every day to and from the gravel pits. The trunk is huge, an awe-inspiring sight, and sorting it out will be an interesting exercise for Will!

The next Farm Walk will be led by Peter Garner, who has 'naturalised' in these parts for many years, and is entitled 'An Evening Nature Walk', on Thursday, July 4th, at 7pm, with refreshments at the end. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing what Peter has to say about the various habitats to be found here and their importance for certain species.

From Frogs to Flowers in a few short hops!

Nigel Hand's Pond Walk here attracted a good number of people, all keenly interested in how to make and manage ponds for wildlife. We took in three ponds of different types on the farm, some of which need to be given more light, or to have some of their sludge cleared out, so there's more vegetation for the newts. Nigel had kindly brought a good selection of creep-crawlies to aid identification. We also heard some Blackcaps singing well and a lesser-Spot Woodpecker drumming away.

Next event is on Sunday May 26th at 2.30 pm, when Gerald Dawe will lead a walk looking at the botany of the farm. Gerald, who lectures on the subject at Malvern Hills College has led a walk here last year and I know the walk will be both informative and amusing. Home-made cake and coffee/tea will be supplied.