As autumn approaches so trees and shrubs start to bear fruit and nuts. Chestnuts are marvellous in all kinds of recipes or simply roasted. These tasty nuts come from the sweet chestnut tree, a relative of the beech, and not to be confused with the horse chestnut, to which it is only distantly related. The latter is the one with large hand-shaped leaves, made up of up to seven leaflets, and which produces conkers from its showy-white candle-like flowers. The sweet chestnut, in contrast, has single spear-shaped leaves with serrated edges and less showy but often profuse flowers, which insects love. Both chestnut species have spiny cases in which the nuts develop. The spines of the sweet chestnut are more numerous and smaller than those of the horse chestnut.

Both species originate from hotter climates around the Mediterranean and have been introduced to this country. Sweet chestnuts were eaten by the Romans, but it is uncertain if the tree was cultivated here. The ones we can buy in the shops around Christmas are mostly imported. Nonetheless, the numerous small nuts our trees produce provide food for woodland creatures. Sweet chestnut trees only became common in this country in the Middle Ages, when they were exploited for its timber. It grows best in the south and east of England and is particularly well-suited for coppicing. The harvested stems are used for hop poles, furniture, charcoal, and fencing. The strong timber splits easily for use in wonderfully rustic and characterful cleft pale fences associated with Sussex and Kent. Sweet chestnut wood is essential to the construction of the distinctive Sussex trug, or gardening basket.

Sweet chestnuts can live for hundreds of years and grow to a great size. Ancient coppice stools can grow to look more like a small copse. As a maiden tree ages, the bark develops a network of diagonal fissures which spiral around the trunk. This can make them look as if a giant has grabbed the tree and given it a vicious twist. Veteran, stag-headed, specimens can end up contorted into sinister shapes, like the stunted one in the field south of Old Wardour Lake. If you want to see some splendid sweet chestnuts, take a walk up the drive to Stourhead House where there are several ancient monsters with girths of up to 8 metres.

​Andrew Graham

In the place of our first indoor meeting of the autumn, but happening on Wednesday 11 September at 5.30 pm, we have an evening visit to a new small private nature reserve at Swallowcliffe, at the home of society members Esther and Matthew Phillips.

Numbers will be limited so please email us if you can join us. Please note our first talk of the season, on the 12 September, has been postponed to a future date to be announced.

​The Talks page and programme have been updated.
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Our trail camera project is underway and the camera has been placed in the gardens and farms of a few members, who have shared with us some of their best captures. Here is a selection of them!

If you would like to find out what wildlife visits your property, please find out more about our project and how you can access this camera - for free! All the information is on our wildlife camera project's website section.

One plant that seems to have done particularly well this year – perhaps it likes the rain - is hedge bindweed. This is a very distinctive plant with its numerous, large, bright white, conical flowers which clamber through hedgerows and small bushes. It is a member of the same family as Morning Glory, which I grow from seed each year; I only wish my plants were as vigorous and prolific as their wild cousins. We take bindweed for granted because it grows so well, or hold it in contempt because it can be such a pest, but its blooms, which keep going all through summer, really are fantastic. They provide a great source of pollen for bees and the plant’s ample foliage provides food for the caterpillars of the convolvulus hawk moth. This splendid insect has a 10 cm wingspan, a pink banded abdomen, and an extremely long proboscis. This allows it to feed on flowers that no other British moth can, so watch out for them on the long tube-like flowers of tobacco plants (Nicotiana) if you have them in your garden. It is a frequent migrant that visits us in late summer, but does not overwinter successfully in the UK.

The field bindweed, has smaller, pink, or pink-striped flowers and is more a plant of farmland, waste spaces and roadsides. Rather than climbing, it is more likely to spread and scramble laterally, but doesn’t develop into the all-engulfing tangle of the hedge bindweed. The roots of both species spread far underground, are brittle and can regenerate from the smallest sections. This is what makes them so difficult to eradicate once they have become established in the soil; when all else is dug up, the smallest piece remaining can start the reinvasion. Indeed, if you google bindweed, you will get a lengthy list of links offering advice on how to get rid of it.
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Bindweed may not produce a great deal of seed, but these can remain viable for years. So, combined with regeneration from broken roots, and the ability to grow rapidly by using anything it can lay its tendrils on for support rather than wasting resources on strengthening its stem, this makes it a highly successful plant found virtually anywhere. We just need to overlook the problems it causes gardeners and appreciate it for its flowers.

Andrew Graham will lead us on a walk around Arne RSPB Reserve where we will pass through varied habitats of heathlands, woods and wetlands with views over Poole Harbour. Arne is a terrific place for wildlife and BBC Seasonwatch has been broadcast from here a number of times, it is so good. It would therefore be a shame not to see a good part of its varied habitats. So, weather permitting, we will aim to spend the day here and we will be walking 4-5 miles. 

Please let us know if you are planning to join the trip and where you will meet us. No dogs. 
 
Meet at the Nadder Centre car park at 9:30am or at the Arne car park at 11:00 am    (OS Grid reference SY972 878) or What3Words wings.poetic.crown. The car park (charges for non- RSPB members) is located on the right at the beginning of Arne village from the Stoborough direction.
 
Distance, Difficulty and Footwear: There is relatively easy walking on paths and tracks with some slopes. Stout shoes should suffice unless wet. Bring binos, a packed lunch and refreshments.

Anticipated end time: Conclude at Arne by 3pm returning to Nadder Centre by 4pm.
 
https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/arne/location

Please can we have some helpers at the Community Field (below the Skate Park, Tisbury) next week for a 6pm start. You will need to bring some gardening gloves and if you have a gardening fork that makes it easier. We have found that ragwort numbers have diminished with the regular pulling over recent years, so it shouldn't take long. This is in preparation for the hay cut and removing ragwort is necessary due to its toxicity to animals.

Despite the gales and torrential rain, a cheery band of intrepid explorers headed off to Wild Woodbury in deepest, darkest Dorset.

We were spurred on by memories of the enthusiastic and interesting talk given by Rob Farrington in January about Wild Woodbury, near Bere Regis and this was to be our quest: what had happened to this site, acquired in 2021 by Dorset Wildlife Trust?

Our guide for the day was Seb Elwood and, as we turned into the car park, the rain stopped, Seb greeted us and all would be well. Since 2021, the area of farmland has been allowed to rewild. From bare earth have sprouted meadows, completely naturally, no seeding has taken place apart from nature’s own handiwork. Standing at the top of the site, surveying the surrounding fields, it is hard to comprehend where the flowers and plants have come from as the view shows neatly planted crops all around, but nature brings its own.

Seb explained how this part of the site will become an open area of meadow, accessible to everyone (and their dogs!) and so providing an amenity to the nearby village of Bere Regis. There are plans for a farm shop and picnic areas to encourage locals and visitors from further away to enjoy the site and to refresh their spirits. The main project over the past three years has been to return the waterways that traverse the land to their natural courses. A lot of work has gone into removing the agricultural drainage (from the top of the hill it appears that the stream ran uphill!) and allow the streams to run where nature intended.

Fauna has begun to return to the site, all carefully logged and recorded in order to show how the rewilding is benefiting the natural order of things. Seb told us that the fields were bare earth when Dorset Wildlife moved onto site. This soon changed and became covered with signs of mice and after that, signs of owls, predating on the mice!

Seb was a knowledgeable and interesting host and guide. He answered the many questions from our interested members. Seb’s enthusiasm was infectious and we were all stimulated and our quest was complete. We hope to go back in the future to see what happens next. So much has been done in three years.

What will the next three years hold?

by Emma Procter.

A distinctive and common flower of rough grassland at this time of year is ragwort. It has a fine head made up of bright yellow daisy-like flowers, held on a tall stem with deep green, much divided leaves. Where it grows, it is often numerous and can create impressive seas of yellow in a field.

Ragwort attracts numerous insects to its flowers: 200 different species have been recorded. Gatekeeper butterflies are often seen nectaring on the flowerheads. Ragwort is a foodplant for the distinctive black and yellow striped caterpillars, or larvae, of black and red cinnabar moths. Often, the larvae are present in such numbers that they soon strip the plant of all leaves and have to troop off to an adjacent plant to keep feeding. The leaves have an unpleasant taste which transfers to the feeding larvae. The distinctive markings in them warn potential predators that they are unpalatable and, although some birds do take them, the larvae make no effort to hide as they feed.

The unpalatability of the plant is due to a number of alkaloids in its tissues, making it poisonous to some animals, notably horses and cattle, although proven poisoning cases are rare. Because of the unpleasant taste, animals will avoid eating the live plant, but a problem arises if ragwort gets mown and picked up in hay, which is subsequently fed to stock.

This is why, each July, members of the Tisbury and District Natural History Society (and others) get together to remove ragwort from the Community Meadow before seed sets and the hay is cut. Leaving the ragwort in the hay would make it worthless and only fit for disposal. We pull the whole plant up by the roots which, as it is a biennial, are relatively shallow. The technique is to get good grip with gloves, low down on the stem, and then lean back to extract the plant. Many hands make light work, and it does seem as if there are fewer plants to pull each year.

As the annual mowing and removal of hay depletes the fertility of the soil, so the floristic diversity of the meadow increases, giving more flowers for us to enjoy. This in turn can reduce the amount of bare earth between the plants in the sward, which restricts the opportunities for ragwort seed to germinate and grow next season. Hopefully, this is a virtuous cycle which will make life easier each year, but ragwort will always be there to provide colour for us to enjoy and flowers for insects to feed on for several weeks before removal.

​Andrew Graham

On Saturday 6th July, we have a visit to Wild Woodbury, Bere Regis, with a walk of approximately 4km/2.5 miles across uneven ground around this rewilding community project guided by Dorset Wildlife Trust Ranger, Seb Haggett. There is a portaloo on site at the car park.

If you are used to walking poles it will be worth bringing them. Walking shoes/boots are advised and please bring a packed lunch and refreshments. The weather is looking good for Saturday, with dry, sunny spells forecast. There are ticks on site, along with longer vegetation, so trousers are recommended. Also bring along any wildlife spotting equipment, binoculars, cameras etc. 

Please let us know if you are planning to join the trip and where you will meet us. No dogs. 

Meet at the Nadder Centre car park at 9:30am or at 10:30am up a short track off Southbrook Road, opposite Eldon Road in Bere Regis.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/qXbC482vgk4pZ6Qt6
What3words:  permanent.kings.chef

Those of you that came along to our meeting in January will recall the fascinating presentation by Rob Farrington of the work he has been leading for the past two and a half years to re-wild the 170-hectare site, south-east of Bere Regis. The plot acquired by Dorset Wildlife Trust was In September 2021 with plans to return what was previously intensively farmed arable land to its natural state. The goal was to create an example of sustainable land use, contribute to tackling the climate and ecological crises, reduce high nitrate levels in the area (and prevent them from entering Poole Harbour), and to engage the local community.

In the first year of the project, the land was allowed to naturally regenerate: there was an immediate increase in biodiversity and abundance, with the site list reaching 1300 species. During 2023, the second year of the project, work was carried out to ‘re-naturalise’ the headwaters of the River Sherford that run through the site. More information: https://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/blog/tag/wild-woodbury

Anticipated end time:  Returning to Tisbury by 3:30pm

There will be space for members to join the YNW activity at the Hinton Hall on Sunday 14th July at 10am. Do come along to see what Andrew Graham has found in his moth traps from the previous night.