Recently the Society was given some Natural History books, kindly donated by Val Hopkinson when she left Tisbury. Three of these books have been accepted by Wiltshire Libraries for use in Tisbury Library, so they will be available for a wider audience. They are "The Wiltshire Flora", "The Butterflies of Wiltshire" and "Wild Flowers" by Sarah Raven.

We shall sell the remaining books at our meeting on Thurs 13th March with some additional books donated by Peter and Inés as a fundraiser for the Society. They have been priced at the lower end of the second hand market (from quick research online) and hope you'll support us in finding new homes for this interesting selection.  Please bring cash with you!

The document which gives more detail about each Field Trip has now  been uploaded and can be found on the Field Trips page. Our first one "Beaver walk in Longleat" is in the afternoon of Sat 3 May and has limited numbers. Please contact us if you'd like to book a space.

​Please note the updated times for our AGM next week in the previous Blog item.

UPDATED TIMES

Our AGM will take place at 7.00pm on Thursday 13th February at the Victoria Hall, Tisbury and will be followed by a talk at 7.30pm entitled The Future of the British Landscape by Peter G Thompson, formerly of Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. 

Doors and the bar will open from 6:30pm.

Peter worked for the trust for more than 30 years until his retirement in 2018. In his position as farmland biodiversity officer, he is described as a huge inspiration for many of the Trust’s current farmland conservationists.

Before joining GWCT Peter worked as an agronomist and crop consultant for commercial companies. At the same time, our farmland research group, building on Hugh Oliver-Bellasis’ work, had developed many management techniques to help support grey partridges, especially developing insect-rich brood cover and nesting cover.
These ideas needed to be promoted to farmers by someone who understood arable farming – especially pesticide use - who was BASIS trained and could speak with confidence to farmers. Peter was perfect for the role.

Known for his ability to translate science and communicate the message effectively, Peter toured the country giving advice about arable crop management and partridges. People always understood him and were enthused by his passion for wildlife. He inspired people to do better and achieve more on their farms.

Peter was at the forefront of the development of Farmer Clusters and his ideas, drive and advocacy for a bottom up, farmer-led approach to conservation have helped influence current and future agri-environment policy. A farm walk led by Peter was always a jolly affair, but packed full of knowledge and useful advice.
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Peter is also a keen birder and has taught himself the identification of UK moths.

Emma Procter

At this time of year I keep an eye on my garden bird feeder for two rather small and easy to miss finches: the siskin and lesser redpoll. Both are drawn to the sunflower hearts, and I assume they visit when their usual food, seeds, particularly those of alder and birch trees, are becoming depleted in the wider countryside. The skin is not hard to identify. It is smaller than a greenfinch but is a similar yellow-green colour streaked with black on the wings and crest. It also has a distinctive forked tail, and a narrow beak suited to prising out the tiny tree seeds it favours. The redpoll is the same size and largely brown but for the red marking on the top of its head and down the breast.

Now, like me, I expect most readers will have struggled with spotting the difference between the common repoll, lesser redpoll and arctic redpoll. Well, there is good news. Those nice people at the International Ornithological Committee have recently decided to lump all the above into one species – the redpoll. Advances in genetics have allowed biologists to assess the genetic similarity of the birds previously considered as different species. While the birds may have slight variations in plumage, distribution, and size, genetically they are almost identical. It has been decided that this variation is just within the species, rather than representing the kind of difference which prevents interbreeding.

This makes life considerably easier for most birdwatchers although it does mean that keen twitchers have lost two species from their potential year lists. At the same time, the hooded crow – found in the north and west of the British Isles – has now been deemed to be one species with the carrion crow we see around Tisbury.

There currently seems to be quite a few changes in what is and isn’t considered a separate species. The red grouse, found in the uplands of the UK and Ireland had until recently been considered a subspecies of the willow grouse/ptarmigan found widely in northern Europe and Russia. Now it has been found to be a separate species, endemic (i.e. found nowhere else) to the British Isles.

Before this, the only endemic bird species in the UK was the scottish crossbill, which was only identified as a separate species 30 or so years ago. Its size, structure and voice are intermediate between the red crossbill and parrot crossbill and its separation is still a point of discussion. Indeed, the best clue to separating it from the other species appears to be that you see it in Scotland. However, I should imagine the Scottish Government at Holyrood House will be keen to avoid the loss of the appellation “scottish” and having the bird lumped in with the red crossbills that we can see in some local woods.

​Andrew Graham