We have shared links to the uploaded videos and photos from two swift boxes in Tisbury where there are cameras installed. Please access from the Resources page or directly via https://www.tisburynaturalhistory.com/birds.html

Do have a look, there is some marvellous footage!

We have the lightning symbol on the weather app today! Not the best for finding butterflies. The field trip has been moved to Friday 22nd May and we'll be in touch with you individually.

​If anyone else is now available to join the Friday trip, please get in contact. We shall leave from the Nadder Centre at 9:30am and be at the meeting place on Fovant Down for 10am. Finish at 12pm.

Last year volunteers from the Tisbury & District Natural History Society took part in the pilot for the Hedgehog Monitoring Programme and we'd appreciate your assistance again this year. The information is repeated below for any newbies!

Not a call for help but to watch out - there may be swifts about!  Last Mayday was the first reported sighting of a swift in Tisbury.
 
And yes, we are excited.  Our Chairman, Peter Shallcross, got funding for 20 new boxes through the Farming in Protected Landscapes scheme and these are already in place - that's five new swift hosts and more boxes on some existing swift homes. 
 
Highlights last summer include:
'Just seen the swift busy feeding its young in swift box' - Abby Eaton's photo clearly shows a parent bird's pouch full of insects harvested on the wing for its young
'What a show they put on tonight - they scream past so close to the house and also go right up to the nest'
'I was hanging out of my window watching the screaming parties and one made straight for me and went up into the eaves 3ft away with a thud!  I can hear them messing about when I'm lying in bed (such joy).'
'I counted 49 in a party ...'
'Young swift peeping out of box'
 
Just some of the reports sent in - Abby's amazing photos capture the thrill of those evening 'screaming parties'.
 
But we need more reporters!  To share the excitement, please do start now reporting activity to me - birds flying into nest holes - often invisible, looks like they're going straight into the wall - or boxes, screaming parties (how many, where?).
 
From June through early July, it's actual breeding we need to record.  Just sit somewhere unobtrusive (in a car is perfect for your comfort!) between 9.15 and 9.45 in the evening.  Fix your gaze on your chosen nest site or box and note the time and detail of comings and goings.  Of course you can do that for your own house, but if you'd like to help with somewhere else, please do just get in touch.
 
Have a screamingly good summer!

Elizabeth Forbes
(As appeared in May's Focus Magazine)

We have come to that time of year where we watch the skies for wheeling swifts and over the last couple of weeks have been thrilled to witness their arrival.

Here we have footage of a swift arriving earlier this week and the following day being joined by a mate. We'll update our camera findings as the season progresses.

Let us know if you'd like to join us a field trip led by Caroline Longley, Conservation and Wildlife Officer of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

The reserve covers 71 hectares where the WWT are managing the transition of half of the land from prior agricultural usage to chalk grassland. Five butterfly banks have been made to encourage chalk-loving breeding pairs and the location is rich with birds and wild flowers.

Further information about the trip can be found in the Field Trips Details document.

Don't forget that we have an additional talk this week from Inés López-Dóriga who helped to crew a tall ship across the notorious Drake Passage to Antarctica. She will be reporting on the wildlife and the unique flora and fauna found in this stunning landscape.

​As always, doors and bar will be open from 7pm, free for members and people under 21 years of age and £4 for guests.  

Farmers deal with issues of succession as part of their job. Lately, it is the Family Farming Tax which has threatened a lot of family-owned businesses (not just farming) with unaffordable tax bills.

Another succession which we farmers deal with (and anyone with a garden) is Ecological Succession, which can be defined as ‘the gradual, often predictable process by which the structure of a biological community changes over time, replacing one group of species with another.’ It begins with pioneer species colonizing a new area and progresses through stages, often culminating in a stable "climax" community. Ponds are an obvious example, where a newly created pond with purely open water quickly gets colonised by aquatic plants which grow quickly to cover the surface with foliage and drop leaves, which eventually reduce the pond to a bog. The time it takes to go through these stages can be lengthened by human intervention, birds and fish (thinking Carp here).

Similarly, farmed grassland is prevented from rapid succession by regular cutting or grazing. Chalk downland, for example, has been maintained by grazing in a relatively stable shape for thousands of years, leading to a specialised rich plant and animal community. Cease or relax grazing and very quickly succession leads to long grass, over-competing specialist plants and, before long, scrub and trees take over. We need all these succession states to have the richest variety of wildlife. On either side of the Shaston Drove, we not only have variety of succession in abundance but we have extra variety of wildlife on either side; for example, on the colder north side we have Duke of Burgundy fritillary butterflies, and on the warmer south side, Adonis Blue butterflies.

At Chicksgrove, I have a species-rich hay meadow (created 25 years ago from a former arable field). This field has been kept in a stable state all that time by cutting it once at the end of each summer. The flora has increased in richness as new species, such as three types of orchids, have colonised. The drawback of cutting the whole field at one time is the decimation of animal life, so starting two years ago I left a strip uncut down the centre of the field. Straight away, succession kicked off with tussocky grass, suppression of the more delicate flower species and spread of scabious. On the positive side, the new habitat was perfect for rare and declining Marsh Fritillary butterflies, and a female found it straight away - probably flying from one of the Shaston ridge colonies - and laid hundreds of eggs on the scabious, the food plant of its caterpillars. As a result, in the course of two years, this spring there is a thriving caterpillar population.
​
Peter Shallcross