The community meadow just behind the Nadder Centre is full of flowers this summer. After several years of careful ragwort removal, followed by taking an annual hay cut, the grass has become less dominant allowing other flowering plants to flourish. As well as the striking clumps of white ox-eye daisy, during a walk through the meadow you should be able to find knapweed, wild carrot, buttercups, clovers, and several members of the dandelion family, including goat’s beard and daintier ones such as cat’s-ears, hawkbits and hawkweeds. These can be tricky to identify accurately but the variety is what is so attractive.

Contributing to the decline in the vigour of the grasses is the yellow rattle, a plant that is a semi-parasite of grasses, feeding off the nutrients in their roots, suppressing their growth. Unsurprisingly, the flowers are yellow, but the other part of the name is derived from the papery brown calyx which creates a small bladder in which the seed ripens. When several on one stem are ripe, they will rattle in the wind and multiple plants can set up a dry rustling in the breeze. This species has spread rapidly across the meadow and is now prolific in places.

While taking the hay cut aims to reduce the fertility of the meadow, acting against this is the spread of the clumps of sainfoin. Like other members of the pea family, this plant, with bright magenta flowers, fixes nitrogen in its roots, which penetrate deep and bring up nutrients from the subsoil.

Although far less numerous, another unusual plant found scattered throughout the field is the common broomrape. Broomrapes are a group of striking, poker-shaped, parasitic plants that lack chlorophyll, so they are never green. There are nine native species in Britain, each generally associated with distinct species or groups of plants. Looking superficially like a faded, dried out orchid, their flower stems can remain in place through the winter, after shedding their dust like seed. If this seed lands close to a suitable host, it germinates in response to chemicals in the soil produced by that plant. It then grows towards and attaches to the host, from which it takes sufficient sustenance to produce a new flower. In the case of the common broomrape, these flowers can be quite variable but are generally between a brownish red and a creamy yellow in colour. It is most often associated with members of the pea family or wild carrot. While the latter is present in the field, it is most likely associated with the prolific red clover or sainfoin, both of which are flourishing there.

The flora of the meadow is visibly very dynamic as varied species increase or decline. However, the diversity of flowering species appears to be increasing all the time, to the benefit of the numerous insects, including the common grassland butterflies. Look out for Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Marbled Whites, all of which can be seen there in scores on a good day.

​Andrew Graham

As the hedgerows green up in spring, the early growth of the honeysuckle stands out. In a hedge that has been trimmed over the previous winter, its growth rapidly outstrips that of the woodier shrubs. Its red-stemmed tendrils and purple leaves can produce a haze of contrasting colour over the top of a hedge as they shoot upward, twining around themselves seeking support. This growth pattern is well suited to its natural woodland habitat where it clambers upward and twists around tree branches and stems to seek the light in the upper canopy. As the plants age and intertwine, their lower stems can thicken into fibrous tangled ropes which can distort the trees that support them. These vines can be very difficult to break, but develop a flaky bark which dormice and some birds use as nesting material. Sometimes, the way that the honeysuckle twists around a tree’s stem can result in an unnatural spiral shape which can be used to create distinctive walking sticks.
 
By June, the pale yellow and pink flowers come into bloom and emit their sweet perfume. This is strongest in the evening and at night and attracts pollinating insects, such as the elephant hawk moths, which have long enough proboscises to penetrate the flowers’ narrow trumpets. In turn, these insects can become food for foraging bats, as they feed along summer hedgerows. By autumn, the flowers are replaced by clusters of shiny crimson berries, which glow against the hedgerow leaves as they turn colour. They are gobbled up by various birds and mammals which thereby spread the seeds far and wide.

The plant’s leaves provide food for a variety of insects, from blackfly up to the larvae of butterflies and moths. One of our rarer local butterflies, the white admiral, relies entirely on woodland honeysuckle, on which its caterpillars feed. The exotic looking scarlet tiger moth is more catholic in its tastes and, as well as feeding on honeysuckle in our hedge, I’ve found caterpillars on comfrey in our flower beds. We regularly see them flying on sunny midsummer afternoons, so I suppose having a choice of food plants is to their liking.

​Andrew Graham

When I was a child, apart from the “cabbage whites”, which I now know to cover several species, the easiest to identify butterfly and frequently seen in the garden was the Small Tortoiseshell. This pretty, bright orange butterfly splashed with yellow, black, white and blue, was a regular on nectar-rich flowers, such as buddleia and sedum. It emerges in spring, after hibernating somewhere sheltered, and making use of its widespread and often abundant foodplant, the common nettle, produces two broods during the summer. It is the second that provides the adults to overwinter.

Unfortunately, this butterfly is becoming an increasingly rare sight. To coincide with the start of a new recording season, the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) has just released its analysis of results for 2024. This is the 50th year of this scheme, which collects data from more than 3000 sites, as well as sightings from the Big Butterfly Count and from randomly selected kilometre squares throughout the country. The impressive long-term body of data the UKBMS collects allows us to assess  the state of the environment, the impacts of climate change and the progress of government policy initiatives to conserve biodiversity.

Last summer, many people were asking, “Where have all the butterflies gone?”, so many were awaiting the 2024 analysis with some concern and the results are extremely worrying.

It was one of the worst years since 1976, when UKBMS started. Although numbers always fluctuate up and down to a certain extent, for the first time on record more than half of our species are in long-term decline. It was the worst year, since counting began, for nine species, including the Small Tortoiseshell, and the second worst year for some of the butterflies of the wider countryside, like the Common Blue and Gatekeeper.

So, is there anything we can do personally to help the plight of our butterflies? Well, research shows that if you have a garden, leaving some of it to grow wild with long grass can increase butterfly numbers by up to 93%. Avoid mowing between April and September to allow adults to shelter, drink nectar from flowers, breed, lay eggs, and for their caterpillars to feed. Nectar rich flowers, either in your beds or in pots, will attract whatever butterflies may be in the area, and if you have an unmown patch with the right food plants, they may stop to breed. Long grass and nectar sources will benefit other species of wildlife as well, and multiplied up across many gardens in towns and villages, can help species which are struggling in the wider countryside.

I shall be keeping my fingers crossed for the wonderful Small Tortoiseshell. It is not a specialist butterfly restricted to nature reserves; we should be seeing it everywhere. An 86% decline since 1976 reminds us that when people talk about a biodiversity crisis, it is not just happening in the Amazon rainforest, it is here at home, and all around us.

​Andrew Graham

During the winter months, you could often come across small flocks of skylarks feeding on farmland stubbles. The small snatches of song they uttered as they flew over made it easy to distinguish them from the similar meadow pipit, with its high pitched “cheep” call. With the arrival of spring weather, skylarks are now spreading out, looking for suitable breeding habitat and starting to give voice to their full song,  which so epitomises open country in summer.

The skylark is a little larger than a sparrow but smaller than a starling. It has a small crest, which is most likely to be seen raised when the bird is alarmed. As it flies away or glides back to the ground, the white sides to the tail are a distinctive feature. Its streaky tawny plumage is ideal for camouflage amongst tussocky grass, so it is generally inconspicuous when on the ground. Not so when on a song flight, when the bird can sing for up to an hour and climb to great heights making its presence heard over a wide area.

Skylarks occupy open grassland and fields to avoid predators. Their towering song flights mean they have no need for trees or other perches from which to sing and are numerous on the open downlands of Wiltshire. Although in winter skylarks are strongly associated with stubbles, where they feed on seeds, young chicks are exclusively fed on insects and spiders. These remain an important part of the diet of adults and young throughout the summer, so any decline in the availability of such prey will have an impact on breeding success.

Although easy to find and still widespread throughout the UK, the skylark population has declined by 63% since 1967. This decline was largely caused by the move from spring to winter cereals, as well as by intensified grassland management. However, the latest UK population trend shows a small upturn in this species' fortunes.
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Far less common is the woodlark, a superficially similar species with a noticeably shorter tail. Its distribution is closely tied to areas where wooded heathlands survive. If you want to look for one near here, your best bet is the New Forest.

​Andrew Graham

Soon after we moved in, I planted some gorse at the back of our garden. It soon established, so I now must cut it back annually to keep it in check. It does, though, bring colour and fragrance at a dull time of year. It has been blooming since December and as the year advances the number of flowers increase to become thick masses by late spring. As soon as some sun gets onto the flowers, they emit a wonderful coconut scent and are attractive to insects.

It is not commonly found in the Nadder valley, but on the downs you will find thick clumps of it. Further afield, in the New Forest and on the Purbeck Heaths it is extremely common and can be invasive, forming impenetrable thickets. Volunteers spend many hours keeping it under control for the benefit of other flora and fauna, which gets shaded out.

Gorse leaves are thin, sharp spines which animals are only able to graze as young shoots. With its thick spiny thickets, gorse provides shelter and nesting sites for birds and animals. Birds such as stonechats and dartford warblers can often be seen singing from atop gorse bushes where they feel safe from mammal attack.

Dead leaves lower down the stems are highly flammable, so making dead gorse is ideal for kindling and fuel. In the past, gorse may have been prevented from dominating the UK’s southern heaths by commoners regularly harvesting gorse for fuel.

Gorse is a member of the pea family of plants, as can be seen from the shape of the flowers and the pea-like seed pods. Like other legumes, it can fix nitrogen through symbiosis with bacteria around its roots. This helps it to colonise and enrich poor land and sandy soils. The common gorse, Ulex europeaus, is the most frequently seen species but there are two others found in the UK, western gorse, and dwarf gorse, both of which are lower growing. They both flower later in the summer than the common, helping to separate the species.

Some say that folklore has it that you should not kiss your loved ones when gorse is out of bloom. I prefer my mother’s saying “when gorse is in bloom, kissing’s in season” which I think puts a more positive spin on the fact that at most times of year, you will likely be able to find gorse in bloom somewhere.

​Andrew Graham

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

Now that the trees have shed their leaves their branches are more clearly visible and this highlights the colour of some willow species. Beside Fonthill Lake, near the arch, are a few trees which catch the eye, as they shine orange in the afternoon sun. Elsewhere you might see willows with purple, yellow or red twigs. There are many willow (Salix) species and a huge number of varieties which have been bred for different purposes and their colour. Over the centuries, people have found numerous uses for willow and given it different names, such as osiers or withies.

In the past, chewing willow bark was used to relieve pain. Nowadays, the painkiller Aspirin is derived from salicin, a compound found in the bark of all Salix species. Baskets of all sizes have been made from willow all over the world for centuries and put to a multitude of uses. Willow was also used to make furniture, hurdles, lobster pots, cages, fish traps and, of course, cricket bats. Somerset is an important area for the production of willow, where hundreds of acres are dedicated to growing different varieties for varied uses.

The advent of plastics replaced many uses of woven willow - also known as wicker – but new uses continue to be found, for example sculptures large and small, and you can now even get a wicker coffin. The latest development is planting willow as short-rotation coppice, which can be mechanically harvested and used as a perennial bioenergy crop. This can use land less suited to food production and, because it regrows from the cut stool each year, doesn’t require annual planting.

Willows can be found throughout the country, especially the commonest, the goat willow, also known as pussy willow or great sallow. In common with all other willows, it is pollinated by insects and has male flowers on one tree and very different looking female flowers on another. In full bloom in spring, the catkins provide a huge, early source of nectar for insects. Their foliage also provides a food source for the larvae of several moths, as well as the wonderful Purple Emperor butterfly.

Willows are very prone to hybridise with other species of willow, which makes certain identification difficult. But it has resulted in a great variety of forms including the fabulous weeping willow. To confuse matters further, poplars which are closely related (but wind pollinated) also have catkins and alternate buds and leaves like willows. However, poplar leaves are triangular, or diamond shaped, while willows (apart from goat willow) are long and thin.

Although willows are relatively short-lived trees and not valued for their timber, they are nonetheless an important but easily overlooked element of our countryside, without which many other species would struggle.

​Andrew Graham

I spent a week in North Norfolk during the autumn birding in the numerous nature reserves along the coast. During the autumn migration one never knows what is going to turn up and the number of birders out and about every day means that many rarities and less common birds get picked up and reported. I was reflecting on how things had changed since I made a similar trip in the late 1970s. Back then, as well as binos and telescope, unless you knew the area and were a real expert, one had to lug around maps and field guides in pockets or a backpack. Now all you need is your phone and, depending on your interests, a handful of apps. The OS app gives you all the maps you want at a range of scales. Most reserves have a map board at the car park; a quick photo of that on arrival and you can navigate around the paths and hides with ease – rather than relying on memory as in the past.

One of the more frequent autumn migrant rarities is the Yellow Browed Warbler and there was a scattering of them along the coast on my recent visit. Like many warblers, this bird can be hard to pick out as its olive plumage and small size means you often only get a glimpse as it flits through the foliage. Now though you can prepare for your search by “swatting up” with an app. I use the Collins Bird Guide – like having the book version on your phone but with the advantage that it can play recordings of the bird’s calls and song. This is so much more useful than the somewhat bewildering verbal descriptions in the book. Telling the difference between two species on the basis of the one calls “hu-itt” and the other “hweet”? Hmmm. But after repeatedly listening to the recording on the app I found the Yellow Browed Warbler easy to identify when I heard it in the field. And after spotting it in the bushes I could then confirm my identification with another phone app – Merlin. This records birdsong and calls around you and identifies the species. It is not infallible but, with sufficient understanding of what you are expecting to see, it can be really useful to clinch sightings.

Other apps such as Obsidentify and Picture This are available which help you identify plants and other species of animals from a photo and in most cases to report where you found it. Similarly for birds, Birdtrack run by the British Trust for Ornithology allows you to record what you are seeing while in the field and then submit the results when you get home. Other apps are available for other groups or species. Ideally, we want to be able to report our sightings of wildlife and so enlarge our knowledge of its distribution and health, so these apps are a real boon.

Even if you don’t have an appropriate app, a photo can later be shared with local experts – often in area or species focussed WhatsApp Groups or forums – who may be able to identify what you have snapped.

So, the combination of all these phone apps and GPS which allows data loggers to track where you are at all times has really changed looking for and recording wildlife. With ever advancing AI one does wonder whether we will soon be able to wander through an area, scanning what we can see and hear through the phone, and this will instantly convert into geographically positioned and dated species lists. Which, although great from the point of view of getting good records, rather removes the sense of achievement from seeking things out and identifying them. We’ll see, but a phone is much lighter than loads of guidebooks, so I know which my back prefers.

​Andrew Graham

At this time of year hedges are looking at their best, as far as fruit is concerned. The winter storms and hedge cutting haven’t bashed it away, and the birds and animals haven’t started in earnest.

Following this summer’s wetter than normal weather, there is a good crop of rosehips, crab apples, and berries on blackthorn, spindle, hawthorn, wayfaring tree, guelder rose, rowan, elder and buckthorn. This (incomplete) list shows how important it is to plant a whole range of species when planting a hedge. Ancient hedges can have many more species than more recently planted ones, where the predominant species is often hawthorn, as it is cheap to buy and stock proof.

Last winter, no hedges, except those by the roadside, were cut on Wallmead Farm, because it was too wet to get any tractors into the fields without creating mud and ruts for months and the damage would be too much to remedy easily. 

Over the years, I have learnt that cutting should be as late as possible, and certainly not before Christmas, to let the birds and animals have time to eat their fill. Conservation subsidies help with the cost of hedge cutting if it is only done every second or third year, so that is what I have done too. The reason for this is that the flowering and therefore the fruit only happens on growth that is older than a year old. Yearly cutting results in no fruit at all.

When a tall and wide hedge is cut back, the result can look awful! With a flail (which all hedge cutters are) large stems are torn with a jagged edge and the hedge looks as if it has been mauled, a sight which I am sure is familiar to you all. The hedge does recover when spring comes and new shoots appear.

Before hedge cutters (going back 50 years or more), most hedges would have been laid on a rotation of about 15 years; hedges were radically thinned, and the remaining stems were cut at the base halfway through and bent to about 45 degrees to form an impenetrable barrier. 

This essentially is the advice to follow from The People’s Trust for Endangered Species, who have done research on this subject: to cut each two or three years gently, so it increases in height and width slowly, and then to lay it once every 15-20 years. There is a subsidy to help pay for this very slow and expensive job. 

​Peter Shallcross

As the leaves begin to fall from the hedgerows, the fluffy, spherical blooms of Clematis vitalba become ever more noticeable. This is known as traveller’s joy or old man’s beard, an extremely vigorous climbing plant which scrambles through hedgerow and woodland. After flowering in late summer, the plant is clothed in silver grey seedheads, which last into the winter. At a time when the countryside can become a bit featureless,  these clouds of silver can catch the sun and brighten things up for any kind of traveller.

The seed heads are made up of a collection of seeds, attached to each of which is a silky, feather-like, appendage. These catch the wind and help to spread the seed, which also provides food for birds. The thousands of seeds each plant produces each autumn, combined with such an efficient means of distribution means it can be found almost anywhere in southern Britain. It does, though, favour lime-rich soils, which explains why it is so common hereabouts. Traveler's joy is the food plant of a number of moths, including the pretty chalk carpet and small emerald moths, both of which are common hereabouts.

The rapidly growing stems are ridged and become tough and fibrous as they age. You can often find tremendously long stems hanging down to the woodland floor from where they have clambered up to the light in the canopy. These are very strong and make ideal ropes for children to play at being Tarzan. This strength led it to being used in the past for weaving, making rope and other bindings.

Unfortunately, traveller’s joy was ill-advisedly introduced as a garden plant to New Zealand. Its seeds were soon blown out into the native forests where it has become a menace, growing rampantly through the canopy, shading out the plants on the woodland floor and in some cases breaking down trees with its weight.

​Andrew Graham