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

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

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.

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

We are fortunate in southern Wiltshire to have more than our fair share of the county’s ancient woodlands. These are woods that have persisted since at least 1600, which is when maps started to become reasonably reliable so we can track a wood’s history. As they have a long-term continuity of woodland cover and management, such woods are often refuges for wildlife long since lost to the countryside. Some species are so specific to these woods, sometimes because they spread so slowly, that they are used as indicators to help in the identification of ancient sites. New woods planted on open land will never be able to develop the complex and rich biodiversity found in an ancient wood, so a mature woodland planted after the First World War may look splendid in the landscape, but from a wildlife point of view it may have little to offer.

Only 2.5% of the UK is ancient woodland, so it makes those remaining very precious. Although humans will have managed nearly all ancient woods at some time, and in some cases non-native species have been planted, the long-term tree cover allows for deep soils to develop, and complex wildlife communities to thrive. Dead wood, on which scarce fungi and invertebrates rely, can accumulate and archaeological remains such as earth banks and ditches may survive.

Just east of Salisbury lies a mosaic of ancient woods, the largest of which is Bentley Wood, which has an interesting history. The area was used to accommodate US troops in the run up to D-Day and then to store vehicles returning after the war. All this had an impact, but woodland continuity was maintained. After the Forestry Commission acquired it in the ‘50s, they filled any gaps created with new planting, until 1983, when the government wanted to sell off many of the Forestry Commission woods. At this point, a local resident stepped in, forming a trust to buy the wood so it could be enjoyed by the public. This was achieved in 1984 and for the past 40 years the woodlands have been carefully managed by The Friends of Bentley Wood for wildlife and public enjoyment.

The multiple tracks, rides and paths that criss-cross the wood are a pleasure to walk, and the site is particularly well known for the butterflies and birds found there.

​Andrew Graham

The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme has recently released its report for the 2023 season and it was a mixed bag. The results provide a picture based on recording at more than 3000 sites nationwide. Some species had very good years while others had a particularly bad year. In some cases, it was easy to put the poor showing down to the impact of the summer drought of ’22. Those butterflies associated with damp conditions, such as the Green Veined White and the Ringlet, did particularly badly last summer.  Their larvae probably found it difficult to find sufficient plant material on which to feed in the parched landscape.  Particularly disappointing is the continued decline of the Small Tortoiseshell, a lovely looking insect, familiar to most but becoming increasingly uncommon. As it is faring better in the moister north and west of the country, this decline could be a result of climate change. That impact may be expressed on the insect itself or it may be that the parasites that attack it are favoured by the changing climate.

One species which did well in ’23 was the Holly Blue. On my transect outside Tisbury, I recorded more than twice as many in ’23 than in any of the previous 8 years. I only saw one there in ’22. It is another butterfly that is regularly affected by parasites, and this leads to a boom-and-bust cycle every 4-6 years.  The caterpillars may be attacked by two species of parasitic wasp, which lay their eggs into the larva’s body where they hatch and feed.  When the wasps are rare, the population of Holly Blues is able to increase but soon, with increased numbers of caterpillars to prey on, the population of the parasitic wasps grows. Eventually, the parasitic wasps become so abundant that they cause the population of the host butterfly to plummet. That then causes the wasp populations to crash for lack of larvae and the cycle begins again.

Now is the time to look out for Holly Blues in sheltered sunny gardens, hedgerows and woodland glades. They will often be seen flying amongst the tops of bushes and hedgerows, often where there is holly or ivy present. Although by no means a certain guide, if you see a small blue butterfly skipping around at height, amongst bushes and trees, it will be a Holly Blue; other blues are more likely to be seen close to the ground. In spring, eggs are often laid on holly flower buds. These give rise to a second brood flying later in the summer and, by contrast, the females of this brood generally lay their eggs on the flower buds of ivy.

A Holly Blue flitting around the garden is a sure sign of spring and it will be interesting to see if the numbers of last year are exceeded or whether this season brings a crash.

​Andrew Graham

I love to hear skylarks singing on sunny days above the downs and the fields around Tisbury. It must be one of our most well-known birds, as there must be few who do not recognise its song, delivered from high in the sky. An inspiration to artists, poets and composers, the skylark is often easier to hear than see, and when on the ground, its drab inconspicuous plumage can make it difficult to spot. It may only be up close that you can spot its distinctive crest, which clearly separates it from the somewhat similar, but less stocky, meadow pipit, which has a far less exuberant song.

Although there is a good handful of lark species to be found on the continent, there is just one other that you might see in the UK, the rarer woodlark. This is a bird of the heaths, so the best place to look for them near here would be in the New Forest. Slightly smaller than the skylark, with a short tail that makes it look a bit like a bat when in flight, the woodlark shares the same brown streaky plumage as the skylark.

The plumage of larks and pipits provides effective camouflage for the birds when feeding and nesting on the ground. This is a common adaptation for ground nesting birds and serves well to protect them from conventional predators. Unfortunately, it does little to protect them from challenges brought by the loss of stubbles, and other changes to agricultural practices. Numbers have dropped by 15% over the last 30 years and the bird is now Red Listed in the UK. Ground nesting birds are particularly vulnerable to straying dogs. This is one of the reasons why the Countryside Code makes it a legal requirement to have your dog on a lead on open access land between 1 March and 31 July, and under effective control for the rest of the year. Responsible pet owners will help our endangered birds to have a successful breeding season.

​Andrew Graham

As the weather warms and the days lengthen so we begin to see more wildflowers in the country and along the roadside. After the spring equinox is referred to as the vernal period. Late winter before the equinox is referred to as prevernal. Classic prevernal flowers are those that bloom before trees and bushes come into leaf and throw shade over the plants. An example is the primrose which we will find blooming in woodlands and under hedges before the leaves break.

The primrose spreads its leaves in a rosette against the ground around the flowers. This allows it to maximise the light that they can absorb while the sun remains relatively low. This gives them a competitive head start, allows the flowers to be fertilised and set seed early in the year before other taller plants shade it out. At this time, its bright yellow flowers are hard to miss and are a welcome source of nectar for any early emerging insects. Later in the year the leaves become pallid and die back.

Another flower providing nectar at this time of year is Coltsfoot. This plant looks like a small dandelion but in contrast to the primrose, it flowers before its leaves appear. Each composite flower is held on a short scaly stem; quite different to the dandelion’s smooth one and similar to sedum flower stems. As the flower’s centre is dense, it also looks like a large all-yellow daisy. It is a creeping perennial weed of rough ground and field edges and as it spreads by rhizomes underground if it gets into your garden, it can become a pest. The leaves emerge after the flowers have died back and are shaped like a heart or horse’s hoof, hence the name. Historically it was used as a remedy for coughs and colds.

​Andrew Graham

Ravens are beginning to breed this month; usually laying eggs in late February.

By the beginning of the 20th Century, persecution had reduced the distribution of ravens to the coastal and upland districts of the west and north of the UK. Where I grew up in Weymouth, ravens were a rarity only occasionally seen on the Purbeck coast. Similarly, when I lived in Essex and Berkshire before moving to Tisbury, I just never saw them. So, their obvious presence was one of the things I first noticed on our arrival here. The raven's range has increased again, spreading south and east, with Tisbury well within the area recolonised during the last 50 years. Nationally, there has been an estimated population increase of 40% in the last 25 years. As that growth has taken place, so nesting has expanded beyond the cliffs and crags previously favoured, to tall trees.

For nesting sites, they seem to prefer wooded areas with large expanses of open land nearby, which sounds like a fair description of our local landscape. They currently avoid urban areas, although in earlier centuries when they were more common, they frequented cities, alongside other birds such as kites.

The raven is distinguished from its cousins, the crows, by its greater size – comparable to a buzzard – and by its larger, heavier, black beak and shaggy feathers around the throat. Its entirely black plumage has a purple iridescent sheen when seen close up. It also has a longer, wedge-shaped tail which shows up well in flight. This involves less wing flapping and more soaring and acrobatics than crows. Indeed, they seem to enjoy goofing around in the sky, often in pairs, flipping over to fly upside down, closing wings to drop steeply and engaging in mock battles with their mate.

Their call may grab your attention before you see them: a deep croak of “cronk cronk”  or “pruck pruck” may alert you to a pair circling high above the village or in woodland treetops.

They are long-lived birds and live for 10 -15 years or more in the wild although some at the Tower of London have lived beyond 40. They mate for life, usually nesting in the same location once paired.
Ravens feed mainly on carrion but are omnivorous and opportunistic. When available, they’ll eat grains, acorns, berries and fruit as well as invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and birds. The raven’s brain is among the largest of any bird species. They are intelligent and show problem solving skills. This may have contributed to its ability to find food which has helped the speed of its recolonisation.

Supposedly, the kingdom will not fall to a foreign invader as long as there are ravens (presently captive) at the Tower of London. It is not clear where this idea comes from, although it may be another romantic invention of the Victorian era. It does, though, offer people a chance to get up close to these magnificent birds.

​Andrew Graham

Towards the end of November, walking the footpath northwest towards Weaveland Farm, I noticed a bright red poppy in bloom in the stubbles of the adjacent field. Scanning the area, I realised that there were hundreds of them blooming throughout the field.

Climate change is affecting the number of plants that we can expect to see in the winter months. In some cases, a mild autumn will allow plants to flower later into the early winter than is normal; in others, a lack of frost or extended cold spells can encourage spring species to flower early.

In 2012, the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) started promoting an annual hunt for plants in flower during a four-day period over New Year – the New Year Plant Hunt. This has become increasingly popular and, in recent years, over 2500 participants recorded lists of flowering plants from over 1,700 locations across Britain and Ireland. Initially, it was set up as a bit of fun for botanists at a quiet time of the year. Now, a decade on, it is helping to build up a picture of how our flora is responding to changing weather patterns.

Between 30th December and 2nd January, participants are asked to count all native and non-native plants in flower seen on a walk of no more than three hours, excluding species obviously planted in gardens. Many of the species most frequently seen are common, well-known ones, such as Daisy, Dandelion, Dead Nettle, Groundsel and Gorse. The BSBI provides Spotter Sheets with pictures of the Top 10 and Top 20 most frequently seen flowers to help identification. You could also take photos and then try to identify the flowers when you get home. Hunters are then asked to enter records of their sightings on the BSBI website where they can also see other records coming in (www.bsbi.org/new-year-plant-hunt).

This month, we are collating the results of the plant hunt by our members into a group response and are offering a prize for the best pictures taken from those under 10 and between 10 and 21 years of age. Keep an eye on our online media for an update on this!

Naturally, sheltered locations in the south tend to yield more species than exposed ones in the north, but amazingly some hunters have found more than 70 species. Urban areas can provide a “heat island” effect, so it might be easier to find flowers in the walls and alongside paths in the village. Taking part in the hunt is a good excuse to get out for a walk after the festivities, and the results will contribute to the wider nationwide study; it will also be interesting to see the effects of the recent weather.

Andrew Graham