Everyone is prone to overindulgence over the festive period so in the New Year many of us feel the need to get out and exercise more to work it all off. January can be a great time to look for wildlife. Unless the weather is really harsh, many species will be preparing for spring  either by setting up territories or feeding up ready for the breeding season. As we step carefully through any wet and muddy ground, it’s worth keeping an eye out for footprints of deer, foxes or other more elusive animals still active in the countryside. 

By now, all the leaves have come off the trees, so in hedgerows and woodlands everything receives more light and becomes more visible. Take a closer look at the varied mosses and lichens, clothing branches and logs, and keep an eye out for splashes of colour from fungal fruiting bodies. Woodland birds also become easier to see. Tiny species which at other times of year we might only hear or catch a fleeting glimpse, are now easier to spot. Treecreepers can be seen working their way up tree trunks and branches, searching for prey items in the bark before flying back down to start their upward search once again. In contrast, nuthatches seem as comfortable searching downwards as upwards, which is helpful for identification purposes. Clearer visibility brings the chance to differentiate the varied tit species and spot the less common marsh tit. It will feed in mixed foraging parties with blue, great, coal and long-tailed tits, and these may be joined by goldcrests and even one of the increasingly numerous overwintering chiffchaffs. Sometimes, these foraging parties can be so intent on feeding, on which at this time of year their lives can depend, that if you keep still, they will fly over and around you offering really close up views.

With the right weather and the gradually lengthening days, a number of birds will be singing preparatory to setting up territories, so aiding identification. Woodpeckers may be clearly visible on the dead branches they strike to create their drumming sound. Grey squirrels can start breeding in January, so you may encounter them chasing around in the woods or gardens. Owls are also early breeders. You may have heard tawny owls hooting after dark on still nights for some time now. This lets other owls know of their presence to declare exclusive “ownership” of their territory prior to breeding. As their territories are quite large, to project this message over long distances, their calls can be surprisingly loud (as I learned after one took to calling from the roof above the bedroom window for a few nights).

Andrew Graham

A full Victoria Hall heard a talk entitled “What’s in the Nadder”, where speakers from the Wessex Rivers Trust and the Nadder Valley Farmer Group presented the results of recent testing for phosphates, nitrates and bacteria. In addition, silt traps were used to check for the impact of soil runoff, which can smother in-river vegetation. All this focused on the Nadder, between Semley and Dinton, and included its tributaries.

The Environment Agency (EA) monitors water bodies to assign an ecological status based on biological, chemical, physical and hydrological criteria. In 2022, the Upper Nadder was rated as Moderate; while the Headwaters (up to Ludwell through the Donheads) were Poor. More recently, budgetary constraints have curtailed the amount of monitoring. So, the results of the work done by the Trust and Farmer Group allowed a reality check on the current situation.

Broadly, the results showed that the situation was little changed, but the good news is that there are improvement plans. Septic tanks are a feature of rural areas, treating sewage from one or more properties and then releasing it. But these discharges can sometimes be nutrient rich and pollute the river. Wiltshire Council is funding the replacement of old septic tanks under a project named “Revamp your Tank” to reduce that source of pollution. Farms are now inspected to ensure that farmers are complying with the regulations and given guidance on how to undertake improvements and best practice to minimise runoff into rivers.

But, as well as the contaminants mentioned above, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and other inputs get into our rivers. Sewage treatment works are designed to remove solids and return treated water to the river, but cannot deal with chemicals. Obviously, there is little we can do to prevent medications passing through our systems and into our wastewater. But it would help if we all thought carefully about what we put down our toilets, sinks and drains. For toilets, we should stick to no more than the three Ps (Pee, Poo, Paper). We have all heard about fatbergs created by cooking fats building up with solid objects (from cotton buds to nappies). The recent story about the woman fined for putting coffee down a storm drain is a prime example of thoughtlessness. Yes, it was only a small amount but if everyone did it…. All of us use water and all of us create wastewater, which eventually gets into the Nadder, so we all have a part to play.

​Andrew Graham

With the abundance of fruits, seeds, and berries in the countryside this autumn, the migrant birds which visit us during the colder months should be in for a feast. This may make them less reliant on our bird tables. Thrush species, especially the redwing and fieldfare will particularly favour the hawthorn and holly berries which glow red along the hedgerows and through the woods. Only when they have exhausted all that supply will they move onto the open fields to look for food there. These birds will have travelled large distances from their breeding grounds to wintering areas; other species make much shorter journeys. Solitary birds, small groups, or whole flocks may arrive in an area overnight and then just as quickly move on.

By keeping an eye on the skies for a while on a regular basis it is possible to pick out those movements which are local – for instance short flights by cormorants between lakes in the area – and longer distance – for instance the continuous movement of swallows gradually working their way south at the end of summer.

Birders call watching such movements visible migration, or vismig for short. This contrasts with nocturnal migration or nocmig.

If you want to experience some nocmig for yourself at this time of year, keep your ears open when walking through the village after dark. Especially on nights with low cloud, one can often hear the calls of redwings passing over-head. Their distinctive, high-pitched “tseeep” call is easy to identify but they are by no means the only species to migrate at night. Many others, of which we may be blissfully unaware, will pass through under cover of darkness. Increasingly, recording devices are being employed, especially at coastal bird observatories, to monitor birdcalls through the hours of darkness. Then, with the help of the ever-improving bird call ID applications such as Merlin, it is possible to pick out which species have been passing over while we are asleep. This is telling us more about bird movements than we could previously determine from daylight observation and bird ringing.

Abrupt and significant changes in weather or food supply can prompt major movements of birds. It is always worth looking, listening, and considering where the birds around us have come from and are going.

​Andrew Graham

​How is The Nadder doing? This is a question I ask frequently, as I am sure you do too. Often, after heavy rain the river is full to overflowing, its water is brown and muddy. For months during this summer, it has been clear but with reduced flow. Are local sewage works discharging polluted water into it?

The Environmental Agency (EA) reduced their testing some time ago, so it's difficult to get a clear idea. The quality of river waters are measured in different ways, taking account of biological factors (such as invertebrates and fish), chemical (harmful to humans) and hydromorphological elements (such as flow and depth and habitat quality). Ours, overall, is categorised as moderate to poor.

The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust recently won some funding to train volunteers so they can go in pairs each month to count water invertebrates of the eight main groups of pollution-sensitive invertebrates (or Riverflies); such as Caddis flies, Stoneflies, Blue-winged Olives, Shrimps and Mayflies. If the numbers drop suddenly from the baseline then a pollution event may have happened and the EA is notified.

In fact, so far this monitoring is showing that numbers are quite good. This is reflected in the abundance of life we can see above the water. Salmon are present and spawn lower downstream from Tisbury. The fishing clubs, instead of releasing farmed Rainbow Trout, are concentrating instead on enhancing the habitat on their stretches of river to encourage wild native Brown Trout to breed.

All this is encouraging, but what about the muddy water? Where is it coming from?   What’s in it? Who to blame?

Farmers and some farming practices are certainly at fault, so the local farmer’s group The Nadder Valley Farmers Group (of which I am Chair) decided to set up a water quality testing programme. We obtained a year's worth of funding from a grant from Farming In the Protected Landscapes grant scheme and set out to sample our river at 20 sites, weekly, for 52 weeks. The Wessex River Trust provided the expertise all the way through from its inception and Tracy Adams, our conservation advisor, tested each week for Phosphates and Nitrates, and less often as well for E. coli and sediment.

Well, we have completed the year, and would like to present to you the results on October 23rd in Tisbury, at 7pm in the Victoria Hall. Booking is essential. Please see Focus magazine p32 or contact us for details.
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Peter Shallcross

This year’s long warm and dry summer has been mostly favourable for dragonflies and damselflies, which together are known as Odonata. In contrast to butterflies, many odonata species have long flight periods. The emergence of adults from their aquatic larval stages is not synchronised so, in the right weather conditions, some species can be seen at any time between March and September. As long as the nights do not get too cold, and there are no long periods of wet weather (when they cannot hunt), the larger dragonflies can keep flying well into the autumn. Warm, dry days and evenings will give them plenty of time to feed and mate. As the males often fight over breeding territories, and dragonflies may be attacked as potential food by the hobby falcon, by late summer they can look so badly damaged and worn out that you wonder how they keep flying. Unlike several species of butterfly, dragonflies and damselflies do not hibernate as adults. Eventually they will become too damaged, or a sharp frost will bring their lives to an end. By then they should have mated, and the females laid their eggs in a suitable water body. The resulting carnivorous larvae will then spend months developing underwater, before emerging as flying adults in the following summer. Unfortunately, extended dry spells such as we have had this year can dry up their breeding habitat and the larvae lost, so the “good” summer is not necessarily all good news for odonata.

At 57 species, the list of odonata recorded in the UK is about the same size as that for our butterflies. A number of these, with very exacting habitat requirements, became extinct last century. However, the list is undergoing a period of unprecedented change as, in recent years, a number of species have been discovered for the first time. Some of these have gone on to become breeding species. This is largely a result of climate change, which is allowing a number of insects to expand their range northwards through Europe and across the channel. Notably, this summer has seen increased numbers of the strikingly marked Jersey Tiger Moth being seen in southern England. Once only plentiful in the Channel Islands, since 1990 this day flying moth has spread north and east from its mainland strongholds in south Devon, and several have been seen in and around Tisbury. It has become sufficiently numerous to be added to the list of target species for the national Big Butterfly Count.

And now, news comes that a species of butterfly from Southern Europe has been spotted in the UK for the first time. The Southern Small White, which even on close inspection doesn’t look that much different to a Small White, a Green Veined White or, er, a small Large White, just makes life more difficult for the butterfly recorder. It’s easy to see why most of us lump them all together as “cabbage whites”.

​Andrew Graham

I really struggle during heatwaves. At home, I do all I can to keep the house cool and to make sure there is some shade into which we can retreat at the hottest time of the day. But, how is wildlife, which has evolved over long time periods to be adapted to our normal climate, impacted by the increasingly frequent hot and dry spells? Well, in numerous direct and indirect ways.

We will see in our gardens how fruit and veg may mature too quickly and drop fruit prematurely. In the field, this can mean that crops of berries, nuts, and fruits that birds and animals normally rely on in autumn, may be gone by the time they need them. Although we can water our wilting garden plants and seedlings, in the wild they may perish, and a new generation will be lost. If the plants provide food for the larvae of insects like butterflies and moths become desiccated and die, the larvae won’t be able to grow sufficiently to progress to their overwintering stage, diminishing the numbers that emerge next year.

Anyone trying to dig into their flowerbeds will know how rock-hard the soil can get. Well, imagine if you rely on muddy soil with which to build a nest, or on digging into that soil to get food – as badgers, hedgehogs and many birds do. Life becomes very difficult for them. And things are just as bad for the creatures in that hardened soil, making it an inhospitable place. The worms and invertebrates that moles feed on are harder to find, so they must dig deeper to find moist soil and food.

While every creature needs to drink water in some way, amphibians such as frogs and toads rely on being able to keep moist, but as cool damp areas become increasingly rare, they risk death from dehydration. During heatwaves, water temperatures in ponds and rivers rise, resulting in reduced dissolved-oxygen levels, which in turn can kill fish. At the same time, the warmth encourages algal blooms, which can smother other wildlife and become toxic. If ponds dry out completely before tadpoles have competed their transition to froglets or toadlets, they will die.

Added to all these problems is the increasing risk of wildfires, or, even worse, deliberately started fires. This is a particular problem on our southern heathlands, many of which are close to built up areas, which seems to increase their vulnerability.

Obviously, it is not all bad news. Some species undoubtedly benefit from the heat and drought. But cumulatively, repeated heatwaves will favour the more resilient species, which can adapt in the short term or can move to more favourable locations and are able to recolonise later. Sedentary species, or those whose population take many generations to rebuild, may become locally extinct, eventually leading to a reduced flora and fauna of robust, adaptable species. Unfortunately, many of these are what we currently think of as pests. In future, our flora and fauna may be less diverse, less interesting, and significantly different to what we are comfortable with.

Andrew Graham

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