We'll be looking out for the heathland birds and butterflies of the New Forest with Keith Lea, Consultant in woodland management and Vice Chair of Salisbury Natural History Society.

No dogs. Start time at Hale Purlieu 10am. Anticipated end time: 1pm

A mid summer walk in search of heathland butterflies, notably Grayling and Silver Studded Blue, heathland & woodland birds and heathland/bog flora. A moderate 3 mile circular walk within this beautiful part of the New Forest National Park.

Meet at the Nadder Centre for 9 am departure or meet at the National Trust Car   Park, Lady's Mile Rd, Hale Purlieu, SP6 2QZ for 10am start  What3words:///hardback.dices.cactus

Distance, Difficulty and Footwear - Please dress accordingly to the weather and bring water & snacks. Mostly flat walking but uneven.

If you would like to join us please contact us and let us know if you will be meeting us at Nadder Centre to car share or at the starting location.

Please join us in ragwort pulling from the Community field, behind the skatepark and Nadder Centre at 6:30pm on Wed 15th July. 

We pull the ragwort in preparation for the field being cut for hay and any cinnabar moth caterpillars will be rescued and put on other ragworts in a non-harvested location.

Bring a picnic and enjoy this summer's activity!

On Sunday 12th July we are off to Dinton Beeches looking for butterflies and other flora and fauna.  We will take a leisurely walk around the tracks and rides of the woods looking for the varied butterfly species which can usually be found there at this time of year.

Meet at Nadder Centre for 11:00am departure or meet on the track on the south side of the Dinton Beeches part of the wood at 11:30am. OS: SU 007 348 What3words: ///grapevine.sulked.lighter

The expected end time is 2.30pm so please bring a picnic and drinks.
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If you would like to join us please contact us and let us know if you will be meeting us at Nadder Centre to car share or at the starting location.

From May into June a striking sight in hedgerows and scrubby areas is the elder. This large shrub or small tree is common throughout Britain and is easily identified by its large creamy flowerheads or umbels which smother it at this time of year. Elders rarely grow as tall as 15m, and are quite short-lived; a 60 year-old elder is a veteran. Elder generally has a short trunk with corky, furrowed bark and relatively few branches. It will grow back vigorously when cut, which allows it to survive repeated cutting in a hedgerow. New growth has soft, bright green stems.

Those big flowers provide a nectar source for many insects and are eaten by some of the smaller mammals. Later in the year they turn into glossy, purple-black berries which hang down in big bunches. These provide food for birds and mammals and the seeds, when deposited in the droppings of the animals that ate the berries, germinate easily on disturbed ground. As a result, elder is often found around badger setts or fox earths.

Elder wood is very poor for burning and its smaller branches have a pithy centre. This can be hollowed out, and, in the past, hollowed stems were used with bellows through which to blow air into the centre of a fire. Consequently, it has been suggested that the name elder comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'aeld', meaning fire.

A number of ornamental varieties have been developed with purple or black leaves, coloured flowers, or deeply cut leaves. Because of their modest size and good response to pruning, these are popular in gardens and support wildlife.

In the past, leaves, bark and berries were used to make different coloured dyes used in the production of Harris Tweed. These days, the most common reference to elder comes in the ubiquitous elderflower cordials on sale everywhere. But the flowers and berries can be used in a variety of ways, as long as you avoid the raw berries, which are poisonous. Cooked berries, which are rich in vitamin C, can be used to augment blackberries in a pie or used to make cordials and wine.

The flowers, which should be collected when fresh – before they start to smell unpleasant – and shaken to remove insects, and can be dried for later use in cordials or wine. I’m sure there are many in the village who will have marvellous recipes. My favourite is elderflower champagne, although I haven’t made it for a while after too many exploding bottles brought a degree of customer resistance in the kitchen.

​Andrew Graham

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.  

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

Our field trip for June is early in the month, so don't forget! Andrew Graham will lead us on a walk over Whitesheet Hill (also spelt White Sheet Hill on OS map) starting at 11am from the car park. 

This prominent hill just to the north of Mere has some unimproved downland which is good for spring butterflies and flowers. We will hope to find the Glanville Fritillary which appears to have a self-sustaining population there. Bring close focus binoculars if you have them. No dogs.

Meet at the Nadder Centre car park  for 10:30 am departure or at 11:00 at the Whitesheet Hill car park at OS: ST 797350 (Map 142).
What3words  ///sheet.strikers.paying 
 
Distance, Difficulty and Footwear: – In places steep downland and depending on conditions paths may be slippery. Essential therefore to wear good stout shoes or boots rather than wellingtons. Bring your own refreshments.

Anticipated end time: Departing Whitesheet Hill at 2:00 pm to arrive back at the Nadder Centre by 2:30 pm.

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

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