Field trip notes: Visit to Underhill Nature Reserve (27th September)

©Jonathan Thompson                            © Matt Somerville  

About 20 members were met by Jonathan Thompson and Matt Somerville and ushered into the classroom, where Jon gave us a brief overview of the nature reserve.

After buying the 30 acres of newly-planted deciduous plantation, Jon has been working hard to increase the diversity of habitats with small-scale re-wilding. Jonathan explained that, at Underhill, this means mimicking the effects of the large native animals currently missing from the local environment, such as wild boar, beaver and wild cattle. For example, ring barking trees to create dead-wood habitats and opening the woodland, to let light penetrate the forest floor.

We then split into two groups; one led by Matt and the other by Jonathan, before a half-time change over. Matt started by showing us the inner workings of a natural beehive, teaching us about Propolis, which is like a bee glue, with amazing qualities, which bees use to fill holes with and prevent pests taking over. Matt makes something like a hundred natural hives each year, in two styles: Rocket and Log types. We walked onto the reserve to look at several of the log hives, one of which was humming with bees. Wild honeybees have recently been classified as endangered, and it was terrific to have a deep dive into their life and ecology by a real expert.

Jonathan took his group to see newly dug ponds and scrapes which had just started re-filling with water after the summer’s drought. Holding water year-round, whatever the rainfall is, the lake has a large population of amphibians and lots of other wildlife, Jonathan has even seen otters. Near the lake is an example of ‘conservation hedge-laying’, a really thick, wide and tall hedge, where each stem has been cut half-way through at the base and pushed over to forty-five degrees. One of Jonathan’s students has surveyed the invertebrate community in this one hedge and has written a paper on it. Also, a book has been written about it, by a local author!
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Finally, Jonathan took us down to a small stream where the students of the John Muir award scheme made dams, to simulate the activities of beavers. These dams hold up the water, creating pools, which clean the sediment and enable a new community of wildlife to exist.

​Peter Shallcross