Just because we're out of lockdown shouldn't mean we get out less.  The breeding season is at its height so there's many to look out for but one that's often heard is the woodpecker.  ​It's usually the Greater Spotted, also known as the Pied Woodpecker, that we hear drumming away - as in this photo (left) by Andrew Carter. But there's more than one.

Maybe they'd both been having a go at this rotting old tree trunk alongside the path near Compton Chamberlayne. ​

​‘“Ne’er cast a clout ‘ere May is out”. Well, the flowering May or hawthorn is a bit backward this year and right now it seems sense to pay attention. 

But there's more to our May trees than that.  Some people love the 'scent' on a warm day - it seems to breathe summer - but that scent is actually trimethylamine, one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue.  So now we know, thanks to Andrew Graham's piece in this month's Focus, and maybe that's why it's supposed to be bad luck to bring it into the house.

Other facts I didn't know are that the flowers are hermaphrodite, which may or may not have something to do with hawthorn being a pagan symbol of fertility, with association to May Day ceremonies and the Green Man.  

How to put a price on a river like this?

​Farming Today on Thursday, 13 May included an item on the new Environmental Land Management Scheme known catchily as ELMS but causing no confusion on the part of our elm tree enthusiast Chairman.  Click on this link and go to c. 6 minutes in for the ELMS item or to c. 8.40 minutes for what's happening in  the Cranborne Chase AONB and a short quote from our Peter.

​Little by little, maybe we - and the farming community - will get the hang of this.   Part of what's involved is estimating the value of the 'natural assets' like the Nadder on Peter's farm.  It sounds an extremely complex process. 

(Thank you to Andrew Graham, aka lark, for alerting me to this.)

This Saturday, 15 May is our first Field Trip of the new programme, to the RSPB's 200 acre reserve at Winterbourne Down, near Amesbury.

If you've not yet registered, contact Dick Budden either on his email, or phone him on 07944 640900 - there may still be places, especially if you have your own transport.  Departure is at 1030am, from the Nadder Closer car park. 

Nick Tomalin talked to us in February about his work there and elsewhere to maintain and even restore the stone curlew population. But there are also lapwing, skylark, linnets, grey partridges and yellowhammers.  It's still a bit early for the best of the flowers, but there should be orange tip and brimstone butterflies if the weather let's some sunshine through.

​For more information, go to the website or to this recording by the Reserve Manager, Patrick Cashman, about the flowers and butterflies on the reserve - in midsummer! - but also good news about the stone curlews.

​​​Cranborne Chase AONB will be featuring on Countryfile at 6pm this Sunday, 9 May.

We'll only know what's on when we watch, but several items they filmed complement topics covered in our own schedule of talks and field trips so may be of particular interest.  Knowledge, practice and understanding are growing all the time, so it's well worth tuning in to catch up on:

Rivers: The AONB's Crystal Clear Ebble project with the Wessex Rivers Trust - Alex Deacon, their Catchment Partnership Manager, talked to us last September,   and we've also looked at the Nadder with a Field Trip in September last year and a talk coming up in October and back in 2017 we heard about Fish of the River Avon.

​Farming: The Countryfile team focussed on the amazing work being done by the Martin Down Farmer Cluster, facilitated by the Game & Wildlife Conservation trust - Peter Thompson from the Trust gave us a fascinating and

​encouraging talk last 19 November, Neil Harley told us about what he's doing near Tisbury on 28 January, and in 2019 Gary Rumbold  explained the work of the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group.

If you'd like to catch up on any of these, many are covered in Talks or Field Trips/What you missed, or just email me.

If you've ever wondered how you'd feel if you'd just got home after flying 7,000 miles, here's a wonderful video from Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire!

And in Tisbury, we've done very best to make sure more and more swifts will, over the next few years, have happy homecomings here. 

The team from Hampshire Swifts have, over two weekends so far, installed 20 nest boxes and there are more yet to go up.  Some of these, if not very close to existing active nest sites, also have sound systems playing recordings of a pair of breeding swifts to encourage others to take up residence. So, if you're up shortly after dawn, or around shortly before sunset, and hear the cries of swifts, look up and see if there are nest boxes.

If there aren't, and all you can see is a blank wall, please let us know as there may be a 'natural' nest site often in the tiniest hole.  We'll be organising a survey later in the summer, of nest sites in the village.

Laura Downer, Andrew Graham and I are hugely grateful to so many people in Tisbury and nearby who've responded to this project - and also to the editorial team at Focus for their beautiful cover and feature in the May edition here.

On Thursday evening, 6th May at 7:30, Andrew Graham will be giving the last of our online Zoom talks, ‘Everyone Can Be a Wildlife Recorder’ describing how recording the world around us helps us to understand it, and how you too can contribute.

When you hear or read that a species of bird or butterfly, animal or plant has declined by X% or Y% percent over the last number of years, do you sometimes wonder "how do they know that?". Much of what we know about changes going on in our environment is derived from millions of records collected over decades, mostly by ordinary people with an interest in nature, like us.

Andrew will describe how the recording systems developed and how they work, how you can access some of the results, and how anyone, with a little time and knowledge, can contribute.

Paid-up members will receive the link to this talk very shortly. If you’re not a member but would like to join the talk, please pay the £2 visitors fee, email Dick Budden and he will send you the link.

You can:
Pay direct to the Tisbury & District Natural History Society bank account with NatWest, Sort code: 54-41-19, Account number: 03123480. If you make a payment this way, please your name as the reference and email Dick to look out for it.
Or pay a member of the committee, who will make the transfer on your behalf.
Or send Dick a cheque to Chicksgrove Close, Chicksgrove Road, Tisbury, Salisbury, SP3 6LX

If you have problems logging on to Zoom, please ring Dick 07944 640 900 and he will gladly talk you through the process.

Our Chairman, Peter Shallcross, admits that he 'spends too much time in bringing back Dutch elm disease-resistant elms into the landscape'.  This coming Monday, 26 April at 7.30 pm he's giving a talk as one of the Cranborne Chase AONB's series.

'Peter is a passionate advocate for the elm tree.  Find out about work going on that gives hope for their long term survival.

'Elm trees have been part of our landscape for thousands of years and their story is closely bound up with ours.  Since Dutch Elm disease ravaged our population in the 1970s, much work has been going on identifying the remarkable survivors and breeding resistant elms. 

​'In this talk, Peter will introduce us to the complex and fascinating story of elms in our landscape and ultimately gives hope for the future.'

For details of all the talks in this series and how to book, go to http://cranbornechase.org.uk/events/​ 

Meanwhile, from Evert Pellencroft, a Dutch contact of Ed Mayer of Swift Conservation, comes this fascinating tale from Amsterdam of the whole Dutch (inaccurately, it turns out) Elm disease saga which  turns out maybe just to be another episode in the history of these splendid trees.

Cricket, tennis, football - hawk-eye is there to decide those dodgy calls - and this Thursday, 15 April, we can maybe get to understand what it is about those original hawk eyes that makes them so super-efficient.

At 7:30pm, the last of our 2020-21 programme of online meetings, is a talk from Tom Morath, who has been involved with birds of prey since he was 12 years old and is now at the Hawk Conservancy Trust.

This will be both a great way to hear about the work of the Trust and the ideal prelude to our visit there that is in our excursion programme for June. 

Members should by now have had an email from Dick Budden with the link for this Zoom talk but if not, and if you are not a member but would like to attend, please email him at treasurer.tisnathist@gmail.com.

Well, maybe - after all, it's never too late to despair.

A new form of plastic has been developed which degrades into harmless wax in less than a year if exposed to outdoor weather - wind, sun and rain.  'Polymateria Ltd was developed at Imperial College London. The firm aims to tackle the plastic problem head on, with a plan to launch their products as soon as possible in Asia, and to target the two most common types of polluting plastic polymers, polyurethane and polypropylene.'

Packaging like sweet wrappers will be marked with a 'recycle by' date, but if the item is left out of doors it will take matters into its own hands, so to speak! and bio-degrade where it lies.

It was Jenny Farrer, one of our members, who told me about this.  Jenny also suggested Anna Lewington might give us a talk, and many of us will long remember what we learned about our lovely birch trees.  

So please, any other news or suggestions, do let me know at elizabeth_forbes@btinternet.com.