Waiting for snipe - art for sale!

As we wait with binoculars poised for the arrival of wintering snipe and their allies on our wetland reserves, and not least on our patch at Broadway Gravel Pit Local Nature Reserve, I was inspired to do a watercolour of a common snipe.  

The framed original is for sale at £150 - sized 16 1/2 inches square (420 x 420 mm).  

If anyone is interested please contact Wendy at the Trust wendy@worcestershirewildlifetrust.org or 01905 754919..... should it sell I will donate 50% of the sale proceeds to the Trust.


Many thanks
Mark, Broadway Gravel Pit

A night of the Wyre Forest

John Robinson was the first warden of the Wyre Forest and he held that position for 30 years before retiring.  Last Thursday evening he shared his vast knowledge of the forest with the audience through his award winning photographs and his amusing anecdotes. 

The Wyre Forest is one of the largest areas of ancient semi-natural woodland in England and is a National Nature Reserve. In medieval times the forest would have extended from Malvern to Bridgnorth; it is now much reduced at 6000 acres. Half of that area is broad-leaved woodland with much of the coniferous area in the process of being converted to broadleaf by The Forestry Commission. The Industrial Revolution was one of the biggest influences on the forest when timber, usually oak, was used for charcoal production and the forest became somewhat depleted.

John's excellent photographs encompassed many of the species found in the Wyre Forest: dormice and badgers, puff balls and parasitic toothwort, goldcrest and lesser spotted woodpecker, pearl-bordered fritillary and marbled white, dipper and grey wagtail, glow-worm and beetle. However, hedgehogs have not been seen in the forest for 20 years and it is suspected that the small number of orchids found in the forest have been brought into the forest with other material. Redstarts are rare now and pied flycatchers are declining rapidly but barn owls are now to be found around the edge of the forest. The forest supports large numbers of redwing during the winter months.

Many of the photographs were taken from John’s kitchen window (in the forest) or from ingeniously-designed hides. He was able to enlighten the audience as to how some of his prize-winning photographs were taken. 

The next meeting of our Malvern Group is at 7.30 pm on November 8th at Malvern Evangelical Church. Peter Watson will give an illustrated talk: The Management of deer in the 21^st Century - we look forward to seeing you there.

Derek, Malvern Local Group

Rare bats in Grafton Wood

Those of you who keep in touch with us through ways other than our blog will know we've been working on a project to radio-tag rare Bechstein's bats in Grafton Wood this year. 

Worcestershire is on the northern edge of the bats' known range so this year the People's Trust for Endangered Species have funded research into their goings-on.  We've even been featured on BBC Radio 4's Saving Species programme.

With lots of help from volunteers of the Worcestershire Bat Group, we thought it only fair to point you in the direction of their blog about the project... enjoy their take on working on Bechstein's Bat project.

Thanks to PTES, Johnny Birks, Eric Palmer, all the volunteers from the Worcestershire Bat Group and the Bat Conservation Trust for their help and support in this important research project.  We're currently analysing the data.

James, WWT Conservation Officer

Take a walk around Smite

Of course, it's not just our volunteers that get out and about on our reserves and write about their explorations..... Worcestershire Biological Records Centre is also based at Lower Smite Farm and one of their volunteers recently had a wander... check out Shenstone Birder's blog for 5th Sept

Free of Himalyan Balsam!!

We've just had the first Himalayan balsam free year at Droitwich Community Woods in the 12 years I have been helping to look after it. It is possible to beat it!!!!

Twelve years ago there was Himalayan balsam along the banks of the River Salwarpe from where it  comes into the reserve by Droitwich High School right through to where it leaves us south of the ring road and heads off toward Salwarpe. 

It wasn't just at water level - due to the explosive nature of  its  seeds, it had colonised the banks, in places 1.5 m high, and encroached onto the flood plain. I am over 6’ tall but our tallest plant towered over me and had the ability to shed over a thousand seeds over a 12’ diam. area. 

It's taken us volunteers 12 years to get  to this clear point - doing battle in beds of brambles, 6’ high nettle beds, in the water and up the banks. We have always had a zero tolerance policy but those that know the plant know it is very adept at finding ways to beat you. We also have the problem of the wax coated seeds drifting down with the current. We get, and will always get, the result of there still being masses of Himalayan balsam at many upstream locations. But we are ever watchful and are determined to win!

Roger, Droitwich Community Woods

Fun at the Conference

The annual volunteers’ conference took place on Saturday and, as ever, we had a really informative morning. 

There were useful updates on some of the flagship reserves, some fascinating information on moths as indicators of habitat health and climate change, topped off with a masterclass in radiotagging adders. If you think that’s surreal, you should see the pictures for the Mixed Bag of Bugs! As someone with a general interest in wildlife but few identification or practical skills, I feel slightly better about not being able to ID moths easily now I know there are over 2600 species in UK alone!

As one of the more sedentary of WWT volunteers (I help out with website events updating and do some data entry and image scanning for the Worcestershire Biological Records Centre who are also located at Lower Smite) it was a real pleasure on a gloriously sunny afternoon to get out and about on the farm with Caroline Corsie and hear a bit more about the land and its use - and some of the issues facing those in modern agriculture.

We were also challenged to undertake an OPAL survey, which was a chance to rediscover our inner child, not least through blowing bubbles (wind strength, in case you are wondering). As a wildlife safari, we startled a toad and acquired a cricket which hitch-hiked back from the field on my shoulder – obviously wanted to volunteer too!

 Thanks to the team for an interesting and enjoyable day. 

Ruth, Lower Smite Farm

The Magic of Moths

“Butterflies are beautiful but moths are boring”. This is the common perception of moths but how wrong we can be!   The first photograph Patrick Clement showed the Malvern local group on Thursday night was of the emperor moth, bluish-grey on the forewings with bands of white, black and orange, yellow on the underwings, and brilliant black, yellow and blue eyespots on all four wings.

Admittedly, there are some rather boring brown jobs among the moth family, including the clothes moths which are never popular! However, many common moths are very attractive indeed and have equally beautiful names: brimstone, green silver lines, small elephant hawk, lilac beauty, clouded silver, large emerald. All these moths are attracted to lights and can easily be caught in a moth trap. Traps come in various designs but are basically a bright light over a box with a narrow opening; the moths enter the opening and can’t find the way out, so they can be studied the next morning and then released. A treacle mixture smeared on a tree will also attract certain types of moth.

Elephant Hawk-Moth (c) Rosemary Winnall

 All moths and butterflies are Lepidoptera; wings covered with scales being one shared characteristic. It is commonly thought that all moths are nocturnal, but in fact there are many day-flying moths, like the chimney sweeper, humming-bird hawk moth and scarlet tiger. There are about 2,500 species of Lepidoptera in the UK but fewer than 60 of these are butterflies. There are 900 species of macro moth and 1,400 micro moths, some of which can only be distinguished by dissection of the genitalia. In the UK, butterflies have a club tip to their antennae, whereas moths generally have feathered antennae or a simple hair-like structure with no club tip.

Patrick Clement had many stunning photos of rare moths, secretive females with no wings, parasitised caterpillars, micro moths with amazing colours and a few surprises like the barn owl sitting on a moth trap. Even the leaf miners were fascinating, with each species leaving different mine patterns. The evening was a wonderful insight into an under-appreciated world.

The next meeting of the Malvern local group is at 7.30 pm on October 4^th at Malvern Evangelical Church when we can't wait to hear John Robinson will talk about the Natural History of the Wyre Forest. 

Alison Uren, Malvern local group