From the start of each year the work activities always progressively increase in intensity for The Woodland, Flora & Fauna Group. 2023 has been no exception. Each activity broadens in scope as we achieve increasing success with each project. We readily embrace the increased work effort when we witness the gains being made for both local countryside and wildlife.

 

TALBOT FIELD.

In January we began at Talbot Field to clear bramble and spreading scrub from the small nature area. This allows spring and summer wild flowers to flourish more readily in the woodland and meadow area.

 

Volunteers gather to tackle the clearance task.

 

Following the winter storms, one of the first tasks was to clear the fallen branches and invasive scrub from throughout the site. The branches are stacked into small wildlife piles strategically placed to aid wildlife without impeding the sprouting spring flowers. The work this year continued until the flowers began to emerge when we stopped to allow them to flourish.

 

This was an example of the floral display that resulted from the group work effort.

 

During this period, the bird boxes located all around the site were cleaned out and disinfected with bird-friendly, anti-bacterial spray in readiness for the spring nesting season.

 

Each bird box was checked and cleaned.

 

All recently planted trees were also examined to ensure no winter damage had occurred and they continued to be well-supported.

 

The newly planted tree to replace the felled unsafe oak was checked.

 

To capitalise on the increased light caused by the removal of the felled oak, 500 bluebell bulbs were purchased and planted around the newly planted replacement tree. These will not flower for a year as the bulbs initially utilise their energy forming roots and shoots, but should be a wonderful display in the future.

 

The bulbs were progressively planted to increase the biodiversity richness of the area. 

 

When established, the bluebells should provide a further boost to the attractiveness of the woodland and value to wildlife.

 

Once the site’s spring flowers had emerged in early 2023, the work here was halted and we moved on to the next seasonal location for our weekly project days.

Periodic returns to site were made to ensure that our newly planted wildflower plugs and trees did not suffer from the hot, dry spell the early summer provided. Too much work has been incurred to ignore the nurturing required to allow them to flourish to increase the site’s biodiversity value.

 

Water was transported in drums to site….

 

….and all trees and wildflower plugs were kept watered.

 

Later in the summer we became aware of invasive scrub penetrating one section of the meadow following the removal of a row of root spreading trees that had caused concern to the neighbouring properties. Volunteers gathered on  several weekends to remove them.

 

Volunteers gather on a Saturday morning to address the problem.

 

Wild flower meadows are always vulnerable to invading brush and scrub and require regular attention to keep them in good condition.

 

The tree saplings had surged in intensity this year and had to be removed.

 

It proved more difficult than it at first appeared, as their roots had quickly established themselves firmly in the ground….

 

….but eventually the task was achieved.

 

BARN OWL BOX MAINTENANCE.

Running concurrently with this work, we once again had to visit all owl boxes in our huge group barn owl conservation area to clean them out and maintain them. This year’s visits had resulted in many boxes having to be replaced due to damage or deterioration. Many had been in place since we began our owl conservation work in 2007.

 

All boxes were checked, cleaned out and maintained.

 

The task of replacing the damaged boxes proved to be a considerable additional burden to this annual maintenance activity and has cost us a lot of additional money to date. We have been holding many group fund-raising events since to compensate for this.

With the box maintenance normally taking several months throughout the winter, the replacement requirement for many extended this considerably. It also proved gruelling for the team to achieve.

 

 The damaged boxes were removed…..

 

 ….and replacement boxes were provided in their place.

 

 Each heavy box had to be carried up to box height….

 

 ….and securely fixed in position.

 

The worst boxes were dealt with first and the others were programmed for ongoing replacement when time allowed to prevent any delay to the seasonal work timetable.

 

All this owl box activity was closely scrutinised by the indigenous wildlife population sharing the location with us.

 

SAYERS COMMON WOODLAND POND.

While the owl maintenance task was proceeding between major site activities, the main project days had switched to the woodland pond at Sayers Common.

 

This area was becoming increasingly more attractive to wildlife….

 

….due to the care and attention it was receiving from group volunteers.

 

Many hours are spent each year keeping the site in prime condition.

 

All volunteers engaged fully with their tasks….

 

.…and ensured each was completed satisfactorily.

 

However busy the volunteers were, time was always found to appreciate the surrounding natural environment.

 

This volunteer attention is increasingly benefitting the indigenous wildlife, like this slow worm witnessed on the site this year.

 

POND LYE SITE OF NATURE CONSERVATION IMPORTANCE.

From the Sayers Common Pond we quickly moved on to Pond Lye where the major task of the late summer annual meadow cut required to be undertaken. Initially, our regular volunteer with a tractor and cutter arrived to cut as much of the meadow as the rough terrain allowed him to cover.

 

Our tractor volunteer began the huge task of cutting the meadow.

 

With such a huge area to tackle it took many hours to complete.

 

When all cutting of the accessible areas had been completed, we were joined the following week by over 50 volunteers from a Sussex College, who kindly offered to lend a hand with the massive task of raking up all the cuttings to ensure no enrichment to the meadow soil occurred. This was vital to allow the continuation of all the distinctive meadow species growing there.

 

The college student volunteers methodically began tackling the task before them.

 

They progressed from one end of the meadow leaving the hay in lines for later collection.

 

Progressively, the work spread across the area.

 

Some students found time to enjoy the presence of the local wildlife.

 

A common toad seeks shelter from all the activity.

 

A caterpillar scurries to the sanctuary of some surrounding untouched habitat….

 

….and a shield bug observes all from a distance.

 

After the raking into rows, the hay was then transported to central stacks for eventual disposal.

 

All this work was undertaken in addition to the seasonal annual requirement for checks to monitor the progress of each of the wildlife conservation initiatives undertaken by the group, which will be reported on another occasion. The overall intensity of all these nature activities plus all fund-raising, volunteer recruiting and other group public events, makes it a continuous year-round activity requiring as many volunteers as we can muster. Any help anyone feels able to provide would be warmly welcomed, so if you are interested , please complete the website contact form provided.

Fitting between these commitments we also had to address our group administration activities and other events. Some of these are described below.

 

GROUP EVENTS 2023

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APRIL GROUP AGM & PUBLIC TALK.

Our group publicity and fund-raising events began with an illustrated  talk in April in conjunction with our group AGM, by Clare Blencowe, the manager of the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre. It was entitled ‘Making nature count’.

 

 

 

Clare’s talk gave a detailed description of the work of the Biodiversity Record Centre which was informative and well-received by the audience. It followed the group’s Annual General Meeting.

 

MAY PARISH COUNCIL AGM VOLUNTEER GROUP EVENT.

In May we manned a group stall at the Hurstpierpoint & Sayers Common Parish Council’s AGM/volunteer group event to advertise our work and to recruit more volunteers to help us.

 

Volunteers man a group publicity table.

 

AUGUST TALK GIVEN BY LIEF BERSWEDEN.

This year we resumed our August Public Talks given by distinguished speakers. We had previously held these major talks every year up to the pandemic and had always had a very good attendance, boosting our much-needed revenue and volunteer recruitment. We were unsure of the likely attendance after a three year gap, but were really pleasantly surprised with the number of people who had returned.

 

 

 

This was mainly due to the chosen speaker, Leif Bersweden, the distinguished author, botanist and science communicator. He gave an excellent illustrated talk entitled ‘Where the wild flowers grow’ to an audience of 150 people. It was very well received and helped tremendously with our group funding and volunteer recruitment to assist us with our work achievement.

 

The audience gather for the evenings events.

 

A refreshment break opportunity was taken between the host group’s introduction and the main talk.

 

Leif then gave them an extremely interesting talk for the rest of the evening which was very well received.

 

In the intervals between, Leif sold his book that the talk was based on.

 

He personally signed all of the large number of copies sold.

 

The event was extremely successful for The Woodland, Flora & Fauna Group in terms of increased public support and funding, but also gave us a welcome opportunity to meet a very nice person who increased our knowledge and awareness of our natural environment with his highly informative talk.

 

SEPTEMBER HURST FESTIVAL SUPER SUNDAY EVENT.

The Woodland, Flora & Fauna Group once again ran a stall at the Hurst Festival Super Sunday Event in September. Volunteers took turns to man the stall for an all day event on 17th September.

 

The stall as it appeared after being set-up.

 

The stall was initially set up in dry weather on the Sunday morning. Unfortunately, immediately afterwards we were subjected to high winds and torrential rain which required a tarpaulin covering to be provided for the items on display on the table. The gusty high wind was not helpful and eventually the tarpaulin was blown away taking many of the display items with it. When the sun eventually emerged again and the weather calmed, the table was reset and people began arriving.

 

Volunteers took turns to demonstrate the work of the group to visitors.

 

The stall remained on display until 6.00pm when the Super Sunday event closed.

 

Many people visited our stall, a lot of people discussed nature issues with us and a good number signed up to our Register of Interest to be kept in touch with our group activities. The day therefore, proved a productive one overall.

These events are very hard work and time consuming to organise and undertake but allow us a good platform to advertise our work, discuss issues with interested people, and recruit much needed volunteers and funding. They do make an already very busy activity schedule very congested to achieve all however, so this is why we need more supporters and volunteers to assist and share the work-load. Please contact us if you are interested in joining. There is no fee for adding your name to our Registered Supporters List to be kept informed of group activities.

 

Please note the poster below advertising the talk.

 

The Woodland, Flora & Fauna Group is supporting a talk by Hurst ReThink group by Edward Mayer of Swift Conservation UK entitled  ‘Swifts and our local Biodiversity’. It is to be held in the New Inn, Hurstpierpoint High Street on Wednesday, 14th June at 7pm. We actively support any event promoting the interests of wildlife and countryside and will be attending to assist this cause. We have already assisted this group by erecting some swift boxes on a building at their request, to provide nesting opportunities for these valued birds in an area they used to be regularly witnessed. If you live locally and are able, please attend to support this event and possibly learn how you can help the swift population to flourish.

 

The Woodland, Flora & Fauna Group is holding an illustrated public talk given by Clare Blencowe on Wednesday, 12th April at 7.30pm. It is to be held in the Club Suite of the Village Centre, Trinity Road Hurstpierpoint, BN6 9UY.

It will follow immediately after a brief introduction by The Woodland, Flora & Fauna Group.

Clare is the manager of the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre and her talk is entitled ‘Making Nature Count’ in which she will describe how her team meticulously record wildlife and flora species that have been identified in the Sussex countryside and how this benefits their welfare. She will illustrate some of the species discovered and recorded.

 

 

Clare was the Record Centre Manager who was instrumental in ensuring that all the data collected in our group’s intensive countryside biodiversity study was included in the Sussex records.

 

 

She is a very busy person so we are privileged that she has found time to speak to us. If you want to learn more about our local countryside and wildlife and how the collected data helps with their protection, this opportunity should not be missed.

Entry is free and all are welcome.

 

 

 

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you there.

 

Supported by: www.wherecanwego.com

2022 was not the best year for surveying our bat box installations. The late summer weather became progressively more wet following the abnormally hot summer and dry days in which to undertake them became fewer and fewer as autumn arrived. This meant the work was protracted and difficult to achieve. The wet weather and windy days were so frequent that it became a case of seizing the first opportunity of a dry interlude, which was usually at very short notice due to the erratic weather patterns.

 

The bat survey this year was difficult due to the bad weather.

 

This obviously made the formation of the teams necessary to undertake each survey a last minute attempt and many surveys had to proceed with less than a desired compliment of team members to make any progress. These outings were obviously harder to complete with less volunteer support and took a great deal longer. Such was the difficulty, that our survey period of approximately a month to visit all our installations became stretched to a period spanning from the first one at the end of August, to the last one at the beginning of November. Some of these opportunities had to be undertaken in very low temperatures and often immediately following gale force winds, so advanced expectations of poor levels of occupancy were often realised.

 

Difficulty was experienced in recruiting sufficient volunteers at short notice when dry weather permitted.

 

Following our hugely successful year last year when we had Bechstein’s bats occupying several locations in addition to an increased number of other species, we feared the weather conditions would make the 2022 results significantly poorer. To a degree this was indeed the case, but we found a reasonably high occupancy including a retained Bechstein’s bat presence despite this.

 

Despite the poor weather we managed to retain a Bechstein’s bat presence again this year.

 

Due to the very high winds experienced, we found many woodlands contained a large number of fallen trees, often blocking the integral avenues utilised by bats for access into them.

 

We found many trees had fallen in the high autumn winds.

 

This meant in some instances we had to unblock some of the avenues as we proceeded to maintain the flight paths and roosting suitability required for a continuing bat presence. This again added to the difficulty.

 

 Access avenues had to be kept clear to maintain woodland flight paths.

 

In one woodland, we found that so much rain had fallen that areas we normally required to erect our ladders in were flooded to a depth of a metre of water. These boxes were obviously inaccessible to us this year.

 

Erection of ladders in flooded areas proved impossible.

 

We have also made an effort to replant removed trees where necessary to maintain the quality of the wood and its ongoing suitability for bats.

 

To restore woodland suitability for bat occupation some replacement trees were planted.

 

The working parties made progress despite reduced numbers of helpers.

 

These difficulties have made a year when we were struggling to catch up with a late start to the year’s commitments due to unavoidable problems, even more awkward to achieve. Again, the end of year wet weather was continuing to be an obstacle to us. We battled on however, hoping that the erratic seasonal weather conditions returned to a degree of normality to help us. This improvement unfortunately, did not materialise. Below we include a pictorial record of some of our survey ventures and some of the 2022 bat population monitoring activities and the results obtained for you to share with us.

 

The physical effort required was unchanged….

 

….to allow boxes to be accessed. 

 

The bad weather just made it harder and more prolonged with the limited number of dry days to select from.

 

We gained access to most boxes….

 

….despite the extremely wet ground as seen here.

 

The hot summer followed by a very wet autumn had encouraged bramble understorey growth to accelerate and make ladder transportation and positioning extremely difficult.

 

Most woodland terrain is also very uneven…. 

 

.…making safe positioning for ladder footings….

 

….extremely important when working at such high levels, especially when the ground is waterlogged.

 

The helpers on the ground below always ensure the ladder footings remain secure for the person operating at these extreme heights.

 

Despite our fears of poor survey results….

 

….our initial findings contradicted this.

 

The majority of bats found this year….

 

.…were Common Pipistrelles….

 

….found at varying stages of growth….

 

….and numbers.

 

Bats found in boxes have to be treated with care.

 

Many remain stationary….

 

….while others can crawl around while they are being recorded.

 

It is therefore necessary to keep track of all occupants….

 

….while identifying all individuals contained.

 

Groups can be particularly awkward….

 

….as an initially tight cluster can explode outwards….

 

When each survey has been completed, the whereabouts of every individual is important to prevent any being trapped in the door when it is closed.

 

We were very pleased to find Bechstein’s bats in our boxes for a second year running.

 

This makes us feel that all the effort expended in making conditions perfect for them, worthwhile.

 

The work is hard and only for the dedicated to undertake with the necessary expertise, but the year-on-year improvements in numbers we are achieving provides us with the encouragement that the effort is making a significant improvement to local populations.