Local Wildlife Site
This post is about the importance of surveying and reasons to be cheerful. Our survey efforts have been rewarded with large parts of the site now mapped as a Local Wildlife Site (LWS) by Herefordshire Wildlife Trust because of its habitat quality and species assemblage.
We already had a small area mapped as an LWS, consisting of our ancient woodland and semi/unimproved grassland. But the surveys we have conducted over the past year found new areas of botanical, avian, and invertebrate interest.
🦉 The “nationally scarce species assemblage of breeding birds” like Skylark Alauda arvensis, Yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella, Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis, and Grasshopper Warbler Locustella naevia gives the site real conservation importance. And the first breeding record of Hawfinch Coccothraustes coccothraustes in Herefordshire since 1884 is the cherry on the cake. Thanks to Dan Webb for his expert bird surveying!
🌱 Botanical surveys by Stuart Hedley and Toby Foundation (Herefordshire Wildlife Trust) found new areas of diverse grassland, with rare plants like Adder’s-tongue Fern Ophioglossum vulgatum and Meadow Saffron Colchicum autumnale.
🦋 The discovery of two rare invertebrates has also contributed to the expansion. The very rare Long-horned bee Eucera longicornis is known from only a handful of sites nationall. And the Dingy Skipper Erynnis tages has only been found in Herefordshire at the nearby Ewyas Harold Common.
As a result the LWS has been expanded as depicted below:
This is all very exciting for us! We bought the farm not knowing much about it at all. Very little surveying had previously been conducted so there were few records to draw upon.
It’s easy to be forlorn about the state of nature in the UK, and it’s heartening when surveying effort is rewarded with new records of rare species. We hope our management of the site will encourage suitable habitat to expand and support these species.