Sadly, our proposed tour of the newly opened Wetlands Restoration Project at Duxford, part of Chimney Meadows National Nature Reserve, had to be postponed at short notice due to illness. We decided, however, to meet anyway, and ten of us enjoyed a two and a half hour walk in glorious sunshine on the morning of 20 June, 2022.
This was a joint walk for the Club and the local branch of the Green Party on the evening of 10 June 2022. It was led by Catriona Bass, the owner of Long Mead, who gave a very informative talk about her meadow and the Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project that she has set up with the Floodplain Meadow Partnership (based at the Open University) and BBOWT.
John Cobb writes:
Yesterday, coming in after emptying the tea leaves on the garden at Sue’s house, I noticed something dark and very crumpled looking about a foot up from the bottom of the door frame.
Sue Morton writes:
I know there are lime hawkmoths in the lime trees in my road, because every summer I find a few of their caterpillars on the pavement….
Gavin Hageman writes:
For around five years I have been keeping an eye out for otter spraint by the river Windrush near where I live in Witney, always hoping that they will be once again abundant in the area as they were a few decades ago, given that they are making a gradual comeback across the country along with the other rarer mustelids such as the pine Martin and polecat.
This was advertised as ‘a quiet walk to enjoy and identify the songs of common birds and summer migrants’ and to some extent the birds took us at our word! However, we did hear a some star performers without too much background ‘clutter’ from other species, and saw several other interesting things during the mile or two circular walk from Rushy Common to Hardwick.
Without wishing to tempt providence, our walks this spring have all been in sunshine and our visit to Southill Solar Farm on Saturday 14 May was similarly glorious.
Nineteen people gathered to meet ecologist Dr Anne Miller who talked about the history of the biodiversity project, before walking around the 16-hectare area.
Five brave individuals turned up at 4 am on the first of May for the club’s annual dawn chorus walk – a rather low turnout – but some people may have been deterred by the forecast of rain later in the morning. As it turned out though, the weather held and we had a good, albeit chilly walk. [But not as cold as it can be!]
Sue Morton writes:
Each year in early May I watch for the first speckled bush cricket nymphs of the year to appear in my garden.
Sue Morton writes:
We were surprised to see something rather unexpected on the old tern raft at Witney Lake a couple of weeks ago….
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB