Reports of WOFC meetings
Brenda Betteridge writes:
Julia’s pop-up walk on 18 September was a great success. Thirteen of us enjoyed spending this sunny Sunday morning in the Windrush Valley. After walking through the village of Asthall, our starting point, we took the lane which leads to Toque House and Asthall Farm where, on the south side of a barn, we noticed a vigorous member of the Amaranthaceae family.
On the evening of 24 June, moth expert Julian Howe and I set up three moth traps in and around a private garden in Shilton.
On Thursday 25 August, fourteen of us joined Martin Catt to enjoy a gentle ramble at North Leigh Common, identifying various plants and learning a little about their traditional uses and folklore.
It was a warm though overcast morning on 3 August when sixteen of us gathered to look for butterflies on the Wychwood Forest Trust’s Wigwell reserve at Charlbury. We were led by Roger Newman who gave each of us an identification sheet to use and keep, plus a brief demonstration of how to use the I-Record Butterflies site.
The Club had its usual publicity table at this year’s Wychwood Forest Fair, held at Foxburrow Wood, Hailey on 31 July. It’s always a good day out, with plenty of family fun and lots of opportunities to see what other organisations are doing.
Visit to Aston Rowant NNR, Sunday 3 July 2022
When Dr Tim King, our leader, started his reseach at Aston Rowant national nature reserve, he found the continuous loud singing of many skylarks for hour after hour a little trying. A few years later, the reserve was divided in two by the dramatic cutting for the new M40 motorway at the top of Stokenchurch hill, and these days in parts of the reserve the skylarks are drowned out by the roar of traffic – but it’s still a glorious place.
A Visit to the Valley – 17 July 2022
On the very sunny morning of Sunday 17 July, a small group of Field Club members set off to explore the flowers and wildlife of the Windrush River Valley. We started at the top of Tower Hill in Witney and headed very slowly in the direction of Crawley looking for plants and admiring the many Swifts overhead.
Somerset. We got there in the end. This club visit to Somerset was originally arranged for May 2020 but we all know what happened; things were still uncertain a year later but third time lucky.
Eighteen of us, with Peter Creed as leader and expert, stayed from Sunday 29 to Tuesday 31 May in the Grange Hotel at Brent Knoll, just east of Burnham and south of Weston Super Mare (or ‘Aggie on horseback’, as a sailor might refer to it).
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.
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB