Nature in Harmony: May round-up & National Hedgerow Week
This week is National Hedgerow Week. Hedgerows are the UK’s largest priority habitat and are essential for UK biodiversity.
Harmony Woods has several hundred metres of young, community-planted hedgerow, and it is bordered by mature hedgerow to the north and the west of the site. By creating pinch points (areas where the footpath path narrows) between our hedgerows and planting green corridors, we are working to improve wildlife connectivity and biodiversity.
Birds
This month we spotted a pair of Yellowhammers (Emberiza citrinella) in Harmony Woods! Yellowhammers are red-listed species, they are one of the most familiar farmland species and are typically associated with hedgerows where suitable song posts are available, although their population numbers have declined considerably, 50% in the last 25 years.
Hedgerows are hugely important for our native birds, providing roosting, nesting and feeding opportunities that can otherwise be scarce in our agricultural landscape. As many as 16 of the 19 birds included in the Farmland Bird Index, used by Government to assess the state of farmland wildlife, are associated with hedgerows. 10 of which use them as a primary habitat - PTES
Footprint Tunnels
We have also set up 30 footprint tunnels with the Hampshire Dormouse Group, in order to establish whether there are any Dormice present in the woods. Fingers crossed! :)
The footprint tunnels will be checked fortnightly for 3 months and so far, after just 2 weeks, we have discovered some rather cute Apodemus prints. Apodemus is a genus of Muridae (true mice and rats) - so we suspect these are probably the prints of wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus).
Trees
The Harmony Woods hedges also came into the spotlight during our Native Tree Walk. As part of a calendar of events funded by the Nineveh Charitable Trust, a guided walk in the woods allowed visitors to learn more about our native species of trees and how to identify them - Including lots of hedgerow species! We learned about the Hawthorn, Dogwood, Elder, Hazel, Rowan, and 10 more!
Our next nature event will be the wildflower walk on the 5th of June, World Environment Day! Find out more and book your place, email alex.marshall@andovertrees.org.uk
We also had a brilliant Bioblitz on May 1st. Check out all the species identified in the photo below. Our next Bioblitz will be on June 26th.
Butterflies
In other news, May has seen the emergence of the Small Heath butterfly! We’re delighted to see so many of them fluttering around the site, we’ve seen even more than this time last year, and in more places throughout the site!
And the arrival of the Small Heath means all actions go with our PTES funded internship research project. Despite the very wet start to the season, Alex has managed to get out in the field and begin collecting her data :)
