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Winter wonderings

A meadow at Dropping Well Farm by Ion Riley

Beccy reflects on a busy year at Dropping Well Farm...

As the year draws to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on what has been a busy 12 months on our heathland nature reserve. We’ve had a whopping 26 groups on the reserve who have not only been learning about our fantastic heathlands but also creating habitats for the animals that live there.

If you were to visit the reserve right now, it would seem like there’s not much going on. However, below ground in the hibernacula that our visiting groups built are bromating lizards and snakes, huddled together to keep warm, only to venture out in the patches of milder weather to get food. In the bee and bug hotels that another visiting group built will be adult bees hibernating in their cocoons, having spent most of the year growing into adults ready to emerge in early spring. The habitat piles, dead hedging and bird boxes that our visitors also built will provide food and refuge for overwintering birds.

A group of people standing around a finished hibernaculum that they've created in a field

Finished hibernaculum by Joe Gillard

A bug hotel on top of a fence post

A bug hotel by Joe Gillard

A group of volunteers tree popping at The Devil's Spittleful by Wendy Carter

Volunteers at The Devil's Spittleful by Wendy Carter

Heather seed sowing on Blackstone Farm Fields

Heather seed sowing on Blackstone Farm Fields by Matt Martin

Winter doesn’t bring an end to work, though. Whilst many species are hibernating, the cold winter months give us the chance to get into places with less disturbance to wildlife. Out on the mature heathland our volunteers and visiting groups are busy pulling out many of the birch saplings to keep the open landscape nature of the heathland. This helps ground-nesting birds find suitable spots to raise a family, sheltered by gorse and heather.

Elsewhere, in other parts of the reserve that we’re restoring, areas have been ploughed. This encourages annual plants to keep coming up, providing food for our pollinators, and offers space for lizards to bask and warm themselves after a long and cold winter. Even better, the ploughed areas allow scattered heather seeds to germinate, kickstarting the all-important return of these fields to their former heathy glory.

Skylark, with crest slightly raised, on grass by Roger Pannell

Skylark by Roger Pannell

It's great to be able to look back over the year and know that our work so far has created spaces for over-wintering wildlife and that the work we are doing now will provide them with food and breeding spaces come spring. I for one am looking forward to the return of the singing skylarks and buzzing of bees as they nest and forage in the habitat that we have created.

Well done for all the hard work everyone, I hope you enjoy a break over the festive season, you deserve it!

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