Members Magazine - Spring / Summer 23

Spring/Summer 2023

5 Pathways to nature connectedness!

SPECIES FOCUS

The Beetles are back

(hint: there are more than a fab four!)

FARMING & WILDLIFE

Showcasing a different fab four… farmers transforming their farms into special places for wildlife.

ORCHARDS

Scattered across the Somerset countryside, we look at these fabulous places and their role in nature recovery networks.

Join us for our 59th AGM & Members’ Day!

Saturday 18 November 2023

Somerset County Cricket Club

St James Street

Taunton TA1 1JT

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the 59th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the SOMERSET WILDLIFE TRUST will be held at Somerset County Cricket Club, St James Street, Taunton, TA1 1JT on Saturday 18 November 2023 at 11.00am.

The meeting will include the presentation and adoption of the Audited Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023, the appointment of Auditors and the election of Council members.

Nominations for election to Council should reach the Governance Officer at the Trust’s Taunton office by 19 August 2023 and must:

 be signed by two Members entitled to vote at the AGM;

 state the Members’ intention to propose the appointment of a person as a Director;

 contain the details that, if the person were to be appointed, the Charity would have to file at Companies House; and

We look forward to welcoming you to our 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Members’ Day in Taunton in November. It is always wonderful to meet our members and there is always a fantastic buzz in the room, with lots of ideas shared and connections made.

We hope lots of you will join us in November but understand some members may prefer to join virtually so we hope to live stream the event too.

During the AGM, from 11am until 1pm you will hear from our Trustees and Georgia Stokes about the work you have supported in 2022-23 and plans for the coming year. We will hold our 2023 Members’ Day in the afternoon and will announce its theme and our guest speakers in our Autumn/Winter magazine in October.

 be signed by the person who is to be proposed, showing their willingness to be appointed.

A full agenda, list of nominees and instructions for proxy voting will be included in the Autumn/Winter issue of Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Members’ magazine, Somerset Wildlife

Members have the right to appoint a Proxy under section 324 of the Companies Act 2006 and Article 14 of Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Articles of Association.

A copy of the full Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023 will be available from 21 October 2023 on our website somersetwildlife.org/AGM2023

BY ORDER OF SWT COUNCIL Georgia Stokes, Chief Executive Officer, April 2023.

CHRIS GOMERSALL

Hello

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

With so much going on in the world it can be easy to forget sometimes to stop and enjoy the little things. As John Lubbock points out, nature is a fantastic way of reminding us to stop, take a breath and enjoy life. We know that you, our fantastic members, appreciate the importance of nature for its own sake and for ours.

We’re all continuing to experience tough times at the moment in so many ways, which is why we are so incredibly grateful for your continued support - through your membership and in other amazing and creative ways. Thank you.

Alongside our staff and volunteers, in this issue we celebrate those contributions from so many of you; from intrepid individuals who have, or plan to take part in challenge events, to our amazing corporate partners who donate time and money to help us deliver our strategy. From individuals like Pam Earnshaw who is donating profits from her wonderful book, ‘Boomy the Bittern,’ to the longstanding and devoted work over the years by our Area Groups as they transition into Team Wilder.

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to secure a local and national legislative environment that allows nature to recover. With The Wildlife Trusts we’ve been campaigning hard for the Retained EU Law Bill to be scrapped as this

John Lubbock

would be disastrous for wildlife and, closer to home we’re working hard with the Somerset Councils to make sure action to tackle the climate and ecological emergencies remain priorities in the new unitary authority. Our call for an end to peat extraction on the Somerset Levels and Moors is gaining attention and support. We hope that more and more people understand how vital it is that ALL extraction - not just for retail – needs to end now. Going peatfree in your garden is so easy to do!

We have a lot to do to make sure nature and wildlife are thriving in Somerset, and we know that with your continued support and by working with landowners and partners that we can succeed. I’ll finish a little like I started; while we’re working together to achieve a wilder Somerset, let’s stop and enjoy the natural world as well as we head into a (hopefully) warm spring!

“We might think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it’s our garden that is really nurturing us.”

Jenny Uglow

Georgia Stokes Chief Executive Officer

How to support Somerset Wildlife Trust

Donate Every donation large or small makes a difference. somersetwildlife. org/support-us/donate

Leave a legacy A different kind of inheritance. somersetwildlife.org/ support-us/give-in-your-will

Join Team Wilder and take action for nature!

somersetwildlife.org/getinvolved/team-wilder

Shop Find a gift for the wildlife lover in your life. somersetwildlife.org/shop

Volunteer Find something that’s right for you. somersetwildlife.org/getinvolved/volunteering

Stay up to date Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and check out our website

FRONT COVER COCKCHAFER: MAURITIUS IMAGES GMBH/ALAMY

Contents 14

This season

3 Welcome

A warm welcome from CEO, Georgia Stokes.

6 The big picture

The power of partnership; organisations coming together to develop a new vision for the Severn Estuary.

8 Somerset’s Highlights

News on our work and highlights from around the county.

In detail

14 The Beetles are back!

One of the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, beetles are essential for healthy, functioning environments across Somerset. In this feature we explore some of the starring cast that make it all happen.

20 Farming and wildlife

We showcase another fab four… farmers transforming their farms into special places for wildlife.

26 Orchards

Scattered across the Somerset countryside we look at these fabulous places and their role in nature recovery networks…as well as their obvious value for Somerset cider production!

32 Taking a peak at the Poldens

The Big Count will identify population changes in species like bullfinch. p. 9 ROSE CHAFER: JON HAWKINS/SURRY HILLS PHOTOGRAPHY

Actor, podcaster, Somerset resident and regular Viking, David Oakes found some time in between treading the boards to talk to us about what drew him to Somerset, bison, ice cider and being a rhino-sharkologist.

Somerset Wildlife

Spring/Summer 2023

Somerset Wildlife is produced by Somerset Wildlife Trust

34 Wellington Road, Taunton, Somerset TA1 5AW

enquiries@somersetwildlife.org

somersetwildlife.org

01823 652400

Editor Kirby Everett kirby.everett@somersetwildlife.org

For any queries about the magazine or advertising, please contact the editor.

Features writers

Ed Drewitt and Kirby Everett

Design Tina Hobson tinahobson.com

Got a question about your membership?

For any query about your membership, donations or support, please email membership@somersetwildlife.org or call 01823 652429

Somerset Wildlife Trust

Our vision is for a Somerset wide Nature Recovery Network creating more space for wildlife benefitting everyone, and playing its part in helping reverse biodiversity loss and tackle the climate crisis. We are the county’s largest independent conservation organisation and a charity dependent upon over 22,000 members.

The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Trust Council.

SWT Honorary officers

Patron: Simon King OBE

President: Stephen Moss

Chair: Graeme Mitchell

Hon Treasurer: Richard Atkin

Registered Charity No: 238372

Registered Company No: 818162

THE BIG PICTURE

A vision for a Wilder Coast

The Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary area is a globally important site for nature and one of the most protected and unique marine/ estuarine environments in the UK, with a Special Protection Area, Ramsar wetland site of international importance, Special Area of Conservation, numerous Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and National and Local Nature Reserves designation. It has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world with vast areas of mudflats covering the intertidal areas bordered by dune systems, fragile cliffs and low lying areas protected from inundation by flood embankments.

Somerset Wildlife Trust is part of an alliance of organisations representing wildlife and landscape interests that have come together to develop a new vision for the Severn Estuary

The work has been funded through a ‘Championing Coastal Coordination’ partnership grant with a view to delivering on that vision by 2040

Sophie Laurie, Nature Recovery Manager explains why such an approach is needed:

“The challenges this very special place faces in the future cannot be underestimated. Centuries of human development pressure including major infrastructure projects have impacted on the landscape, many causing net loss of critical habitat. The dynamic nature of the climate leading to potential for sea level rise, combined with issues around water quality flowing out of river catchments, means that a bold vision is required to urgently protect, enhance and realise the potential of this important region. It’s vital that there is a unified voice and support and commitment from all stakeholders to ensure we can deliver quickly. We cannot turn back the tide but we can deliver a more positive future if we work together.”

Over100

fish species have been recorded in the estuary, among the highest of any estuary in the UK.

In spite of its protected status, nearly all the designations are in unfavourable condition.

Ecosystem recovery and resilience -

Restoring the area as a healthy functioning ecosystem, valued for its internationally important wildlife, habitats and landscapes

100,000 birds

The Severn Estuary is an

Largest tidal range

in Europe. The huge tidal range (one of the largest in the world) and configuration of the estuary combine to produce a wave that travels upstream for more than 30 miles of speeds of up to 15mph.

GovernanceEstablishing an integrated management approach, fit for delivering a restored and sustainable ecosystem

Sustainable development and use of natural resourcesPlanning and managing development in a way that sustains and enhances the estuary’s resources

Climate Adaptation and MitigationDeveloping the role of coastal habitats in building resilience to climate change to protect people and property from coastal erosion, storms and flooding

Connecting People and Place - Providing more benefits for people, local communities, places, and economics including greater resilience to climate change

Atlantic salmon on its migration up river to spawn.

Somerset Highlights

Taking Avalon Marshes to a new dimension

We are extremely excited to announce two very special new developments at our flagship reserves on the Avalon Marshes - Westhay Moor National Nature Reserve and Catcott Nature Reserve, thanks to grant-funding support from the Leader+, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund.

First, we have installed new interpretation signs. This signage features QR codes, which, when scanned, will allow visitors to access interactive, digital content on their smartphones. This includes a range of content for all levels of knowledge, including spotter guides, interactive trails, and live webcams that allow visitors to see less accessible parts of the reserve and wildlife that is not always in view from the bird hides.

At Westhay, a new boardwalk leading to a fantastic new island viewing hide has also now been completed and is ready to welcome visitors. Crafted from West Country sourced timber and thatch, the new hide blends neatly into the surrounding wetland landscape, nestled within the reedbeds of one of the site’s scenic lakes. From here, visitors can get amazing views of the wonderful wildlife that call Westhay home, such as bittern, otter, bearded reedling, and a whole range of resident and visiting birds.

THE COURTSHIP DANCE

We were lucky enough to capture footage at Westhay of great-crested grebes who were getting ready to breed with their spectacular courtship dance from our new island hide!

This dance usually involves calling, synchronised swimming, preening, fanning out their feathery ruffs, head shaking, and finally ‘the weed dance’ — which is where the pair hold tufts of water weed in their bills and paddle furiously to stay upright, chest-to-chest. It might sound like a lot of hard work, but it’s incredible to watch!

Above: Great-crested grebes performing their spectacular courtship dance.

Below: The new island hide at Westhay. GREAT CRESTED GREBES: ANDREW PARKINSON/2020VISION

HIDE: KEVIN ANDERSON

THE

Count for Wildlife

At the start of summer we will see the return of The Big Count! After its success last year, we will once again be asking you to keep their eyes peeled for key species. Whether out on a walk, exploring local green spaces, on school grounds, at work – anywhere – we want you to spot our ‘dirty dozen’ and log any sightings on the iNaturalist platform.

The Big Count is part of the Trust’s wider citizen science initiative - the Great Somerset Wildlife Count - which is delivered in partnership with Somerset Environmental Records Centre (SERC). The initiative aims to get people inspired and involved in collecting important data about the wildlife on their doorstep. Citizen science and platforms such as iNaturalist are a key to our strategy, because there are gaps in our knowledge

SPECIES

A perfect pair

Some really good news from Westhay Moor from over the autumn season, is that two pairs of marsh harriers nested on the reserve – the first time we have been able to confirm two successful pairs on site. One pair fledged three young, the other at least one.

With only an estimated 590–695 breeding pairs in Britain, it certainly is a rare and beautiful thing for them to have chosen one of our reserves.

BIG NUMBERS

Here are some of our most recent achievements.

13k

likes on our video showing the great-crested grebe courtship dance.

that we need people living in the different areas of the county to fill in. If we don’t notice wildlife declines, we run the risk of losing species forever.

In 2022, nearly 1,000 records were logged. These records give our experts great insight into how creatures such as slowworms and bullfinches are making Somerset their home. Can we take this number to over 1,000 records this year?

We are also delighted to announce that Somerset Wildlife Trust’s The Big Count 2023 will be sponsored by Southern Co-op. The support provided by Southern Coop will enable us to spread the word far and wide and ensure local communities can engage with The Big Count.

977

- the number of observations in The Big Count 2022 - can we beat this in 2023?

Somerset Wildlife Trust’s charity e-cards have raised over

£10,000 since we launched them at the end of 2019.

observations for our last Frog and Toad Spawn Count

BIG COUNT

Above: The Big Count will identify population changes in species like bullfinch.

Above: Marsh harrier, majestic over the marshes.

Somerset Nature Connections

Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Nature Connections team, funded through the National Lottery Community Fund, has recently been working with people who have been temporarily housed in hotels on and around the Mendip Hills. We used our A Patch Wilder initiative to get people together. Over the past few

months we have also made good links with the Resettlement Team at Somerset County Council who have recently opened Welcome Hubs around Somerset helping refugees seeking support, guidance and social connections. We’re really excited to see how else we can help and encourage a love of our local area.

The gift of volunteering

In November every year we send an anonymous survey to all our volunteers to give them the opportunity to give feedback on their experiences and let us know if there is anything we could improve upon.

It was incredibly heartwarming to see that volunteering with Somerset Wildlife Trust brings as much joy and gratitude to our volunteers as it does to us. 93% of volunteers said they had either an “excellent” or “good” experience volunteering with us and an astonishing 94% said volunteering with Somerset Wildlife Trust has had a positive impact on their wellbeing.

We are so grateful for our volunteers, like those pictured here! This is a group of volunteers in Asham Wood coppicing for the day.

This photo was taken on our last coppicing day of the season, and this brilliant volunteer work meant the area was adorned with flowers that came up in the newly created clearings in the spring!

To find out more about volunteering, head over to our website: somersetwildlife.org/get-involved/volunteering

GARDENING Push on peat

At the same time we’re all looking forward to spending more time in the garden, we’re getting ready for a big campaign push on the issue of peat extraction.

As you will know, the UK Government announced that there will be a total ban on the sale of bagged peat compost from 2024, which is especially good news here in Somerset. However, this ban doesn’t include commercial growers, so there’s still a long way to go.

You can make a big difference by going peat free in your own garden now. Read on for our top tips for peat-free gardening:

1Buy peat-free potting compost for raising plants in pots. Mix it with garden soil for plants that will be in their pots for more than a year.

2Collect fallen leaves and let them rot down into leaf-mold, which makes a great base for your own homemade potting compost.

3Mulch bare soil between plants or under shrubs to lock in moisture, stop weeds and enrich the soil. Use homemade garden compost or composted green waste rather than expensive, bagged multipurpose or potting compost.

Above: Somerset Wildlife Trust staff working with people who have been temporarily housed around the Mendip Hills area for a special Team Wilder event

Above: a volunteer coppicing in Asham Wood.

HANDS: FREEPIK

Perfect harmony

Over the last few years, we’ve seen many exciting species reintroductions across the UK. The reintroduction of these native species is one aspect of tackling the ecological and climate emergencies. If our ecosystem is healthy and functioning, these returning species will thrive and be a barometer for the successful recovery of nature.

Reintroduced species are returning to a very different landscape to the one they left and there is potential for wildlife-human conflicts. Somerset hosts one of England’s first wild-living beaver populations, so communities and farmers need support to learn how to live alongside them. We’re also supporting the Two Moors Project which is reintroducing pine martens to Exmoor.

Our new Coexistence Officer will help communities learn to live alongside these species, minimising conflicts and highlighting the huge benefits for nature that these species can bring.

Wildpath Trainee

Somerset Wildlife Trust has successfully been invited to be a host organisation for Groundwork UK’s New to Nature project, funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Fund. Thanks to the generous grant we will be recruiting two young people from a diverse background to work with us on a 12-month placement within our Blackdowns and Quantocks Hills reserves team. The young person will have the opportunity to learn about reserves management, gain practical experience and to build their skills and confidence for a career in nature conservation.

SUPPORT

For one week from midday on 20 April, we’re taking part in the Big Give’s Green Match Fund - an online match funding campaign to raise £60,000 to begin our coexistence work. You can make double the difference by making a donation during the giving week to release the £30,000 already secured. Look out for more details on our website and social channels! TEAM WILDER

Amazing corporate support during difficult times

We would like to say a big thank you to AC Mole & Sons, Bradfords, Branston, Classic Cottages, Dunster Beach Holidays, Habitat Aid, Homethos, John Fowler Holiday Parks, Meddcare, Melhuish and Saunders, Stay Original Company (The Swan, Wedmore pictured), Taunton and Pickeridge Golf Club, Southern Co-op, Tepe, The Travel Chapter, Wessex Water and West Country Wills and Estate Planning for their vital

Reaching new heights

Team Wilder abseilers raise over £4,000! They conquered their fears and stepped backwards to abseil a whopping 130ft, all to raise vital funds for wildlife. Together they raised a fantastic £4,162.57 which will help us continue to protect our wildlife and wild places.

Find your own challenge for wildlife at somersetwildlife.org/ challenge-yourself

support over the last 12 months as Corporate Members of Somerset Wildlife Trust.

There are a number of ways businesses can support the Trust’s work, and if your company would like to get involved, please visit our Corporate pages on our website: somersetwildlife.org/support-us/ corporate- support

Above: This new role will give a young person experience in reserves management.

Above: We’re supporting the Two Moors Project which is reintroducing pine martens to Exmoor

Climate Action Fund – Wilder Coast

Our Wilder Coast project received a boost in February with confirmation of a grant offer from the Climate Action Fund, managed by the National Lottery Community Fund. Working in partnership with Stacked Wonky,

a community arts group, and Our Highbridge, a local community charity, this project will engage communities from Minehead, Bridgwater and Highbridge in taking action for the climate and ecological emergency.

SUPPORTERS

Five years of our Patrons’ Scheme

We’d like to say thank you to our 50 Patrons, who together have already donated over £150,000 towards our work, which is incredible!

Last year our Patrons enjoyed exclusive events including a guided walk at our Langford Heathfield Nature Reserve (pictured), a dawn chorus walk at Westhay and a visit to Yeo Valley Organic Farm, which was a real highlight for all.

This year’s events include guided walks with our experts at Chancellors’ Farm, Lynchcombe and Cooks Field Nature Reserves, a visit to Devon Wildlife Trust’s Beaver Project and our annual Patron’s Lunch with CEO Georgia Stokes at Honeygar on the Levels.

To find out more about becoming a Patron, please visit the website or contact Lucy Marsh at lucy.marsh@somersetwildlife.org

FUNDING

Green Recovery Challenge Fund

The ‘Wonderful Wetlands’ and ‘Out of the Ashes’ projects, funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund will come to a successful conclusion in April. These two projects have enabled us to deliver valuable work within our reserves, and those of our partners in the Avalon Marshes. Grant funding received has helped sustain and

FUNDING Thank you…

… to the 30-plus trusts and grant funders who have supported us in 2022 and well into this year. Together, they have helped to deliver Team Wilder in engaging more people with nature conservation, supporting people to care for wildlife on their doorstep. We have been able to invest in work for nature’s recovery, from safeguarding the future of keynote species such as dormice, bittern and the large blue butterfly, to providing funds

increase our reserves team, paid for the clearance and management of diseased trees, wetland habitat management, new physical and digital interpretation and the building of new visitor hide and boardwalk at Westhay Moor NNR, supported by a Leader+ award. Together these initiatives have greatly enhanced and developed our work in both the Somerset Levels and the Mendips Hills.

to buy vital equipment to manage our reserves. We have also been able to restore peat and protect coastal habitats, increase our knowledge and understanding of species through surveys and wildlife ID training, and enhance our day-to-day operations working for wildlife, people and planet. We couldn’t do it without you.

Somerset Wildlife

Right: Hear blackcaps sing on a dawn chorus walk.

Above: Westhay Moor has benefitted from a new visitor hide and boardwalk.

In brief

Take a seat

We recently installed a new bench on Draycott Sleights, which was kindly made by supporter Alastair Cullen, from the stems of a monolith beech tree. Now that’s what we call upcycling!

Boomy the Bittern

Congratulations to Somerset Wildlife Trust member and volunteer Pam Earnshaw on the launch of her first children’s book Boomy the Bittern Based on the tale of the bittern in the Avalon Marshes, the idea was initially born many years ago when Pam first found there was a desperate need for a children’s resource to teach about the conservation of our wetlands, and the plight of the bittern was the perfect

FUNDRASING

Don’t send me a card!

We have raised over £10,000 thanks to our supporters’ love of a good pun. Our charity e-cards are a huge success! Instead of paying for paper cards and postage, you can donate the cost to Somerset Wildlife Trust and use our fabulous e-cards instead. It’s better for the environment too!

Send your e-cards at: dontsendmeacard.com/ecards/ charities/somerset-wildlife-trust

match. Illustrated by Sally Mills, Boomy the Bittern is published by Cranthorpe Millner Publishers and is available online from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones and WHSmith, and locally at Brendon Books in Taunton and Mrs B’s in Bath. Pam and Sally have kindly offered to donate a percentage of the book’s profit to support the conservation work of the Avalon Marshes Partnership, including ourselves - thank you Pam and Sally!

FUNDRAISING

Tea, cake and Wilder Open Gardens

Why not host a Wilder Open Garden to inspire others to make changes in their own gardens, whilst raising funds for Somerset Wildlife Trust? No matter how large or small your outdoor space is, we want YOU to open your Wilder Gardens to friends, family and neighbours, to inspire others to make their own spaces more wildlifefriendly. And, if you were to include a little tea and cake, you could raise vital funds for wildlife at the same time.

Get your Wilder Open Garden Pack to find out how at somersetwildlife.org/ wilder-open-gardens

Amazing disguises

Isn’t nature amazing? We believe we spotted a scalloped oak moth caterpillar, which was found on Cooks Fields whilst the team were carrying out repair work.

Catcott’s nest-door neighbours

At our Catcott Reserve, we were amazed to discover 22 maternity harvest mouse nests, which will house mum and several babies this season. The last record of harvest mice on the reserve was in 1997!

NEST: CLARE FIENNES, BLUEBELL: VAUGHN MATTHEWS.

Above: Boomy the Bittern is based on the tale of the bittern in the Avalon Marshes.

Beetle mania

Beetles are essential for healthy, functioning environments across Somerset. In this feature we explore some of the starring cast that make it all happen.

Beetles are one of the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, with over 400,000 different species across the world — there are over 4,000 species in the UK alone! Even without looking too hard it is easy to stumble across beetles in almost any habitat. They sit on flowers, climb up trees and wander across paths. There are also plenty of large or brightly coloured beetles to catch our attention, from the big and bulbous bloody-nosed beetle, to the bright red or yellow ladybirds.

Across all habitats in Somerset, including your home and garden, beetles have found their own niche that is either unique or underutilised by other species. They share their four-stage life cycle – known as holometabolous development - with other insects such as butterflies: an egg, larvae, pupa and adult stage, enabling a beetle to use different habitats at different stages and seasons. Providing habitats for all these stages is essential for beetles to thrive.

Although some eat plants, many are predators,

pollinators and decomposers, feeding both the soil and larger garden visitors such as birds and hedgehogs. Ladybirds help gardeners by eating aphids while some ground beetles feed on vine weevil grubs and water beetles keep mosquito larvae under control in ponds. Even the much-maligned lily beetle provides food for three parasitoid wasps – insects that lay their eggs into the beetle larvae. When hatched they eat the beetle larvae alive!

WHAT IS A BEETLE?

Beetle are insects and belong to the order Coleoptera, meaning ‘sheath-winged'. Most have front wings adapted to form tough, protective cases that lie across their back known as elytra; in some species they are well marked or iridescent with a purple or green sheen. They give beetles an armoured appearance of heavy-duty lifestyles such as burrowing (for example, in soil, flesh, stored grains or wood). They also protect against predation, drying out and the cold. Protected

FACT BOX

Beetles

are everywhere and one of the most successful groups of animals on the planet.

Globally, there are over

400,000 known beetle species. Compare that with 6,495 for mammals, around 10,000 for birds and 391,000 for plants.

Of the 27,000 insect species in the UK,

4,200 are beetles. There are 28 orders of insects in the UK, the beetles are just one of these, so the ‘average’ is 964 species per order… the beetles are disproportionately over-represented!

Making wilder spaces for beetles

 Build a beetle bank Adding a mound of soil, particularly in flat gardens, adds both shady and sunny habitat and provides shelter for lots of invertebrates.

 Make a dead hedge Structured piles of branches and twigs can be used to divide up an area of the garden and provide a residence for beetles as they rot away.

 Leave wood piles in your garden Standing dead wood such as tree stumps and fallen branches are valuable habitat.

 Piles of rocks provide daytime shelter for nocturnal beetles and piles of leaves are also great, as many species like to lay their eggs in decaying leaves.

 Avoid cutting back dead plant stems until spring, so beetles have a place to hide and rest during the colder months.

 Grow pollen-rich open flowers for beetles such as soldier beetles, the thick-legged flower beetle (above), longhorns and chafers.

under the elytra are delicate wings, folded intricately in a way that would envy an origami artist. They unfold perfectly and allow beetles to fly, albeit sometimes clumsily and haphazardly.

HABITAT ENGINEERS

Beetles are the unsung heroes of the natural world, engineering habitats to generate healthy soils, help plants flourish, control populations of nibbling insects and are a valuable food source for a whole variety of animals including frogs, bats, hedgehogs, shrews and different birds. Some, such as the burying beetles, are the undertakers and bury dead animals underground where they use them as a nursery to care for and feed their larvae. Beetles provide positive, regenerative ecosystem services within different natural environments. However, loss of habitats and connectivity between them, pesticides and our changing climate is making it hard for beetles. We need to give them a chance and the space to do what they are good at. They are an essential part of restoring natural ecosystems across Somerset.

DUNG-EATERS AND MOVERS

Dung beetles are one of the most threatened groups of beetles in Somerset due to the use of pesticides, in particular worming drugs that are given to sheep, horses, cows and other farm animals. Rather than

 Avoid using pesticides on lawns which affects beetle grubs underground.

 Provide holes of up to 25mm for solitary mining bees, whose nests support beetles.

 Dig a pond and maintain it, but let it go a little wild and you'll attract more visitors.

 Allow parts of your garden or land to stay wild.

 Turn off lights at night and have outdoor lights fitted with motion detectors so they mostly stay off.

using them ‘just in case’, there are alternatives. Organic and regenerative farmers in Somerset lean towards nature, allowing natural flowering plants in the fields - such as bird’s-foot trefoil and sainfoin - to provide a rich variety of natural wormers. Regular movements of animals between fields and mob-grazing leaves the parasitic worms on the pasture and the animals are not returned until the parasite cycle has finished. Grazing tall grass also reduces the risk of ingesting larvae, while the rest periods help to break the parasite cycle. The end result is healthy dung providing non-toxic food for the dung beetles (and many other invertebrates), contributing towards recycling carbon and other nutrients into the soil. This means better soil health and beetle food for other animals such as horseshoe and noctule bats, rooks, starlings and hedgehogs.

Beetles provide positive, regenerative solutions to different natural environments.

of the

Best beetles

Here we showcase some of Somerset’s amazing beetle species.

Cockchafer 

Melolontha melolontha

The cockchafer or maybug is a familiar beetle in springtime, often attracted to lights and flying clumsily during its disorientation. When digging in your garden or pots you may find the thick, creamy-white c-shaped larvae (which may also be from the rose chafer).

It is the UK’s largest scarab beetle, a group that includes dung beetles.

Size: 20-30mm.

Habitat: Woodlands, gardens and meadows. When: May or June

Lifecycle lasts about three years, but adults only last up to two months in their final year. Larvae are often found in the soil throughout the year.

Diet: Adults feed on leaves and larvae feed on roots of grasses and crops. Features: The tips of the male beetles’ antennae are made of a series of club-shaped structures that form a fan-shape, ideal for sensing the smelly pheromones given off by female cockchafers. Female cockchafers have relatively simple, club-shaped antennae.

Status: Once an extremely common beetle in Somerset, their numbers are much reduced due to targeted and widespread use of pesticides.

Benefits: Provide food for large bats such as noctules and greater horseshoes, little and tawny owls, foxes, badgers, moles and corvids such as rooks (an old name for the larvae is rookworm).

Violet oil beetle

Meloe violaceus

Bulky beetles with bulbous abdomens, large flat heads and a metallic sheen due to reflective structures in their outer skeleton. In Somerset you are most likely to see the violet oil beetle (We also have Black oil beetles and Rugged oil beetles).

Size: Up to 3cm (females larger than males).

Habitat: Woodland edge habitats, glades and rides, upland moorlands and on flower-rich grasslands. When: March, peaking in April/May. Adults and juveniles (triungulins) emerge at the same time in spring unlike other oil beetles whose triungulins all emerge in summer.

Diet: Adults feed on lesser celandines that flower in early spring and soft grasses.

Lesser stag beetle

Dorcus parallelipipedus

Features: The juveniles are louse-like and climb flowers to hitch a ride on visiting early flying solitary mining bees (hence early emergence), feeding on their pollen and nectar when they arrive at the nest. Oil beetles get their name from a toxic, oily substance that they produce from their leg joints; it helps deters predators when attacked. Status: The south west of England remains a stronghold for violet oil beetles. Once widespread across the UK, they are now rare in eastern parts of England due to the loss of wildflower meadows and species-rich woodland edges. Benefit: Presence of oil beetles is a good sign of healthy mining bee populations.

The lesser stag beetle is a robust, large beetle with large jaws to suit. It is not as large as the greater stag beetle found in the south east of England.

Size: Up to 3cm.

Habitat: Woodland, traditional orchards, parkland and hedgerows. When: May to September.

Diet: The larvae or grubs feed on rotting dead wood (above ground) such as fallen trees and stumps, particularly ash, beech and fruit trees such as apple and plum.

Features: Life cycle two to three years.

Status: Common.

Benefit: Help dead wood to rot down into the soil. Important food for woodpeckers, badgers, hedgehogs, foxes and larger birds such jays.

Great silver diving beetle Hydrophilus piceus

Though strong fliers over large distances, diving beetles are adept at living underwater, trapping air bubbles between their wing cases and body. There are many species of diving beetle, but one of the largest and rarest is the great silver diving beetle. Adults can make a ‘squeak’ if handled.

Size: Up to 5cm.

Habitat: Slow-moving interconnecting waterways such as rhynes, lakes, overgrown ponds, ditches, wet woodlands and marshy areas. When: Found throughout the year and can live up to three years. Mostly seen from April to June when females are actively seeking egg laying sites.

Diet: Adults mostly feed on decaying underwater plants and will predate other animals. The larvae have sharp jaws and eat small aquatic animals such as tadpoles, dragonfly larvae, small fish and freshwater snails. Smaller species of diving beetles eat mosquito larvae.

Features: Females lay up to 60 eggs in a cocoon which is left amongst waterside plants or floating on the water. Hairs on the insects body trap air, allowing the beetle to breathe underwater. This air pocket shimmers underwater, giving them part of their name 'silver'.

Status: Rare. The Somerset Levels are a real hotspot. Also found in the far south east of England and the coastal marshes of East Anglia. Benefit: The predatory larvae help keep populations of smaller invertebrates in check. Adults and larvae provide food for waterbirds such as little grebes.

Violet ground beetle

Carabus violaceus

Violet ground beetles are active predators (both adult and larvae), coming out at night to hunt. Their elytra have a beautiful, metallic sheen.

Size: Up to 3cm.

Habitat: Gardens, woodlands, farmland and meadows. Most often found under stones, logs or leaf litter.

When: March to October

Diet: Slugs, snails, worms and insects. Features: Oval-shaped black

Glow worm Lampyris noctiluca

The glow worm is in fact a beetle and not a worm, and often found as larvae, especially when they are crossing pathways looking for food. Males look like a typical beetle while females look like a lava (and not dissimilar to a ladybird larva). Thanks to a chemical called luciferin, females (and larvae) are bioluminescent and can be found glowing at dusk.

Size: Up to 2.5cm.

Habitat: Grasses and low vegetation in open woodlands, gardens, hedgerows, railway embankments, heathlands, cliffs, often along paths, rides and tracks.

When: May to September, peak June to July.

Diet: Larvae feed on slugs and snails; adults don’t feed.

Features: Glow worm larvae find their food by the chemicals in snail slime. Females give off a yellow-green glow at night to attract males. Once mated, the females stop glowing, lay their eggs and die.

Status: May be locally common; declining although still widespread in Somerset except on the Somerset Levels and East Mendip. Glow worms do not travel more than a few metres, so fragmentation or disappearance of their habitat can mean the species goes locally extinct. Light pollution is also a threat as it can drown out the pale glow of the females and make it harder for males to find them.

Benefit: The presence of glow worms is an important indication of a healthy, well connected environment. They keep populations of snails in check.

beetles with a metallic-purple sheen around the flattened edges of its wing cases.

Status: Common.

Benefit: Their presence is a good sign of healthy populations of smaller invertebrates. Adults may be snapped up by foxes, badgers and hedgehogs while frogs and toads may eat the larvae. Helpful to gardeners as they can help control pest species such as slugs.

The presence of glow worms is an important indication of a healthy, well connected environment.

GLOW WORM: JOHN TYLER/GALAXY

MARGARET HOLLAND

Bloody-nosed beetle Timarcha tenebricosa

The bloody-nosed beetle is a large, round, flightless beetle with long legs that can often be seen plodding across paths or through grass. Its common name derives from its unusual defence mechanism: when threatened, it secretes a distasteful blood-red liquid from its mouth.

Size: 14-18mm.

Habitat: Grassland, heathland, hedgerows, broadleaved woodlands where there are openings and clearings.

When: April to September. Although mostly active at night they can often be found during the day.

Diet: One of our largest ‘leaf beetles’, adults feed on the leaves of lady’s bedstraw, hedge bedstraw and related plants, and the dark green, wrinkled larvae can be seen clinging to these species.

Features: A domed, black beetle with a bluish sheen and massive feet. The line running down its back gives the impression of separate wing cases; these are actually fused together and this slow-moving beetle does not fly.

Status: Common in the south west and Wales. Less common in the east of the UK and rare in the north.

Benefit: Larvae may be eaten by birds. The beetles keep their foodplants, such as bedstraws in check.

Green tiger beetle

Cicindela campestris

The sun-loving green tiger beetle is a fast, agile hunter, running across the ground to catch its invertebrate prey

Size: 1 – 1.5cm.

Habitat: Warmth-loving and therefore sunny areas on heathland, moorland, sandy grassland, quarries, woodland rides and sand dunes.

When: April to September.

Diet: Invertebrates including spiders, caterpillars and ants.

Features: A solitary, large, metallicgreen beetle, with purple-bronze legs and eyes, and large, creamy spots on the wing cases. It has a ferocious set of jaws and long legs that give it an impressive running speed. It is one of our fastest insects.

Larvae dig burrows and use them like a pitfall trap, waiting for passing invertebrates and drag them into their burrow. They have a spine on their

back that stops them being pulled out of the burrow and helps brace them whilst pulling large prey in.

Status: Common.

Benefit: Being top predator, green tiger beetles indicate plenty of prey species in their environment.

MORE TO SPOT

Common sexton beetle

Nicrophorus vespilloides

Sexton beetles – also known as burying beetles - are striking black and orange burying beetles, often covered in tiny mites. These beetles are the undertakers of the animal world, burying dead and decaying animals, such as mice and small birds, in which they lay their eggs. A pair will tend to their young which feed on the decaying animal.

Dung beetles

There are 60 species of dung beetle in the UK helping to recycle dung back into the soil. In woodlands the dor beetle is often encountered between March and October, burying the dung of deer, foxes and badgers in which they lay their eggs. In September on grasslands and heathlands, you may also find the less common minotaur beetle Typhaeus typhoeus, an impressively armoured beetle superbly adapted for dragging dung – often rabbit droppings – back to its burrow. It is named for the male’s three bulllike horns which are used to protect its young and dung.

SOMERSET’S RARER BEETLES:

Hairy click beetle

Synaptus filiformis

This is extremely rare, recorded between Langport and Bridgwater on the River Parrett. This was thought to be the only population in the UK. However, it has been rediscovered in Wales and in Cumbria.

Dune tiger beetle

Cicindela maritima

Very rare; found on the coast between Bridgwater and Weston-super-Mare.

Critically important to protect coastal habitats, especially dunes (such as at Berrow), for insects such as the dune tiger beetle and dune-adapted plants.

Transforming Somerset’s farms

Across Somerset there are lots of farmers doing brilliant things for wildlife and in this feature we showcase four examples of farmers on a journey to transform their farms into mosaics of habitats that benefit both wildlife and improve their commercial viability and, at the same time, making a healthy contribution to our goal of restoring 30% of land for nature by 2030.

Farmland makes up around 66% of Somerset and thus has a critical role to play in making space for wildlife and restoring soil health and the many other natural processes that have been lost through the intensification of agriculture and a focus on yield. More recently, there’s been a shift in mindset from prioritising yield and instead focusing on profit margins, for example, producing less but saving money on inputs like fertilisers and pesticides. Not all land is equally productive for food, so matching farming practices to the carrying capacity of the land is key as is balancing the cycle of nutrients going into and out of the soil which ensure the functioning ecosystems upon which farming depends remain in good condition.

Integrated with the natural world in a way that it can immediately start helping with nature’s recovery, the farming sector can also help sequester carbon alongside produce healthy, profitable crops and livestock. The prize for this transformation is healthier people, resilient farming livelihoods, prosperous rural communities, thriving wildlife and a stable climate. Here we profile some of the really good work that we know farmers are doing already to benefit nature and how there is an appetite for doing things differently.

Case study

Ebbor Gorge Beef

Neil Tustian and Lottie Sweeney took over their 186-acre farm in 2018, of which half wraps around the top of Ebbor Gorge. The farm had previously been intensively grazed, ploughed, slurried and sprayed, creating a monoculture of rye grass and soils in poor health. Now organic, they are returning the farmland back to good health and building up a stock of hardy, traditional 100% pasture-fed ruby-red cows that do well outdoors all year round. They are now selling their meat, going full circle. Wildlife is also returning.

Fields that were once used for growing high-yield crops are already shown signs of recovery: wildflowers, whose seeds had remained in the soil, have begun to grow again including bird’s-foot trefoil, field scabious and knapweed. Waxcap mushrooms are returning too, a sign of healthier soil as fungi, bacteria, nematodes and more, all help to bind and reconnect the soil so nutrients can be better recycled.

“Our aim is to minimise the number of things that we have to buy such as feed, bedding and electricity. This means that we are much less impacted by external price increases and are increasing our financial resilience to world markets and events”, explains Neil. “The way we farm also means that we can access Countryside Stewardship grants from the government which have been vital to our financial viability, especially while we are in the set up period.”

FLASH MOB STYLE

We are using mob grazing as an important tool to improve soil and pasture biodiversity. This means stocking smaller paddocks at a high density for short periods of time with long rest periods between. Ideally the animals should not return to the same plant

twice (only one bite per plant) and trample quite a lot of grass into the ground. This in turn helps to create diverse pastures, providing the cows with a diverse diet meaning they are healthier and we have lower vet bills. The taller vegetation, as a result of the long rest periods, means that the soil is kept cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. This conserves water, leading to more biological activity in the soil in the summer and extends our growing season in the winter. Skylarks, meadow pipits and hares also love the taller vegetation. The long periods between grazing also mean that the lifecycles of gut worms are interrupted so that we do not have to use expensive and ecologically damaging anti-worming chemicals. A healthy biodiverse soil also holds much more water than a dead soil, insulating us against drought periods. These clearly have a financial impact through providing more grass for our cattle through extreme weather periods.”

“We have been planting thousands of trees dividing fields into shelter belts”, says Lottie. “These shelter our cows in the winter meaning we don’t have to house them (which is expensive). The trees provide shade in the summer so the cows can keep cool and as a result are healthier and gain weight more quickly. They also provide the opportunity to browse – tree leaves contain all manner of phytochemicals that have medicinal properties. Like us, cows need a varied diet. The trees will also provide a corridor for bats – including greater horseshoe bats - and birds, linking Ebbor Gorge with other parts of our farm, allowing them to commute, feed and connect with other suitable habitats.”

GOAT: ZARA WHITFIELD, DAISIES AND CATTLE: LOTTIE SWEENEY, BEE ON KNAPWEED: MARCUS WEHRLE

There’s been a shift in mindset from prioritising yield and instead focusing on profit margins

Neil Tustian and Lottie Sweeney Ebbor Gorge Beef

Case study Chesterblade Hills

Somerset Wildlife Trust trustee Ed Green has been transforming Chesterblade Hills, his seven-generation family farm of 730 acres near Shepton Mallet, into a place where nature and people can flourish together. The farm has three main focal points now. First, to store as much water and carbon in the landscape. Second, to create as much great wildlife habitat as possible, and thirdly, to help reconnect people with the natural world and themselves, all while still producing food. Around a third of the farm is now solely dedicated to conservation, a third to herbal leys and grasslands for forage production, and a third is used for cropping. The farm has just entered its third decade as a participant in the Countryside Stewardship scheme, and is also a pilot farm for the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme. This year will see us exploring the possibility of starting a two-hundred acre woodland creation project through the England Woodland Creation Offer using natural regeneration and linking in with Wilder Carbon. As well as planting new hedgerows, the farm has created around a dozen new ponds, often linking in with a series of scrapes. Ed says “We’re in the upper catchment of the River Brue here, so the ponds, scrapes and

woody leaky dams we’ve created help hold onto and store rainfall longer which helps mitigate flood risk in the lower catchment on places like the Levels. The woodland creation and conservation grasslands will also do the same.”

Ed’s farm has also now de-livestocked, with a shift in emphasis to producing food and forage for other livestock farmers, as well as supplying an anaerobic digestion plant producing non-fossil fuel energy. This has allowed buildings previously used for livestock to be diversified into workspaces in the rural economy which in turn helps subsidise the environmental land work on the farm. “Diversifying our buildings into workspaces has provided a lifeline for rural businesses in our local rural economy” explains Ed, “and has

enabled us to do environmental land work that otherwise might not have been possible. The wildlife habitats are blossoming all across the farm. Our uncut hedgerows have more berries, blossoms, bats and birds. Our conservation grasslands have more nectar, pollen, insects, birds, and small mammals, which has then attracted more small birds and birds of prey who feed on the small mammals. One particular favourite is our resident barn owl who lives in a hollowed out tree. The new wetland areas are now attracting birds never seen here before, like lapwing.”

MONITORING CHANGE

Expert animal and plant species groups monitor and survey the land and Ed will be supplementing this with a new citizen science CHills Nature Club this year and periodic drone footage to capture change across the landscape. People

As well as planting new hedgerows, the farm has created around a dozen new ponds, often linking in with a series of scrapes.

Ed Green Chesterblade

Hills

CREATING BALANCE Food security

Fixing the food system is a global challenge. The counties and regions of the UK all have a vital role to play. Farming can produce enough healthy food to nourish everyone in a way that helps to heal the planet.

Eleanor Higginson, our Senior Land Management Adviser, explains, “Food security - having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food - is a global challenge that is inexorably linked with biodiversity decline and climate change. A stable climate underpins a healthy ecosystem; a healthy ecosystem underpins sustainable and resilient food systems. This is not a situation where we have a choice between one thing and the other. Additionally, land that is not directly producing food is still contributing to sustainable food production because it is helping to maintain healthy ecosystems on a wider scale.”

are also connecting with the natural world through the farm’s off grid camping and gathering space where the focus is on providing a space for support groups and charities.

“We have a blend here of conservation, food production, diversified workspaces and people connection that hopefully helps to address the challenges of climate change and wildlife habitat loss, but still helps feed and connect people” says Ed. The farm is part of the Selwood Group, a collection of around 50 farmers and landowners in the area who work together around shared principles of good environmental management with the aim to affect landscape-scale change together.

Farmland birds

Indicators of farm health

Farmland birds are open grassland, wet meadow and wood pasture species that, thousands of years ago became adapted to diverse farming environments. These include species such as yellowhammers, skylarks, corn buntings, turtle doves, starlings, swallows, lapwings, curlews and many more. Farmland birds are used by the government as an indicator of the general quality of the farmed environment. Some species have all but disappeared from farmland across

Somerset because there simply isn’t the food available for them or their numbers have become so low that predation is now the limiting factor. We have lost more than half our farmland birds since the 1970s and for some species – such as corn bunting, grey partridge, turtle dove and tree sparrow - their decline has been at least 90%. Managing lower densities of grazing animals, eliminating the use of pesticides and making space for wildflowers and grasses may help some species bounce back.

Creating as much wildlife habitat as possible is vital.

Relatively small changes can help farmland birds bounce back.

CHESTERBLADE HILLS & HEDGELAYING: ED GREEN, BARN OWL: DANNY GREEN, PRODUCE: LAUREN HEATHER, CORN BUNTING: CHRIS GOMERSALL2020 VISION

In the north of Somerset, Somerset Wildlife Trust trustee Holly Purdey lives with her young family on Horner Farm - in the Porlock Vale, rented from the National Trust. They have a low input and lower output system with diverse grazing of sheep, goats, cattle and chickens to rebuild diversity in the grassland swards. Holly wants to produce meat that can be sold locally and produced in sustainable, ecological-sound ways that complement farming practices and nature together. They are also providing space for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) – helping others to access and use the land in an otherwise environment with few opportunities and unrealistic high rents.

Like Neil and Lottie, they moved into a farm that had been intensively managed, in this case for horses and growing crops, to the point that the soil was tired and in a very unhealthy state. Years of selective grazing and compaction by the horses and growing crops with the full impact of ploughing, pesticides and fertilisers had left the land exhausted – too many bacteria, not enough fungi, leaching of vital minerals and other nutrients and poor soil structure.

Over the past five years since they moved in, things have rapidly changed on the farm. Holly has considered how their farm connects with the wider

landscape and how to develop it into a resilient farming system with everything in balance and without one thing being the sole driving force. “Looking ahead has also meant looking back in time…” says Holly, “…utilising the brilliant ideas that farmers used when managing their land less intensively. I was once told by another farmer ‘Sheep should never hear the church bells from the same field’, meaning the sheep should spend no more than seven days in any one field. Embracing such ideas I looked at maps from the 1850s and began reconnecting old field boundaries with newly planted hedgerows to create smaller five-acre fields.”

Holly uses a mix of livestock – traditional

hardy pasture-fed cows (Dexters and beef shorthorns) and sheep – which are rotated together around these smaller fields every four days to mimic natural co-grazing systems. Shade and browsing are provided through silvo-pasture – breaking up the open, exposed fields with rows of trees that grow best on the land, such as elder and willow mulched with sheep’s wool.

“Our animals’ welfare is critical”, explains Holly. “When the goats kept escaping from fenced areas it was clear they were unhappy and just needed to roam. Since we have let them do this, they have been putting on more weight and stopped breaking out from the farm! Two pigs have also been rootling and digging the soil across a more flexible rotation. The result has been a farming landscape that has a mosaic of longer and short swards of vegetation, patchy bare soil and revived flow ponds that hold the water during the winter months and keep the soil and plants damp during the summer.”

ADAPTATION

One challenge across the farm is increasingly dry summers and drought followed by very wet winters. To keep water on the farm and allow it to percolate away slowly Holly has been back to the maps to see where there were ponds and flowing water in the past. By introducing new flow ponds in the pathway of water flows and blocking ditches so water flows across fields more slowly, water is staying on the farm rather than flowing quickly down the catchment to lower levels, helping the farmland to stay damp.

“Even within five years, there is already a living, breathing landscape. The edges of our farm are softening and different zones are connecting more naturally”, says Holly. “We even had a pair of barn owls rear three young for the first time last year. We also have more dung beetles. They are both good at recycling poo and playing host to mites that eat fly eggs. Dung-dwelling beetles also eat fly larvae, reducing the number of face flies bothering cows.

The land is becoming used by more wildlife alongside it becoming a productive farm. Field by field things are gradually become more balanced.”

Case study Horner Farm, Exmoor

When the goats kept escaping from fenced areas it was clear they were unhappy and just needed to roam

Case study

Wildlife-friendly farming on Mendip

On Mendip, Nick and Jane Hiscox run several farms, one which they own and another which the family has been renting for several generations from Wainwright’s quarry. Inspired by other farmers, both in the UK and around the world, Nick and Jane decided to make changes on their own farm, becoming nature-friendly farmers that both earn a living and make space for wildlife. Nick explains, “During the past ten years we have made a huge effort in allowing tired pasture to revert back to wildflower meadows. With the help of stewardship grants we have been replenishing fields, previously cropped fields with maize and wheat, by growing herbal leys – clovers, chicory, plantains – to put nitrogen back into the soil over three or more years, also providing diverse forage for our herd of pedigree red Devon cows. It also improves their health and we are finding it negates the need for anti-worming drugs. Last summer we were one of only a few local farms that remained green during the drought, thanks to deep-roosted plants such as chicory.”

Over the past five years Nick and Jane have planted over 1,000m of new hedgerows and

MAKE A DIFFERENCE What can you do?

SHOPPING LOCAL?

keep established ones uncut or trim only where needed. The result so far has been more insects across the fields, in particular bees feeding on the flowers and dragonflies feeding on the small insects. Hares have increased, particularly in the herbal leys along with deer, and they are aware of more skylarks across the farm. The changes have been gradual and continue to be so. Some land is still used for growing arable crops, in particular wheat. Nick and Jane have stopped growing maize to maintain better soils. Much of what they are doing is based on their knowledge of their land and its soils, knowing what grows where best and continuing to try things out.

“This year we will experiment with 60 acres of flower and herb rich pasture that is split between six enclosures”, explains Nick. “Some will be cut for hay, some will have a very early spring cut (to remove the grasses and encourage the flowers) and others will be grazed sporadically with different numbers of sheep or cows. We will see what happens. Nature-friendly farming is all about trying things out and a balance of the commercial side (and maybe producing less food) and nature. However, ultimately as farmers we must produce more - be that energy, food or biodiversity - by impacting less.” n

Buying local food, in particular meat and vegetables, may seem the ideal solution. However, those very foods may have used very intensive processes and resources such as water, pesticides, inorganic fertilisers and in the case of cows, been fed on soil-damaging maize or soya grown in South America, from areas that were once rainforest. This doesn’t have to be the case and sometimes food from a little further than down the road may be better for wildlife and more sustainable. Across Somerset there are many local farmers growing food that focus on the health of their soils, eliminates or reduces the use of pesticides and rotate their grazing animals so they can feed outdoors all year round. Considering where your food comes from and how it is produced is an important part of ensuring food production is sustainable.

 Look for produce or farms using terms such as “nature-friendly”, “low input” or “extensive”. Or if you like how a local farm is managing their land ask them where to buy their produce.

 Check the labels of foods and ask questions – food that is organic, grass fed or free range will have a lower impact on the environment.

 Grow your own – you cannot get more local or seasonal that food you have grown yourself.

HORNER FARM: HOLLY PURDEY, COW: ZARA WHITFIELD, GROUP OF COWS: NICK AND JANE HISCOX, SIX-SPOT BURNET ON RED CLOVER: GUY EDWARDES/2020VISION

The secrets of Somerset’s Orchards

Traditional orchards hold enormous value for people in the food they produce and the heritage fruit varieties they contain. They also help form a mosaic farming environment that supports an extraordinary range of wildlife. Scattered across the Somerset countryside they provide an important role in nature recovery networks.

Somerset is one of many counties, historically known for its orchards. Despite a loss of 50% during the past 50 years, there are still orchards across the county producing a variety of fruit for cider and eating, both commercially and for the community. Orchards were once an essential part of a farm or home, supplying local fruit to local communities. Their presence across the Somerset countryside replicated and complimented the ancient wood pasture of many rural areas. Lots of wildlife has come to rely on orchards and while traditional orchards are renowned for their varieties of apples, pears and plums for eating and making cider, orchards are special both for their rare old trees and the important ecosystems they support. Orchards support thousands of species. If left unsprayed, natural processes allow an orchard to take of themselves, a fine balance between predators (such as wasps, spiders, earwigs and ladybirds) and prey (caterpillars and grubs of various insects). Fallen fruit provides food for a variety of creatures such as

birds, small mammals, and insects. Trees provide shelter, nesting, roosting, and hiding places. As they grow and age, they offer a home to a whole community of animals and fungi that feed exclusively on dead or decaying wood.

Reviving relic orchards and planting new ones plays an important role in reconnecting woodlands, hedgerows, gardens and other orchards and helping nature to recover from loss of habitats and food. They have a role as stepping stones for wildlife moving through our countryside and suburbs, providing connectivity between well-established traditional orchards, already brilliant for wildlife.

As we put greater value on reversing our wildlife declines and creating more space for nature, orchards provide a source of locally produced food, short-supply chains, and varieties that can withstand extreme weather conditions and pests. Traditional orchards offer the right habitats and production levels, especially across a landscape like the Somerset Levels, to help meet some of these new opportunities and challenges.

“By the seventeeth century Somerset was an orchard powerhouse…

As late as the turn of the nineteeth century, 21,000 acres of Somerset lay under apples.”

‘Orchard’, Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates

Frieze Hill Community Orchard in Taunton came to life 20 years ago.

Traditional orchards, although essentially a crop, can provide remarkable havens for wildlife. While modern orchards are planted with rows of low growing, closely planted trees and short grassland, trees in traditional orchards were planted at low densities, were grazed with livestock and cut for hay under the wide canopy. Individual trees are long-lived and managed, and the ground layer is lightly used and free of chemicals.

WHEN DID ORCHARDS ARRIVE?

Orchards were planted with domestic apple trees and other fruit and nut trees from Roman times onwards. They became a well-established feature of most farms in apple-growing country. The apples and the cider produced formed part of farm-worked wages. The rise of cheap supermarket imports and a drive toward intensification saw the demise of many orchards from the 1950s onwards, but more recently this trend is reversing, with rising appreciation for local apple varieties, and for the social role of orchards as community projects.

Growing fruit and leaving space for wildlife on Wedmore

Scattered around the Isle of Wedmore on the Somerset Levels, David Banwell cares for and manages five traditionally grown orchards across 26 acres (10 hectares). Some range from 100 years old to just two or three years old. They are never sprayed with pesticides or fertilisers. Instead, David manages his orchards both for growing fruit and for the benefit of wildlife. “Fallen trees are left where they fall and new ones planted”, explains David. “I avoid pruning too hard – just enough to get the right shape before leaving well alone. Between the trees the grassland is grazed by young calves, six to 12 months old until the 9th August when we traditionally move them to other pastures. This ensures their dung has gone by the time the apples fall and they don’t eat the ripening fruits.”

To avoid outbreaks of diseases spreading - such as honey fungus and the lethal fire blight – the five orchards are spread apart from each other around the Isle of Wedmore and contain 20 – 30 varieties between them. These include varieties that flower at different times to ensure not all trees suffer from late frosts and allow for harvest to be spread across autumn. “Each year we pick on average 150 tonnes of apples while three to four tonnes are left, including those rotten, for birds such as blackbirds, redwings and fieldfares”, says David.

“An orchard is a lifetime’s work. We let nature do its thing, seeing what comes and we take what is there.”

Traditional Somerset fruit trees

Looking at older maps (through the Southwest Heritage Trust), for example, from the 1880s to 1910s can show where orchards used to be, often shown as small tree icons, often in fields close to farm buildings and houses. Many gardens, large and small, may still have old fruits trees growing from earlier last century.

From public footpaths and roads, relic orchards can often be spotted. Single or several old fruit trees may stand alone in a small field, all that remains of a once thriving orchard. Others may have been saved, with new, young fruit trees planted amongst the few older, veteran trees

Orchards have gradually disappeared for a variety of reasons. One momentous

There are 156 of varieties of apple associated with Somerset and often specific to a farm or village. Many local varieties of fruit trees are rare due to the disappearance of orchards. There is renewed interest in these varieties – often know as heritage trees – as they are often better suited to the local geography and environment of the county in which they were developed.

These are some still known today:

 Beauty of Bath

 Yarlington Mill

 Taunton Cross

 Stoke Red from Rodney Stoke, 1920s

 Hoary morning from the 1800s

 Frederick

Traditional orchards, although essentially a crop, can provide remarkable havens for wildlife.

Apples left on the ground will support a wide range of wildlife.

David Banwell Orchard manager

Anatomy of an Orchard

Blossom provides early nectar for honey bees, hoverflies, moths and some beetles.

Rotten hollows are ideal for nesting birds such as redstarts, robins and wrens. Where they fill with rainwater hoverflies are able to breed; their larvae thrive in such water.

Orchards resemble ancient wood pasture – a combination of woodland trees and grazing that creates an open habitat.

The spaces between fruit trees are ideal spots for hunting bats feasting on the abundance of insects in traditional, unsprayed orchards.

The branches are ideal places for mosses and lichens to attach and grow.

The rough, textured bark is home to spiders, mites and small insects which

Fallen fruit provides food for autumn butterflies (such as the red admiral), winter thrush such as redwings and fieldfares and welcome nourishments for foxes and badgers.

Fallen dead wood provides homes for saprophytes including fungi, bacteria, woodlice, beetle larvae such as the lesser stagbeetle and longhorn beetles, earwigs and predatory centipedes – also food for small mammals such as hedgehogs and shrews.

Free from pesticides, the unsprayed leaves and branches provides food for insects to feed and in turn food for birds such as spotted flycatchers, treecreepers and lesser spotted woodpeckers. Predators such as earwigs, ladybirds and wasps have a feast and keep insect numbers down, protecting the fruit. The early buds may be eaten by bullfinches.

LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER

The dramatic decline of the lesser spotted woodpecker – which once had a stronghold in Somerset and was the commonest of the three woodpeckers – is thought to be partly down to the loss of orchards. This tiny, sparrow-size woodpecker uses orchards in the winter, pecking and probing for beetle grubs, spiders and hibernating insects. Bringing back orchards may help over the winter survival of remaining individuals while older fruit trees provide places for nesting.

change was the 1887 Truck Amendment Act, which prohibited the part payment of labourers’ wages with food or drink.

After the war when food shortages were widespread throughout Britain, agricultural subsidies focused on achieving higher crop yields, particularly from cereals, and a lot of small-scale extensive production ceased to be commercially viable as a result.

Over time many traditional orchard skills and cider production techniques have been lost. Tastes changed, moving away from traditional cider towards beer and commercially produced cider. Orchards were grubbed up, left to grow wild or just used as a paddock for stock and often over-grazed.

CREATING NEW ORCHARDS

Frieze Hill Community Orchard in Taunton came to life 20 years ago when land, left for the community by the landowner had a remit to produce food. After declining as an allotment plot, the council and community agreed to turn it into a community orchard. It now has 250 fruit trees – a mix of apples, pears,

HOW TO HELP Wilder ways to help Somerset’s orchards

 Plant new trees. Even if there has never been an orchard in your garden or field before. if you don’t have space to plant an orchard, just one fruit tree can have substantial benefits for wildlife and leave a few fallen fruits on the ground for birds and insects.

 Retain standing dead & decaying wood where possible and/or create log piles – provides habitat, food & nest sites.

 Excessive mistletoe or ivy can cause a sail effect in old trees, causing them to lose branches or fall during high winds or heavy snow fall. Some clearance to protect the tree is important.

 Map and survey for existing orchards in your village or town; can orchards on old maps be reinstated? The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) have a standardised orchard survey to map ancient orchards or assess their health: ptes.org/get-involved/surveys/ countryside/traditionalorchard-survey/

 Support your community or neighbours to maintain and restore orchards. PTES have lots of fantastic orchard resources, offering grants for establishing new and restoring old orchards ptes.org/campaigns/traditionalorchard-project/orchard-grants/

medlars, quinces, cherries and a few strawberry trees know as Arbutus. Committee member Caroline Turner explains more, “Local people pay an annual fee to be a friend of the orchard and a team of volunteers help to prune, plant and nurture the orchard where required. It largely looks after itself and remaining unsprayed, natural predators – birds and invertebrates –keep any munching insects under control. The reward, free fruit in the autumn that local people can come and help themselves.” If you would like to volunteer and help care for the orchard, contact the group via their Facebook page. n

 We have orchard school packs (hard copies), which includes ideas on tree planting and activities. Contact us direct and we can post one out. The Tree Council also offers orchards for

Over time many traditional orchard skills and cider production techniques have been lost.

LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER: SZYMONBARTOSZ.PL

An update from Honeygar

In 2021, faced with an ecological and climate crisis Somerset Wildlife Trust took the bold act of acquiring Honeygar a former dairy farm on the Somerset Levels for a pioneering wilding project. Our aim is to put into practice theories of nature recovery as a solution to societal problems, to showcase how we can

Key achievements

 Honeygar bought from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in March 2022 following successful early fundraising.

 Nature-based solutions plan drafted and discussions with Natural England, Environment Agency and Somerset County Council started.

 Drone and foot surveys completed - mapping topography, hydrography and drainage.

restore farmland working with nature to stimulate a new economic model for the Somerset Levels and help nature return. By rewetting Honeygar’s soils to protect its rare lowland peat, capture and store carbon and greenhouse gases, and by restoring the land for wildlife through alternative management practices, we will show how nature’s recovery can have other important benefits. It’s still early days in what is a longterm project but here are some of the key achievements in the last year…..

 Areas of historic interest recorded, including the routes of prehistoric trackways, and the burtle, on which the farm buildings sit.

 Improvements made to entrance, paths, bridges, ditches and rights of way.

 Initial rewetting works undertaken – bunding ditches, removing and blocking drains.

 Pop-up laboratory created for staff, students and volunteers.

 Honeygar Officer recruited.

Thank you!

The fantastic support we have had for Honeygar, including you our members, means we are now so close to achieving our £3.45m phase 1 target, with just £145k still to raise. Donations of all sizes have been received and we thank you for donating to Honeygar, including the almost 1,300 supporters who gave to our 2022 Honeygar appeal.

 Scientific monitoring equipment bought and installed to help record wildlife, water levels and greenhouse gases.

 Baseline habitat and species surveys completed by staff and specialist volunteers, with badger setts, bat roosts and barn owl sites identified.

 Baseline carbon and greenhouse gas data collected.

 Visits by farmers, local and national government representatives, other Wildlife

Trusts, donors, prospective funders and more.

 Wilder Carbon launched with Honeygar as one of two pathfinder projects which, in

Make or update your Will and help Somerset Wildlife Trust now and in the future. Call now to arrange a home visit from an experienced member of the

Painting a picture of the Poldens

From the low-lying Somerset Levels the higher ground of the Polden Hills are easily visible; a distinctive low ridge, rising up to 108m above sea level. This glorious rich, jaw-droppingly spectacular, but at the same time, almost modestly shy landscape has held a very special place in the Trust’s history.

From the low-lying Somerset Levels, the higher ground of the Polden Hills or Poldens are easily visible; a distinctive low ridge, rising up to 108m above sea level at their highest point. Seven thousand years ago, views from the Poldens would have been of the sea, saltmarsh and reedy swamps, while 5,500 years ago there would have been freshwater wetlands full of wildlife. The eastern side is the steepest where flower-rich grasslands now replace sea cliffs. From the top of the Poldens you can see villages, such as Burtle, an ancient sandbank with seashells standing above the peaty soils - a reminder of the area’s marine past. The Poldens is split into two parts - lying west to east - starting close to the coastline (Puriton) and finishing just beyond Street, with a gap near Ashcott. Important for wildlife, the Poldens have been grazed for centuries at a low intensity, developing short calcareous grasslands and downlands. These are

home to diverse communities of wildlife, in particular flowers and invertebrates, including many that are locally and nationally rare. The steeper areas – the escarpments – by their nature have mostly escaped significant changes, such as development and cultivation, providing refuges for beetles, butterflies and orchids. Although the Poldens may appear isolated at first glance, they provide a natural corridor and nature recovery network for wildlife between the coastline on the west and different habitats surrounding it inland. They are one of the original landscape-scale restoration projects that we have been involved with (alongside the Avalon Marshes).

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Grazing with domestic livestock restores and maintains the species-rich grasslands on the Poldens. However, in their absence, the grassland becomes smothered with scrub (and eventually

woodland). This has happened over the past 200 years when grazing shifted downhill to a higher intensity on the lush pastures of the Somerset Levels. Then, during the 1950s and 1960s, parts of the escarpments that had been abandoned by farmers were planted with mostly evergreen trees - for forestry and commercial interests - further suffocating the rich grassland environments. Fortuitously, many trees didn’t survive in some areas and fragments of wildlife-rich downland remained.

View over Walton towards Westhay and Shapwick at dawn from Walton Hill.

Grazing with domestic livestock restores and maintains the species-rich grasslands on the Poldens.

Map of Polden Hills area

SOMERSETLEVELS MENDIPS QUANTOCKS POLDENS

Since the mid-1970s we have acquired different parts of the Poldens and in the 1990s we formed a partnership with other local landowners who had done the same. We began clearing the conifer plantations and started the process of reverting the land to pasture through the East Poldens Grasslands Restoration Project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and others. The success of the work on the Poldens has been thanks to the collaboration between the various landowners and their site managers.

In 1999 - uniquely for its time - the different sites along the east escarpment were recognised as a single Site of Special Scientific Interest by Natural England (then English Nature) and an early example of nature recovery at a landscape-scale. The then pioneering concept has ensured partners have shared a common goal, the conservation of the calcareous (alkaline) grassland comprising a rich diversity of plants across a wide landscape, helping to buffer any changes or challenges that any single nature reserve may encounter.

Mark Green, Reserves Manager for South Somerset, explains how the Poldens are being managed today, “After this designation and the removal of conifers we were able

The shrill carder bee was once a common bumblebee across our countryside and is now one of the rarest as changes in farming have meant there are fewer or no wild flowers growing continuously as corridors. It is only found in seven areas of England and Wales and one of those is in Somerset. Unlike other bumblebees it doesn’t move far from its nest to find food and needs open, extensive flower rich habitats close by. They also emerge later than other bees, with the queen first emerging in May and can be seen into late September.

Jo Chesworth is the Save Our Shrills Senior Project Officer in Somerset for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

“The population of this rare bumblebee is limited on the Poldens”, explains Jo.

“In recent years they have only been found right at the southern end on Green Down and a couple of the adjacent

How to spot a shrill carder bee

Similar in size to the common carder bee, it is straw-coloured with a distinctive black band across its thorax, between its wings. It also has dark stripes on its abdomen and an orange tail. The shrill carder bee gets its name both from making a high buzzing sound and by weaving material from plants into its underground nest.

railway cuttings, which are leased by the Royal Entomological Society. To help shrill carder bumblebees, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust is running a new five-year project ‘Save Our Shrill: Somerset’ which will focus on South Somerset where the core population remains. The project will build and strengthen the local recovery networks for this species, increasing the quantity and quality of flower rich habitat and ensuring it is connected up in the right places across the landscape. We will be working with farmers, landowners and the local community to encourage action and habitat creation. We will also be training local volunteers to monitor the bumblebee in the project area and increase our knowledge of its distribution and abundance. There will also be a programme of events, walks and ID workshops.”

Dundon Beacon

Gilling Down

Burnham-0n-Sea

Taunton

Bridgwater

Castle Cary

Shepton Mallet

Cheddar

Glastonbury Street

New Hill & Tannager

Great Breach Wood

Mark Green Reserves Manager

Shrill carder bee

SHRILL CARDER BEE: GABRIELLE HORUP

to focus on building fencing and water supplies to enable grazing. Today, our management chiefly involves cutting back the encroaching bramble, thistle and thorn, as well as grazing by sheep, cattle or ponies. Grazing controls re-growth, encouraging the grassland species that need sunlight and short turf. Some patches of scrub are kept and cut on rotation to provide cover for insects and birds.

Twenty-five years later it is starting to look like calcareous grassland once again and sets an example that can be replicated in other parts of the escarpment and in other places such as Mendip. Our management is supporting characteristic plants such as pyramidal orchid, common rock rose, lady’s bedstraw and wild thyme and an associated insect fauna, including nearly 30 species of butterfly, such as dingy skipper, brown argus and small heath and good numbers of bees, flies and grasshoppers.”

One of the most iconic species to benefit from the grassland restoration is the large blue butterfly. Declared

extinct in the UK in 1979, the butterfly was successfully re-introduced to Green Down in the 1990s and Collard Hill in the 2000s. It has since spread along the restored grasslands in between those sites over the intervening years thanks to continued careful management, including grazing. The area now has the potential to support another core population.

PARTNERSHIPS

The restoration and conservation management of the Poldens has only been made possible by working with dedicated partners and the local community, with amazing people and groups supporting wildlife. The main landowners and partners include the National Trust, the J & F Clark Trust, Millfield School, the Ninesquare Trust land and integral support from Natural England, Forestry England, Butterfly Conservation, South Somerset District Council and Network Rail. The partnership has benefitted from scientific advice from the University of Oxford and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

By working together across the eastern escarpment of the Poldens the grassland habitats are better joined up, providing a larger continuous corridor for wildlife. Each partner has their own management plan and land manager and coordinate activities informally.

HOW TO HELP

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

 To help with nature recovery on the Poldens you can become a volunteer and take part in a range of roles, such as surveying for shrill carder bee, botanical monitoring, reserve wardening, checking our ponies and practical habitat management. Check our website for opportunities.

 If visiting our nature reserve on the Poldens, record anything you see on iNaturalist and join in with the Great Somerset Wildlife Count.

 Did you know that it costs us £2,600 a day to care for our reserves? This will cover just the minimum our reserves need to maintain the precious habitats they support, repair fences needed for conservation grazing, deal with the impact of diseases like ash dieback, and keep our visitors safe and able to enjoy the fantastic wildlife that lives on our reserves. Help us keep the Poldens’ reserves in amazing condition by making a donation to our Nature Reserves Fund somersetwildlife.org/ appeals/nature-reserves-fund

Twenty-five years later it is starting to look like calcareous grassland once again

Butterflies such as the small heath (left) and chalkhill blue (right) have benefitted from the increase in floral diversity. SMALL HEATH: JOHN BIRDGES, CHALKHILL BLUE: JIM HIGHAM PYRAMIDAL ORCHID: 2020 VISION

Our partnerships have enabled us to continue to do many things including:

 Restoration of calcareous grasslands

 Re-introduction of the large blue butterfly

 Creation of the Polden Way walking route

 Shrill carder bee conservation For Millfield School, learning and education is also an important element of the land they own on the Poldens. Under the enthusiastic drive from now retired geography teacher Geoff Brunt, land was purchased in the 1990s in collaboration with the J and F Clark Trust. Ten minutes from the site, the school was committed to removing the conifer plantation and reverting it back to diverse, flower-rich grasslands while linking its conservation to the national curriculum and outdoor learning. Chloe Coker, conservation manager at Millfield School explains more, “We now have 30 hardy sheep (balwen and Shetland) grazing the 45 acres of grassland keeping it in good condition for wildflowers and invertebrates. Currently a different Year 9 tutor group visits on a Wednesday – after an introduction on the site and how to use the tools they set about coppicing scrub. During the spring they will be more involved with surveying for wildlife. ”

SPECIES THAT ARE BENEFITTING

David Simcox, is the large blue butterfly project officer and has been working with us and our partners in the East Poldens since the 1980s. He has extensive knowledge of the grassland restoration project.

“Alongside the large blue butterfly there are other species that require the short grassland habitat –and some are nationally rare. For example, the strikingly marked hornet robber fly, a voracious predator and an agile flyer hunting beetles, flies, hoverflies and other robber flies. It needs the heavy grazed escarpment and south-facing hillsides. It is also a parasite of dung beetles which are increasing due to presence of cattle and sheep at Green Down that are not given anti-worming drugs. The rugged oil beetle has more recently been found at Green Down and is probably living elsewhere on the Poldens. Unusually for beetles, it needs to be surveyed for during the autumn months and at night. The short

EXPLORE

VISITING THE POLDENS

We have six nature reserves on the eastern Poldens:

 Gilling Down never planted with trees

 Great Breach Wood

 New Hill

 Tannager

 Dundon Beacon

 Green Down

The best time for seeing their wildflowers and insects is later May through to August. They form part of a network of connected wildlife sites, managed by a partnership of organisations, that stretch along the East Polden ridge from Walton to Hurcott. To find out more visit:

somersetwildlife.org/nature-reserves

THE POLDEN WAY

The Polden Way links together areas of land with public access on the Polden Hills between Walton, near Street, and Hurcot, near Somerton. countryfile.com/go-outdoors/ walks/polden-hills-somerset

If you would like to get involved as a volunteer, check out the volunteering page on our website

get-involved/volunteering

David Simcox Project Officer

Chloe Coker Conservation Manager

Part of the Poldens managed and used by Millfield School.

Below: The large blue butterfly (inset) was once extinct in the UK, but has since been successfully reintroduced.

POLDENS LANDSCAPE: CHLOE COKER, LARGE BLUE: ROSS

Dear member

As a valued and loyal member of Somerset Wildlife Trust, you are part of a community of 22,000 people committed to protecting Somerset’s wildlife and wild places. Despite the challenges faced over the last few years, you have played a vital role in protecting Somerset’s wildlife, allowing us to continue to work hard to make more space for nature and create a Wilder Somerset.

Against the backdrop of the climate and ecological emergencies and a lengthening list of threats to the natural world, global instability and economic hardship, your support has been invaluable. The funds from membership is our only secured source of regular income. We frequently say that our members are the lifeblood of the Trust – this is absolutely the case. Your support has become even more important than ever before.

We understand that these are uncertain times and that many of our members are giving all they can, which we are eternally grateful for.

Despite the difficulties being faced, we continue to work hard for Somerset’s wildlife and to protect, restore and also invest in more wild places. We acquired two strategic pieces of land; our exciting wilding project at Honeygar and the strip of land separating our special Green Down Nature Reserve. We’ve continued to work with coastal communities and are actively rolling out Team Wilder across Somerset, inspiring communities to act for nature and help nature to flourish across the entire county. We’ve restored species-rich grassland networks across 3,200 hectares and improved woodland and connectivity with other habitats for dormice. But there’s so much more still to do.

Our Nature Reserves still need care and attention to thrive, and your membership donations help us care for these special places, ensuring they are safeguarded for the future. Our work simply would not be possible without your support.

and inflation pose a severe risk to conservation work in Somerset. We’ve been working hard to reduce costs where possible; however, some elements are outside our control, including the rising cost of tools, materials and power.

So, whilst it is difficult for us, we would like to ask you if you are able to help Somerset’s wildlife a little more by increasing your regular contribution to Somerset Wildlife Trust.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS

If everyone gave just £1 extra each month it would help us raise an extra £144,000 each year, which would make an enormous difference to protecting and restoring our wildlife and wild places across Somerset. If you are in a position to give a little more, to help Somerset’s wildlife and wild places, we would be enormously grateful if you would consider it.

Once again, we thank you for your amazing continued support and hope you are looking forward to a wonderful spring and summer in the landscapes that we love so much.

To adjust your monthly direct debit please complete the form inside this magazine and return in the envelope provided.

Thank you

Katie Arber Director of Fundraising & Marketing

BUMBLE BEE & MEADOW: JON HAWKINS/SURREY HILLS PHOTOGRAPHY, DORMOUSE: TOM MARSHALL

Get involved in activities and events, visit wonderful nature reserves, and directly contribute to restoring Somerset’s natural spaces.

We all need to live a little wilder

Think back on your earliest memory of feeling excited, awed and enchanted by nature. Perhaps it was getting sandy on the beach, maybe it was the grim fascination of pulling apart an owl pellet, or kicking up autumn leaves. For many of us these experiences may be deep in our childhoods, but we can still remember them - the sound, the smell, the bite of the wind and the visceral excitement of being in the wild. These experiences, whether during childhood or later in life, form the foundation of our personal relationship or “connection” with nature. This is a relationship we continue to nurture throughout our lives; seeking out beautiful places, exploring nature

reserves and inviting wildlife into our gardens. For those of us who have experienced the joy and wellbeing benefits of being connected to nature, it’s something we value for life.

The University of Derby is leading the development of evidence that explains what “nature connectedness” is, how it can be measured, its benefits for human and environmental wellbeing, and how we can work to restore and improve connections between people and nature. This research has shed light on the way people build this relationship, identifying “5 pathways to nature connectedness”. The evidence shows that basic contact with nature (i.e. jogging through a park) or knowledge-based activities (such as reading a book or watching a

Whether at home, school or work, nature should be an integral part of our day, essential for our health and wellbeing, and the future of our precious planet.

“No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced”

Sir David Attenborough

documentary about wildlife) are not enough in themselves to build a meaningful connectedness. Just as when we are building a relationship with a person, it is not enough to be in the same room as them and learn a few facts about them, we need to really get to know them to experience an emotional bond. We need to go deeper to truly fall in love.

Research also shows that people with a greater connection to nature are more likely to behave in “pro-environmental” ways - taking positive actions to protect wildlife and the environment. So, helping everyone to build a relationship with nature isn’t just essential for human health and wellbeing, it is critical to ensuring the protection, restoration and recovery of our natural world.

MUST

What: Wilder 2023 – Action for nature in Somerset

Where: The Canalside Bridgwater

When: To be confirmed

A day of celebration and collaboration for individuals and communities in Somerset who want to create a wilder future. Whether you’re passionate about nature-based solutions to climate change, keen on wildlife recording or want to create more space for nature in your own garden please come and join us!

EVIE AND TOM PHOTOGRAPHY

RESOURCE HIGHLIGHT

Download your Wilder Fundraising Pack, full of tried and tested ideas to inspire your friends, family, colleagues and communities to make their own changes for wildlife, whilst raising vital funds at the same time. Whatever you choose to do, together we can act now to stop wildlife decline in its tracks.

Thank you!

ACTION SPOTLIGHT

Incorporating the 5 pathways to Nature Connectedness in your life: £

 Contact is the act of engaging and exploring nature through the senses. Give it a go take a moment outside each day to notice something you can hear, see, smell, taste and touch.

 Beauty is about engaging with the different qualities of nature, including through art.

Give it a go Visit a Wilder Open Garden and enjoy a garden in full swing. Take along a camera or painting set so you can spend time appreciating your favourite features or simply appreciate the beauty of birdsong or the smell of the woods after the rain.

 Emotion is our love for and bond with nature.

Give it a go Pass it on! Tell someone else about something wonderful you noticed in nature today. Why was it special? How did it make you feel?

 Compassion means seeing yourself as part of nature and making choices to care for and protect it.

Give it a go Explore our Wildlife Gardening webpages for loads of ideas on how to welcome wildlife into your garden, and receive a plaque if your garden is great for wildlife: www.somersetwildlife.org/garden

 Meaning is the way in which we explore what nature means to us. Perhaps through stories, symbolism and ideas. In doing so, we are often able to make better sense of our own lives.

Give it a go Start a nature diary. Record the first signs of spring or really get to know an ancient tree through the seasons. You could even record your sightings on iNaturalist and help us to build evidence for the future.

£67,658

raised by our Team Wilder fundraisers over the last 12 months

33

Wilder Open Gardens shared with friends, families and neighbours to inspire others to garden for wildlife too, whilst eating scrumptious cake and raising vital funds for wildlife

82%

of people who took part in the Somerset Nature Connections six week course saw an improvement to their self esteem

On the right path

Putting the 5 Pathways to Nature Connectedness into practice can be truly transformational. The Somerset Nature Connection Project - funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, in partnership Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Blackdown Hills AONBs (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty)started in 2020, running 6–18-week courses for people experiencing mental health challenges. People from across Somerset can self-refer or are referred by health and wellbeing partners to attend courses on the Quantock, Blackdown or Mendip Hill Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Each week, participants attend for half a day, and are invited to engage in nature connection and wellbeing activities including natural/heritage crafts, sit spots conservation tasks, wildlife walks, and connecting with senses. Courses are adapted to meet the needs of each group and the 5 Pathways to Nature Connectedness are explored together. Since 2020 the project has worked directly with over 170 participants with some providing feedback on the impact connecting with nature has had on their health and wellbeing. Here one participant tells their story:

Being a participant for 18 weeks afforded a safe space to just be, allowing us all a space to feel whatever we were feeling in the moment, without any judgment on ourselves. A lot of the teachings within the nature connections project encourages very much being present in the moment, and doing this in such a beautiful, wild and natural landscape really enhances the ability to do this. I must admit at the beginning this was

hard to translate over into everyday life, especially when my mental health difficulties where peaking, but over a relatively short period I began to notice a lot of the skills being shown to us in the group were becoming almost automatic. I was noticing details of nature EVERYWHERE, which in turn helped me tune in to being much more present in the moment.

FINDING PEACE IN NATURE

The 5 Pathways of Nature Connectedness are explored in turn each week, with a celebration of the course on week six. Practical skills such as bird box making, wool dyeing, weaving and nature ID are incorporated into the sessions. These sessions have taught me so much, not only have I learnt a lot from these practical activities, but the actual process of doing these tasks provided a great sense of calm and mindfulness in themselves. The wellness exercises exploring the pathways, such as mindful walks, find meaning in nature, and finding connections with our emotions within nature, were made even more meaningful whilst immersed in nature, and formed a strong sense of community within the group. The project has helped me engage with nature in more ways than I thought possible, and ignited a passion for all aspects of nature further. It has also provided me with a safe place, and helped show me that being with like-minded people who are willing to explore their emotions and difficulties in an open and positive way, is worth every bit of effort put into it. It very much feels like a community, where everyone is held, not only by the group, but by nature and our surroundings. It has provided me with many coping strategies for my mental health, all with deep connections to nature.

Participants are invited to engage in nature connection and wellbeing activities including natural/heritage crafts, sit spots conservation tasks, wildlife walks, and connecting with senses.

EVIE AND TOM PHOTOGRAPHY

Berrow Conservation Group – nature walks

In your area

Neroche Woodlanders is based at Young Wood in the Blackdown Hills, a wild, inspiring place where nature is used to improve people’s lives, while making the woods richer for wildlife. nerochewoodlanders.org

Somerset’s Wilder Coast team have been working closely with the Berrow Conservation Group since 2018. We are a volunteer group established for over 20 years who help look after green spaces in Berrow. As a Somerset Wildlife Trust Wilder Community group we have done some great work surveying wildlife at Berrow Dunes LNR and across the Parish. In 2020 we set up a Nature Walks offer for local groups of any ages or abilities who may be disadvantaged in some way or rarely get the chance to connect with nature. Somerset Wildlife

AWARDS

Trust have trained up a group of our volunteers to lead tailored one hour walks around the dunes, finding out about its natural history and taking part in nature connection activities which will hopefully improve participants well being through appreciating better their local environment.

Groups can book a walk at: form.typeform.com/to/Ao0t7Qez or email Lesleymillard3@gmail.com Lesley Millard (Berrow Conservation Group member)

Volunteer award winners announced

Our volunteer awards recognise and celebrate the work of volunteers and groups across the county who give their time and skills to create a Wilder Somerset. We’d like to say a huge thank you to all of you who help deliver practical solutions for nature’s recovery, engage and inspire others, and record and monitor wildlife.

Individual: Roger Dickey has inspired so many by sharing his skills, knowledge and enthusiasm through his work as chair of the Heart of the Levels Local Area Group until 2021 and his work with the Somerset Ornithological Society. Roger is also a great advocate for community fundraising, embracing every challenge including skydives and abseils!

Long service: West Mendip Conservation Volunteers Reformed in 2009, the WMCVs deliver a wide range of practical work, from grassland restoration to invasive species control. Without the help of so many passionate and dedicated volunteers, we would simply not have the capacity to maintain our reserves.

Carymoor Environmental Centre, near Castle Cary, “Roots and Boots” Memory Group welcomes families living with dementia to get outdoors, unwind, listen to the birds and make new friends. carymoor.org.uk/ roots-and-boots-dementia-group

Wilder Woods offer wellbeing sessions for those struggling with mental health issues, loneliness or otherwise in need of a ‘Green Prescription’ at their sites near Langport and Baltonsborough. wilderwoods.org

Youth: Cameron, Bridgwater College Academy’s Eco-Team. At 15 years old, Cameron has taken a lead with the group who have sown seeds, planted trees, constructed bird boxes

Group: Somerset Nature Connection Volunteers. Over the past two years the SNC Volunteers have been integral to the project’s success. Each volunteer is extremely skilled and brings with them tools and experience that help to ensure our weekly sessions are run in a way that is engaging, warm and supportive, inspiring others to connect to and respect nature. Many of the volunteers joined us initially as course participants.

LOCAL AREA GROUPS

Local Area Groups – past, present and future

On 15th February 1964, 15 people met at Taunton Castle to discuss setting up a county trust for nature conservation. Each paying £1 towards the formation of this new charity, from these humble beginnings the Somerset Wildlife Trust – or the Somerset Trust for Nature Conservation as it was known then - grew, reaching a membership of 400 just ten months later and and in the early 1970s aquired its first nature reserve, Westhay Moor. From the start, the founders identified the value of local engagement, local expertise, and mobilising members around local issues. An initial four ‘Area Committees”’were set up, the Chair of each granted a seat with the trustees at Council. These Committees and their ‘Local Area Group’ took on a range of activities in their different areas including fundraising, recruiting members, delivering newsletters, running talks, events and education, wardening reserves, monitoring planning proposals, and coordinating local volunteer efforts on a growing portfolio of nature reserves - all of which have brought people closer to nature in their communities across the county - work that we are still building on today. We’d like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been involved in the Local Area Groups. You have helped shape the organisation that Somerset Wildlife Trust is today.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

The nature recovery sector has transformed over the years but our work is still reliant on ‘boots on the ground’ including those of our dedicated team of volunteers and the many grassroots local movements that we aim to support and work alongside as part of Team Wilder. However with rising costs of living, changes to family life and many people working well into their 60s, recruiting committed, regular volunteers has become increasingly challenging. With their local expertise and knowledge we knew the Local Area Group volunteers had an important role to play, but we needed to re-think how the groups ran in order to future proof our work for years to come.

So, in February this year, we announced that there will no longer be separate Local Area Group committees. Instead, events and activities will be coordinated together as one team and local volunteers will then organise events in their area, helping people across the county to live Wilder Lives. We will also continue to partner with and champion independent local organisations such as local environment teams and species’ specialist groups, who are doing so much of this good work across the county. We hope that by remodelling in this way more volunteers will step forward and get involved on a more flexible basis. We also hope this will enable us to offer events across much more of Somerset, truly serving and representing our beautiful county in its entirety. The world is much changed since 1964; laws have changed, the climate has warmed, county boundaries have shifted, and cranes now call over the Levels, but the heart of our mission is the same, to protect and restore wildlife and wild places in Somerset - and it is people that make this happen. Thank you for being part of this.

Find out more about the work of the Local Area Groups over the years on our blog: somersetwildlife.org/blog

Newgroup

We’re delighted to announce the Wells Local Area Group has opted to become an independent group, offering events and activities throughout theyear in the City ofWells and surrounding area! You can find out more about the new Wells and District Wildlife Group on their newwebsite:wdwg.org.uk

We’d like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been involved in the Local Area Groups, you have helped shape Somerset Wildlife Trust

Many things have changed in Somerset since 1964, including the successful reintroduction of cranes.

GO WILD

Wild wordsearch

Find these words all to do with beetles in this season’s wordsearch!

Top wildlife spot!

A rare and extremely shy bird, the bittern is usually only glimpsed peeking its head out of the reeds where it spends most of its time. This winter, however, one lucky photographer had the privilege of seeing a bittern out in the open — standing on a frozen lake at our Westhay Moor Nature Reserve. Many thanks to David Betteridge for the fantastic photo!

BEETLE INSECT

ANTENNAE

THORAX ABDOMEN

WINGS

MANDIBLE

EXOSKELETON

CHITIN

LARVAE

Wild events

 SHORESEARCH JULY SURVEY

Where: Lynmouth Beach

When: Friday 7th July, 12pm – 4pm

Our Somerset Shoresearch team will be partnering up with Coastwise North Devon for a seashore survey on Lynmouth Beach. This is part of an ongoing survey of the Bristol Channel coast, and the data collected by volunteers will contribute to a national survey being carried out by Wildlife Trusts across the UK.

SURVEYING FOR REPTILES

AND AMPHIBIANS 

Where: Cheddar Community Pavilion

When: Tuesday 18th April, from 7.30pm

Join John Dickson, chairman of the Reptile and Amphibian Group

of Somerset, to learn about how reptile and amphibian populations are monitored in Somerset, and why it’s so important that we find out more about these fascinating animals and their behaviours.

PUPA

OIL BEETLE

TIGER BEETLE

GLOW WORM

COCKCHAFER

STAG BEETLE

GROUND BEETLE

MINOTAUR BEETLE LADYBIRD

WHIRLIGIG

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID BETTERIDGE

WILD RECIPE:

Ground elder Pesto

Try out this wild recipe to make your very own pesto! ground elder is common in gardens, along roadsides, and in shady spots. It’s a fast-spreading perennial with easily-recognisable white flowers that appear between June and August.

INGREDIENTS

• 500g of fresh ground elder leaves

• 100g pine nuts

• 1 garlic clove

• 50g grated parmesan cheese

• 1 tsp olive oil

• Salt and pepper to taste

1 Grind pine nuts, garlic, parmesan, and ground elder in a blender or mash with a pestle and mortar

2 Add olive oil to the mixture and stir thoroughly. Season with salt and peppery.

3 Spoon pesto into a jar or bowl and store in the fridge for up to 3 days

Contacts

Area Groups

Since February 2023, events and activities have been coordinated together as one volunteer team, and local volunteers have been organising events and activities in their local areas. We’d like to say a huge thank you to all volunteers involved for their work and continued support over many years.

Find out more about these changes on page 43.

Specialist Groups

Badgers somersetbadgers.org.uk

Vanessa Mason, Tel: 07850 604585 (24/7) info@somersetbadgers.org.uk

Bats somersetbat.group Facebook: facebook.com/groups/ somersetbat somersetbatgroup@gmail.com

Butterflies somerset-butterflies.org.uk Ross Harley, recorder@somersetbutterflies. org.uk

Geology wp.somerc.co.uk/specialistgroups/somerset-geology-group

Garry Dawson somersetgeology@gmail.com Tel: 01823 282305

Otters somersetottergroup.org.uk Dr Rob Williams Tel: 01823 762877 somersetotters@gmail.com

 WILDER MATTERS

Where: Online

When: Throughout the year!

We were delighted to host our first “Wilder Matters” session earlier this month, all about our precious peatlands and what we can do to protect Somerset’s peat! “Wilder Matters” is a new series of online events we’ll be running throughout the year to help get to the heart of the biggest environmental topics of the day and their relevance to Somerset. Keep an eye on our website for the next event!

Gardening for Wildlife somersetwildlife.org/getinvolved/at-home/wildlifegardening

Penny Richards, Tel: 01984 624788 pennywildlifeways@gmail.com

Reptiles & Amphibians somersetarg.org.uk

John Dickson, Tel: 01749 672928 jdickson61@aol.com

Private Community

Nature Reserves somersetwildlife.org/pcnr

Valerie Godsmark johngodsmark123@btinternet.com

Mammals Thomas Mansfield somersetmammals@yahoo.com

Moths somersetmothgroup.org.uk/ portal

Rob Grimmond motcombe@btinternet.com

Ornithology somersetbirding.org.uk

Rob Grimmond motcombe@btinternet.com

Botany somerc.com/specialist-groups/ somerset-botany-group

Chris Billinghurst 01761 221579 or email Val Graham at somersetbotanygroup@gmail.com

Rare Plants somersetrareplantsgroup.org.uk

Steve Parker, Tel: 07450 691712 stephenjparker1710@gmail.com

Hedges somerset-hedgegroup.org.uk Heather Harley, hjharley@exmoornationalpark.gov.uk

North Somerset Fungus Group northsomersetandbristol fungusgroup.co.uk

Phil Gascoigne nsbfg6@hotmail.com

Tel: 07984 113330

Somerset Environmental Records Centre (SERC) somerc.com

Tel: 01823 664450 info@somerc.com

Other Contacts

Secret World Wildlife Rescue secretworld.org

Tel: 01278 783250

RSPCA rspca.org.uk

Tel: 0300 1234999

Avon and Somerset Constabulary – Wildlife Crimes Unit avonandsomerset.police.uk/ advice/animals/wildlife-crime

First Ecology

(The Trust’s ecological consultancy) firstecology.co.uk

Helen Ward, Tel: 01823 652425 enquiries@firstecology.co.uk

FROM LEFT: KODACHROME25/GETTY IMAGES, TOM MARSHALL, MARK HAMBLIN/2020 VISION

PITROVIZ, GETTY IMAGES

THE LAST WORD

Actor, podcaster, environmental ambassador for The Wildlife Trusts, Somerset resident and regular Viking, David Oakes, has graced our screens in fantastic period dramas and Viking adventures. When he’s not on set or treading the boards he’s out walking in a glorious wild place talking to experts about the natural world for his podcast, ‘Trees a Crowd’. He found some time to talk to us too….

You are such a strong advocate for the natural world - how much did your childhood contribute to the passion for nature you have today?

Until we were given a dog in a will (a yorkshire terrier called ‘Pip’), my childhood was fairly devoid of pets or nature. Far from letting that bother me, I discovered that if I didn’t have a dog to cuddle or a cat to stroke, there was always moss. Moss was my ‘best friend’. I would peel it off the top of stone walls, put it delicately in my pocket, and take it home to live on my bedroom window sill. I could then stroke it until it dried up. And then I’d head out again to find another ‘best friend’. To this day, I think moss is a truly incredible thing; I mean, they’re rootless and yet have lived for about 450 MILLION years! And some are even luminous!

As a Wildlife Trust we want people to have wilder lives but we all seem to be so busy. What is the one thing you think everyone can do to make their life wilder?

When I lived in London, surrounded by pace, I would walk everywhere. I’d set about joining up all the green spaces. Plot paths across town. Stumble across badger setts in the centre of Sydenham or fascinating old trees in the centre of the city that had inspired poets, sheltered royalty and had even been immortalised by painters. Now, as a podcasting-actor-father, I rarely have a spare moment. But, turning the phone off when I take the little one and the dog out for a walk, gives me a chance to listen in a way I did when I was footloose and fancy free.

How do you find time with your filming commitments to find time for nature?

I try to take projects that don’t lock me inside. We shot Vikings: Valhalla in the verdant Wicklow Mountains for example

(I was even living with the otter and kingfisher population of Mount Usher botanical gardens in Ashford whilst we shot seasons 1 and 2). I also make a point of making very good friends with the show’s animal handler. You never know, they may just have an infant jaguar that needs bottle feeding on your days off, like on The Borgias.

What was it about Somerset that attracted you to live here?

To be honest, I came to Somerset because of the history rather than the natural history. I love the neolithic earthworks, the Arthurian fog and the dark ages Wessexness of everything. And yes, we have an extinct volcano, and Cheddar Gorge is truly one of the UK’s seven natural wonders with its fascinating geology and rare endemic white beam population. Somerset landscapes need a lot of love. Whether it’s ancient woodlands at risk of being developed into mega-quarries, or swathes of irrigated farmland that could really do with a little ‘beaver-work’, Somerset needs our attention. Imagine what it could look like if we just treated her a little kinder!

You’ve been to see the bison being looked after by Kent Wildlife Trust. What excited you most about this project, and what would you like to see reintroduced here? They’re proper Megafauna. Big, bold animals, with shoulders to die for! We don’t have big wild herbivores in this country and lack apex predators that bring the balance we need. Imagine a nation full

of such creatures naturally regenerating our green spaces for us. Imagine a nation of people who as a result would learn to respect nature a little more and live side by side (you really don’t mess with a bison!) For Somerset; beaver being able to sort out our streams and waterways needs some major support and consideration.

If you had one wish, what would you wish for to turn the fortunes of nature around?

I’d introduce a green levy. A nature tax, if you will. Every purchase an individual or a company made - whether for a tin of beans, a house, or a fleet of HGVs - would include an additional percentage of the final bill that would be ring fenced for habitat creation and protection. There would be no way around it, no claiming back the “Green-VAT”, it would be locked in. Every pound spent in the UK would raise funds to protect the UK’s natural spaces.

Biologist…naturalist…entomologist…You get the gist. Which ‘ist’ one would you pick as your alternative career and why?

Ask me in a few months - when this goes to print I will have been living in Cape Town for a fair while, and whilst there I’ll have spent time diving with bronze whaler sharks and shadowing the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation to see how their partner organisations operate. Is there such a thing as a Rhino-Sharkologist?

Somerset Cheese or Somerset cider?

Cider. To be precise, ice cider. Sweet, extraboozy, and trance inducing. It takes loads more apples to make. Like with Ice Wine, you take the frozen fruits, remove the ice, and get extra concentrated sweet alcoholic nectar. Cheese has nothing on it. I’d bathe in the stuff if I could!

“I think moss is a truly incredible thing; I mean, they’re rootless and yet have lived for about 450 MILLION years! ”

Do you remember a Wilder Somerset?

A landscape filled with woodlands, wetlands, grasslands and meadows.

Somerset Wildlife Trust has been protecting and restoring these wild places and the wildlife that depends on them since 1964.

Our work is even more important today as Somerset’s coastal habitats and wildlife are under threat from climate change.

If now is the time to write your Will, please consider leaving a gift to Somerset’s nature, and help us restore the wild places you remember.

You can ensure the next generation experience and enjoy a Wilder Somerset.

Abseil for Wildlife!

Saturday 23 September 2023

Uphill Quarry, near Weston-super-Mare Conquer your fears with a 130ft sponsored abseil to raise vital funds to protect and restore Somerset’s wildlife and wild places.

Registration: £20

Sponsorship target: £130

Ages: 9 – 109

If we act now, nature can thrive

Book your placetoday somersetwildlife.org/ abseil-wildlife

Pledge your Celebration!

Want to generate less waste? Want your celebration to make an impact long after the day itself? If you don’t need any more socks, or have too many toiletries or are avoiding chocolatey gifts and boozy bequests, then this is a very special way to celebrate your occasion whilst giving wildlife a helping hand.

Instead of receiving gifts and cards for your birthday, wedding, anniversary, retirement or other celebrations this year, why not ask for donations instead to protect our wildlife and wild places. Not only will you raise vital funds, you’ll be reducing your carbon footprint and creating less waste. …and, it makes it really easy for your friends and family!

Challenge yourself for wildlife!

Whether you love running, walking, cycling or swimming, we’re looking for supporters to take part in the following challenges, whilst getting sponsored to help us protect and restore our wildlife and wild places.

Choose your challenge!

Cycle for Wildlife!

The Somerset 100

Sunday 21 May

A 35 mile, 100k or 100 mile cycle on the Somerset Levels.

Walk for Wildlife!

The Exmoor Perambulation

24 June 2023

A 15 or 30 mile, self-navigated, circular walk through Exmoor National Park.

Ultramarathon for Wildlife!

The Exmoor Perambulation

24 June 2023

Walking not enough? Take on the ultimate challenge and run the 30 mile ultra marathon distance.

Do it for Wildlife!

Man vs Moor

25 June 2023

Whatever you’re celebrating this year, it can make a big difference to Somerset wildlife.

Pledge your celebration today at somersetwildlife.org/celebration

A 5k, 10k or the ultimate 10mile run, swim and tunnel through remote parts of Exmoor.

Swim for Wildlife!

Exmoor Open Water Swim

24 September 2023

Perfect for seasoned swimmers and open water newbies. A 1k, 2k, 4k or 6k wild swim.

Night Run for Wildlife!

The Moonlit Meadow Run

28 October 2023

A 5k or 10k night run through Longrun Meadow in Taunton.

Sign up today

somersetwildlife.org/ challenge-yourself