On Tuesday 14th June we hosted a bumblebee ID training day at Adhisthana. Participants learned how to distinguish between the most common bumblebee species, practiced catching and identifying bumblebees in the field and learnt how to set up a Beewalk. We were also joined by a film crew from WWF-UK who were capturing some of the action for a forthcoming… Read more →
Hereford Cemetery Wildflower Project
Herefordshire Council are engaged in a project to try and increase plant species diversity in the grassland areas of Hereford Cemetery to create mini meadows that will, among other things: provide greater opportunities for people’s connection with nature. have significant benefits for pollinating insects and small mammals which in turn provide food for other species, particularly birds, sequester carbon. The… Read more →
Herefordshire Meadows June Newsletter
June means surveying season is truly upon us. The Herefordshire Meadows Team will be out and about surveying species rich grasslands of particularly high natural value across the county as part of the Herefordshire Wildlife Trusts ‘Wilder Herefordshire’ Project. Now is also a good time to start doing Bumblebee surveys, to this end we will be running a Bumblebee ID… Read more →
Wood Pasture Mosaics – an asset for regenerative farming systems
The sun shone for the fourth event in our Meadows, Mosaics and Mitigating Climate Change series. Proceedings were kicked off by Jeremy Dagley (Chair of the Wood Pasture and Parkland Network) who gave a talk entitled ‘What is Wood Pasture – its history and future value?‘ . During the talk Jeremy first introduced the terminology giving some definitions and examples of wood… Read more →
Plant ID Training Day at Honeymoor Common
On Tuesday 10th May we hosted a plant ID training day on Honeymoor Common for all new and recent meadow project participants. The session was led by county botanical recorder, Stuart Hedley, and included familiarising everyone with the rapid monitoring assessment methodology as well as with identifying common meadow plants. It is fantastic to see so many of our previous… Read more →
Soilmentor Group Workshop on Zoom
With the support of CSFF funds we have been working with a core group of 20 farmers over the past ten months to assess and analyse soil biological and physical health using the Soilmentor App. As well as a training session in the field we have also held two discussion workshops where we have analysed the group results from both the autumn and spring testing windows… Read more →
Herefordshire Meadows May Newsletter
With a bit of welcome rain, the meadow plants will all soon start shooting up and bursting into flower, meaning now is the time to start thinking about surveying. Irrespective of whether you already have a well-established meadow, have recently carried out restoration works or hope to carry out restoration works in the near future, it is good practice… Read more →
Herefordshire Meadows April Newsletter
With April now upon us you should have all spotted those little yellow rattle seedlings coming up. Surveying season will be upon us before we know it and we are working up a series of summer identification training events. Dates, locations, and timings will follow shortly but read on to find out how to get involved even if you don’t… Read more →
Shelterbelts and ‘Living Barn’ Wood Pasture Mosaics
A big thank you to Rich Thomas who hosted the third event in our Meadows, Mosaics and Mitigating Climate Change spring series. We kicked off the afternoon with guest speaker Sam Hollick (Bangor University) who spoke to us about his research on shelterbelts and how they can be integrated into grassland systems to help improve livestock productivity and resilience. We then went out… Read more →
A Wilder Herefordshire Project
We are excited to announce that we will be working this summer to support Herefordshire Wildlife Trust deliver a part of their Green Recovery Challenge Fund project ‘A Wilder Herefordshire’. Herefordshire Meadows will be working with landowners across the county to identify and select new, grassland Local Wildlife Sites (LWS). As well as surveying these botanically diverse sites we will… Read more →