Since the last newsletter, this year’s Meadow Makers have been busy restoring meadows supported by the Herefordshire Meadows team. Local provenance seed has been harvested from flower rich donor sites, sieved and dried and spread on recipient sites. Restoration works are completed on about 80% of our Meadow Maker sites and remaining sites are scheduled for the coming weeks. We… Read more →
New Funding Opportunity: Farming in Protected Landscapes (FIPL) programme
Both the Wye Valley and Malvern Hills AONBs have been allocated funding to deliver the 1st year of the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme. Eligible projects must fit into at least one of the following themes: Nature, Climate, People, and Place. Grants can cover capital and revenue costs up to 100% for projects that have no commercial benefit, or 40-80%… Read more →
Soilmentor training day in Dilwyn
On 12th July Annie Landless, Community Development coordinator at Vidacycle, led an introductory session to the Soilmentor app for 20 of our core group members. The Soilmentor software is designed to help farmers learn what healthy soils and flourishing biodiversity look like on a farm and enable farmers to make better informed farm management decisions. Participants were first given a… Read more →
National Meadows Day – Saturday 3rd July
Saturday July 3rd was National Meadows Day, a day dedicated to our wonderful wildflower meadows. To mark the occasion Plantlife launched it’s new Meadows Hub which has loads of fantastic information on how to make and look after a meadow. Here in Herefordshire we celebrated by hosting two events in Titley and near Bromyard respectively. At the morning event in… Read more →
Meadow Plant ID training session in Urishay
On 24th June Stuart Hedley, county plant recorder, led the second of our plant ID training sessions in the field at a site in Urishay. Participants split into small groups to carry out quadrat surveys and get to grips with common meadow plants, including some trickier species like cat’s ears and the hawkbits. This time, as well as in an… Read more →
Bumblebee ID training session at Trehumfrey Farm
On the 17th of June we held a bumblebee identification event, this time in the field. Andrew Nixon, of Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, began by teaching us about the fascinating life cycle of bumblebees. The first bees you are likely to see are the Queen bees, emerging from hibernation and searching for a place to start a new nest. By June,… Read more →
Catch up: What’s the buzz about – are all pollinator habitats equal?
On 8th June, Dr Paul Cross, senior lecturer at the School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, gave a fascinating talk on some of the key challenges facing pollinators. Drawing upon data from several large collaborative research projects, Dr Cross presented the unequivocal evidence that pollinator numbers have fallen sharply in the past 50 years. Dr Cross then went on to… Read more →
Meadow Plant ID training session at Bromyard Downs
On 10th June we finally managed to hold our first, in person, outdoor, training session for over a year at Bromyard Downs with Country Botanical Recorder Stuart Hedley, former County Botanical Recorder Peter Garner and Caroline Hanks, Catherine Janson and Sue Holland all from Herefordshire Meadows. The aim of the training session was for participants to familiarise themselves with the… Read more →
How to set up a simplified BEEWALK training session
On 2nd June Sue Holland led a zoom training session explaining how to carry out our simplified BEEWALK survey method including; how to choose the route, set it up on BEEWALK and how to carry out the surveys on a chosen site. All of the resources mentioned in the talk can be found on our surveying and monitoring page under… Read more →
Meadow Plant ID training session
On 26th May County Plant Recorder Stuart Hedley led an excellent zoom training session on meadow plant identification aimed at beginners and improvers. Stuart began by outlining to members how to properly carry out a rapid monitoring assessment survey. Stuart then went on to teach some essential ID tips covering all of the most distinctive species of Herefordshire’s lowland meadows… Read more →