Visit From Essex Wildlife Group

There I was, languishing in the fact that I didn’t have to do too much this weekend when the phone rang.

“You haven’t forgotten Essex Wildlife Group are coming for a visit today?” said a colleague from our own wildlife group.

“No. Of course not,” I lied unconvincingly.

I rushed to the wildlife shed and grabbed the familiar “Box of Death” to lay out the exhibits of skull, skins, feeding signs and scat in the building allocated. A quick once-around the woods to make sure all birds and animals would be on best behaviour (and to make sure the recent high winds hadn’t blown anything down on our route), and I was set up for the visit.

The idea was, for the first time, to introduce an outside body to our new “Nature Reserve”. We had worked hard trying to sensitively manage a piece of ancient woodland and plant trees on an area of MOD land.

The first stop on the “tour” was, in fact, this area. The 3,000 young native trees were doing well as they were planted in the autumn. Right on queue, a buzzard lifted off from the woodland which our young plantation was hoping to eventually adjoin. I grinned at my colleague.

It was my turn to lead the procession to the area where the badgers had their sett. I explained the mammal activity, only to find out I was talking to only half the group as the rest were snapping away at the tens of butterflies that the warm sun had suddenly brought out. Meadow browns, tortoiseshells, common blues & peacocks had all decided to show up at once. Cinnabar moths and the spotted- burnets also added to the photo opportunity.

 

I also led the party through the dry woodland. We showed the group where the oxlips and orchids had flowered earlier in the spring. Our self-built bridges (London Bridge and Tower Bridge) provided access out and then back in to and from an open meadow area where about a half a kilometre of hedgerow had been planted in an attempt to stop vehicles getting too near to the meadow and wood.

The dried up pond provided the opportunity to view stoat, badger and muntjac tracks in the sun-baked mud. I managed to  get the attention of the group when I described what I thought was a muntjac and fawn possibly walking together and a badger, after having had a drink, wandered away from the pond and into the woodland to do some foraging.

The final stop was into the building for a welcome cup of tea, a look at the Table of Death and my badger video.

It was great to meet people who were more than just interested in nature. They had a wealth of experience and I was pleased that I held my own amongst them. I came away with a couple of contacts in the field of science and education and the telephone number of nature reserve warden who were all interested in the tracking aspect of the presentation.

Thanks for the visit.