We’ve been watching-out for butterflies on task days, and enjoyed a sweep one site, trying to net and ID whatever we could. We have low butterfly numbers – but watching one orange tip butterfly evade five people swinging nets is priceless fun, we’re not lacking in entertainment! We’ve enjoyed plenty speckled yellow moths (finding five in one day) then learning that their caterpillar food plant is wood sage which we have plenty of too; so we are supporting them well!
I led a dawn chorus and bird song identification day this month, impressed to have 11 volunteers keen (or keen enough) to meet at 5am just before sunrise! It was a great morning spending a few hours walking through Bitchet Common, helping people recognise 19 different bird songs or calls. Blackcaps stole the show – whenever I asked people to rethink their identification of a bird's song, they soon got the hint that I was suggesting a blackcap every time! We even got to see a nice couple of them bouncing through low branches in song – helpfully proving I wasn’t making it up, they really do predominate.
We’ve still been hard at work, with seas of countless green-leaved birch saplings bursting through the heather and bilberry – we have to pull them all out whilst they’re still small, to protect the precious heathland habitats we’ve been working so hard to restore; and keep woodland succession at bay. That means task day, after task day, using tree-poppers with impressive productivity from the group!
We also tidy-up loosely laid dead-hedging from larger-scale, more-so industrial clearance work widening the woodland rides – we create better quality habitat from the materials, increase space and soften boundaries for heathland to spread into woodland edges.
Our vendetta with rhododendron and cherry laurel is ever-present – someone’s always keen to swing a mattock to dig these out (regardless of scale!) before they spread more!
And tree guards – you never know how many tree guards litter a woods until you go looking for them – and the amount of plastic our volunteers remove from the landscape is admirable!
As we come to the end of June, the last month of our project's funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the end of an era of great dedication from the volunteer team; of great times-had, and great friendships made, through working on the commons together. We keep our fingers crossed that future funding will be secured to support the team in their ongoing conservation work on the Greensand Commons; to protect our efforts from the last five years to restore the heathland habitat that could so-easily be lost again to woodland in a short time; and to keep a great group of dedicated volunteers together, who are driven to do their best for nature.
We are glad to confirm that, with significant local council funding now secured, it looks hopeful that sufficient funds for a legacy project will be achieved soon, and we will be able to announce an exciting new era of nature conservation and volunteer task days on the commons! So, we eagerly watch this space; and in the meantime continue enjoying and getting to know better the nature we've supported, and hope to go-on doing so.
A great thanks to all the volunteers of the Sevenoaks Greensand Commons Project, from KWT and the nature of the commons.
A great thanks to them all!
At Kent Wildlife Trust, our volunteers are one of our most precious resources in the journey to create a #WilderKent. Without their passion, dedication, and tireless efforts, so much of what we achieve wouldn’t be possible.
A run down and overgrown medieval churchyard in Sandwich has been restored to a beautiful wildlife haven by a group of local volunteers who live locally and are part of the congregation at the church. In this amazing story, you'll hear from the people who…
By August, floral glory has passed from the orchids (heath spotted, southern marsh and a few large hybrids) to the heather or ling. As ever, we hope for a protracted display of purple in the heathy areas, which is likely if the cool nights persist. Orchid…
