How We’ve Been Helping Winter Wildlife Thrive
Last December, we held our annual match-funded Christmas Appeal with the theme “Help Winter Wildlife Thrive”. Thanks to the support of so many in our community, we managed to raise an incredible £20,940, and our Land Management team have been hard at work, nurturing nature through the coldest months and getting it ready to flourish now that Spring has arrived.
This winter, we planted 380m of new hedgerow, both for our agroforestry project and to infill 139m of gapping identified by volunteer surveyors in our existing hedgerows. Our incredible volunteer hedge layers have also laid 500m around the Wittenham Clumps landscape – and managed to win third place at a recent hedge laying competition at Harcourt Arboretum too!
Hedges are a crucial habitat which provide shelter and sustenance for the wide variety of bird species present at our site throughout the year. Thankfully, when our hedgerows were surveyed this winter, the majority were in great condition – a testament to all the work that goes into maintaining them.
Winter is the perfect time to get busy clearing scrub and thinning trees across our community reserves. This allows a diverse range of plant species to emerge as the weather warms, and has to be completed before nesting season starts. Much of the cleared material is used to create the dead hedges that are used by so many species present at Earth Trust, including our great crested newts!
You will have seen many of the flowers associated with the transition from winter to spring already, such as snowdrops, daffodils, and crocus. Whilst we’ve been out and about around our green spaces, we’ve noticed the first bees and butterflies in the air, for whom the diversity of flowers springing up at different times is essential for survival. These small but mighty invertebrates have a highly important role to fill as pollinators, assisting our native flora in reproducing to create a flourishing, biodiverse habitat.
Now that Spring has arrived, our bird boxes are beginning to receive an increasing number of visitors – including a recent sighting of a beautiful barn owl. Other bird sightings, such as Little and Great egrets, Fieldfare and Redwing at River of Life II, and Woodcock and Snipe spotted at Abbey Fishponds, are indicators of the great condition of those habitats.
To those who donated to our Christmas Appeal, a huge thank you from all of us at Earth Trust – our varied work continues throughout the seasons and is made possible by the support of incredible individuals such as yourself.
If you want to be a part of supporting our impactful work helping nature and people thrive together, you can! Our Spring Appeal will go live on 22nd April, focused on being Together For Nature. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, a trend which is damaging to both nature and people. Through facilitating access to and engagement with nature, we help spark a lifelong love of nature and a shared commitment to protect it for future generations.
If you donate between 22nd and 29th April via the Big Give, your donation will be doubled – meaning you can make twice the difference for the landscapes and wildlife you love. You can read more about our upcoming appeal aims here, and if you have questions any or ideas please send them to [email protected].
