As this year draws to its close, I find myself once more trying to scribe some immortal lines to encapsulate a little of what is happening in the semi natural world about us.

On our most recent working party on the Nature Reserve, while walking past some of the areas we have cleared during recent years it was good to feel how we have played a small part in encouraging this aspect of our local environment. As we worked together to open up a woodland area on the east side of the upper heath, there was much healthy debate as to which trees should be removed and which varieties each member of the group felt were worth leaving! However, following our second session in this area, we could see that our efforts had made an impression! In future years, it will be interesting to see how much the local wildlife agrees with us.

The weather in December has been very similar to wildlife observations – large grey slabs of cloud across the Purbecks, lit up by a few sparkling moments. Amongst the latter must surely be one as I was doing a little last minute Christmas shopping with the kids along the Broadway. We spent 5 incredulous minutes watching an absolutely huge queen bee happily drifting up and down the parked cars, presumably in search of flowers bearing nectar. The presence of such a healthy specimen on the 23rd Dec must be indicative of the relative mildness of our weather since the summer. This – coupled with the seasonal dampness – is also resulting in substantial crops of a superb diversity of fungi around our heath and woodland areas. In their turn, these will encourage healthy crops of insects for the birds and other wildlife to feed on in the year ahead. Whilst on the subject of birds, it is also worth noting that on the 6th of December, the Brownsea lagoon’s bird count set a UK record for a single site of 1155 Avocet. It is all happening in Poole!

I am looking forward to spending more time in 2003 on our reserve and working with the rest of our members to promote a haven for wildlife in the middle of Broadstone. See you all there!

Our first task will be on 2nd Feb. At 10.00 AM Fontmell Road entrance.

Useful numbers for activities :-

A couple of other useful wildlife web sites for wildlife news in this area are:

http://www.greenlink.co.uk/

http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/dorset

You may also be interested to keep an eye on the development of the Dorset Biodiversity Strategy, to be launched in February 2003. The breadth and progress of this initiative may be viewed at http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/dorset/Text/projects/biodiversity.html

Prepared For Broadstone.Net
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dudley.hull and dave.evans

See the Broadstone Environment main page for information on this organisation.

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