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Mayl 2022 May 2022

WILD WOODBURY debt caseworkers to help clients avoid circumstances in which they are likely to
lose their home.

With the practical work now having Cancer support - Our Macmillan team provides an
stopped for breeding bird season, we advice service for people affected by cancer. Being
are starting to get into the proper diagnosed with cancer is difficult in many ways and
survey season on site. I’ve had groups can have a financial impact for some people. Our
of butterfly surveyors on site over the advisers are here to help, for example by carrying out
past month, firstly learning about the a benefit check and advising on the benefits you
methodology behind undertaking a and your family may be entitled to claim, and the
survey, and then carrying out the first process for claiming.
few walks of the year. With fairly Contacting us for advice on any issue is
suboptimal conditions at the straightforward. You can either drop-in to one of our
beginning of April there aren’t loads sessions held at different locations across East Dorset
of butterflies on the wing yet, but and Purbeck - details can be found on our website
we’ve still had 8 species seen so far www.edpcitizensadvice.org.uk - or call the Dorset Adviceline on our freephone
on site, and that’s only going to improve as we progress through Spring and line 0800 144 8848 (Textphone: 0800 144 8884), 10am-4pm weekdays.
Summer. I would hope that we’ll be up to 25-30 species by the end of the survey
season!

You may remember a few months ago that I spoke about eDNA, a method of
surveying the soil, which uses remnant fragments of DNA that have been left
behind by organisms and then stored in the soil. We have recently had the results
back from this study, which presented us with 1900 species across the site! Now,
approximately 1000 of these were bacteria, 600 fungi and 300 fauna, with about
15% being fully identifiable down to species level.

This brings our current site species list up to about 900, including the eDNA data
that went to species level. After a full season of surveying, I would expect this
number to grow significantly, as we still need to survey large taxonomic groups
that come out later in the year.
This past month I have been working with a few of the classes at Bere Regis
Primary School, teaching them about the project at Wild Woodbury and
engaging them with the wildlife
around them. I took a selection of
nature items to the school, from
skulls to wasp nests, feathers,
nibbled hazelnuts, animal poo and
much more.
The enthusiasm from the pupils was
infectious, they were really keen to
get hands on and try to identify the
items in front of them. I followed this
class up with a site visit the following
week, where the pupils had a

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