Page 29 - BR May 2023

May 2023 May 2023

FREE OUTDOOR WORKSHOPS IN WILD WOODBURY
BERE REGIS If you have walked around or nearby Wild Woodbury recently, I hope you have
noticed the amount of wildlife that is present on site. Scrubland bird numbers,
Are you interested in learning more about the food you can find in the wild? such as Skylark and Yellowhammer, have once again increased this Spring, with
Perhaps you could turn your hand to making an outdoor oven for the Bere Regis many singing on territories around the site.
community? Skylark in particular have increased from 2
singing males to at least 50 in just 18 months.
If so, workshops taking place on Thursday 18 May with local organisation Activate, This increase in down to the massive increase
could be right up your street. You are invited to join workshop leaders Maria and in suitable habitat and food availability on
Ramon to discover more about our natural environment. Learn to forage for wild site. As well as our resident species, migrants
food with Maria and build an outdoor oven with Ramon. Food and community are once again travelling through to their
are at the heart of these workshops. breeding grounds. We’ve had sightings of
multiple Wheatear, lots of warblers including
Thursday 18 May 2023 Chiffchaff and Blackcap, and many other
species. It should be any day now that we’re
2pm & 6pm – Foraging with Maria
also hearing Cuckoo and seeing Hobby
6pm – Outdoor oven building with hunting on site.
Ramon
A very exciting development has been
The workshops are free to attend the recent introduction of livestock to
but please register in advance. some of the site, with original (rare)
Families are welcome, the breed Hereford cattle now on one of
workshops are suitable for children our fields. They will stay here for a few
aged 8+, all children must be months, whilst we look to increase their
accompanied by an adult. numbers and hopefully get some old
breed horses, before moving them onto
Sign up here: www.activateperformingarts.org.uk/bereregisworkshops a wider part of the site. These old breed

Or by phone: 01305 260954 species will have huge positive impacts
at Wild Woodbury. By introducing low
levels of mixed grazing, and letting
these natural processes lead, we’ll be
working towards a dynamic mosaic of habitats where the different types of
vegetation (trees, flowers, bare ground etc) are in a constant flux. This ever-
changing landscape will provide the most niches for species to colonise and
exploit, leading to an increase in both biodiversity and bioabundance.
One of the roads through the site is a clear hotspot for fly-tipping, with beds,
toilets, tyres, and plenty of other items appearing on a weekly basis. Annoying as
this is, it didn't prepare us for what we were going to find on the site itself. Many of
the fields at Wild Woodbury have historic names, one of which was 'rubbish', and

When you respond to advertisers, do please tell them you saw their underneath a capping of soil, it certainly lived up to its name. Years of waste had
been piled up, before being capped over with some soil and the vegetation
advert in this magazine - it helps them monitor the effectiveness of above allowed to grow. After some rootling around, we mapped the area and
their advert and helps us generate more advertising revenue!! employed some contractors to dig up and dispose of the waste.

72 29