First, pick your sloes; there are plenty in the park. Some recipes insist that you shouldn’t do this until after the first frost which is believed to sweeten the sloes but we don’t think it’s essential.
Continue reading “Sloe Gin”Sloe Gin
River Day
Under the heading of A Better Biss Approach (ABBA), Wiltshire Wildlife’s Water Team have been conducting a series of events designed to bring the waterways of the Biss Valley to public attention. Yesterday Alice and Nick from the Water Team came to Southwick Country Park for a River Day, to take a group of children and adults dipping in the Lambrok Stream.
Ian Bushell joined them and has sent in this report:
Continue reading “River Day”
Big Butterfly Count
The Big Butterfly Count 2019 ended last weekend on August 11th. Citizen scientists made an amazing 104,294 counts and logged their finding on Butterfly Conservation’s website. Here is a link to the RESULTS MAP.
Continue readingWorking in the rain
The tools for Wednesday’s work party were handed out in the rain and FoSCP, wellied and waterproofed, splashed off to their morning’s tasks in company with Countryside Officer Alison Rasey and Tree Officer Richard Murphy .
Continue reading “Working in the rain”REMINDER
Just a reminder that we are still looking for the missing panel from the decorative bridge. Have you seen it?
Here is a link to the details:
The Eurasian wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) is one of our commonest birds; it is very widely distributed, with an estimated population of eight million breeding pairs.
Continue readingSkippers
Skippers are a family of Hesperiidae in the order of Lepidoptera; because they are diurnal, we generally called them butterflies but many authorities class them as a group intermediate between butterflies and moths. They are called skippers because of their rapid and darting flight.
Continue reading “Skippers”
Spear thistle
Another species named in the Injurious Weeds Act of 1959: the tall and beautiful spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare). Here is a gallery of pictures of spear thistles taken in the park by DKG.
Click here for a gallery of pctures
Carnivorous plants
The lower leaves of a teasel grow opposite each other in pairs and each pair joins together around the stem, forming a cup. The cups fill with rainwater and insects fall into the little pools where they drown.
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Drop in through the afternoon to help to look after your local river and learn about the secret world below the surface of the Lambrok Stream!
We will be clearly visible from the Frome Road car park entrance. Please wear suitable outdoors clothing. Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult.
For further information contact Abigail Leach on 01380 736066 or AbigailL@wiltshirewildlife.org
For updates on the event please check Twitter @WiltsRivers
A beautiful demoiselle (Calopterix virgo), photographed in the park this summer by DKG.
Continue readingTeasel
This is wild teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), sometimes called the common teasel, photographed in Lambrok Meadow next to Lambrok Stream.
Continue reading “Teasel”
What lives in here?
There are funnel shaped webs low down in the dense vegetation of the park’s hedges and edges; what lives in them?
Continue readingLepidoptera facts
Lepidoptera is the name of the order that butterflies and moths belong to.
Click here for five fascinating facts about lepidopteraHatch!
Extraordinary little video of an emperor dragonfly hatching into its final adult form.
Published on Jul 31, 2012 by wildvod.
Emperor Dragonfly larvae emerging from the kitchen garden pond at the Tyntesfield National Trust Estate in June 2012.
