Teme Valley Wildlife Group

[A monthly report - December 2011]

 

The Wildlife Group continues to go from strength to strength. 2011 has seen much activity by Group members. During the year, we have surveyed twenty local pools finding all three UK Newt species in four of them. Prior to this, there was only one pool known in Worcs supporting all three Newt species.

We have carried out Orchard survey training days. This has resulted in the nationally scarce, Nobel Chafer, a beetle associated with decaying wood in fruit trees, being found in five out of five orchards surveyed, and again, making the Teme Valley a ‘hot spot’ for this very scarce invertebrate.

We have had another three ‘first records for Worcs’ and two ‘first records for Shropshire’ turn up on the Lepidoptera front with all five moths coming from within the Teme Valley. The Bioblitz day organised in June had the County botanists very excited as they found the nationally scarce plant Greater Broomrape, a parasitic plant devoid of chlorophyll which parasitizes Broom. On the same day, a tiny fly was caught by one of the Worcs diptera specialists, which turned out to be only the second record ever for the UK.

In June, we ran, along with Lindridge School, a bug hunt for the local school children, and at Ewe & You, the charity farm at Nash that takes groups of under privileged children, we ran four mini Bioblitz bug hunt events over four weeks in July and August. We ran a very successful nature walks program this year, with only one event being ‘rained off’ and introduced a lot of people to various forms of wildlife recording.

We have grown strong links with ‘other wildlife’ groups and the WWT, but maintained our independence and focus within the Teme Valley.

Photographic records continue to get better and better and the Wildlife web site is getting dozens of ‘hits’ per day, from all around the world!

And holding it all together has been the exceptional speakers program put together for the indoor meetings held on the second Thursday of the month at Rochford Village hall. The number of people attending these meetings has grown steadily this year and reflects both the interest in wildlife in the local community and also the quality of speakers we have attending.

To all that have made this year the huge wildlife success it has been, Thank You. What an amazing place the Teme Valley is for Wildlife! The 2012 Calendar is on sale at Books, Books, Books in Tenbury. Logo’d T shirts from contacts below.

 

Latest Update: 9 Nov. 2011