Saving England's most threatened species from extinction
Archive:
10th June 2021
It's the beginning of a pretty packed summer for the Colour in the Margins team visiting around 75 reintroduction sites scattered across England. The species we've sown include Pheasant's-eye, Corn Buttercup, Small-flowered Catchfly, Spreading Hedge-parsley, Red Hemp-nettle, Broad-fruited Cornsalad and Broad-leaved Cudweed. Last year, even with covid, the team did a fantastic job managing to...
Read more9th June 2021
We were thrilled to find Corn Buttercup growing in all our reintroduction sites during our sunny surveys last week. The first sites were sown at RSPB's Hope Farm in 2019. Hope Farm Interpretation Board Last year further sites were sown at Papley Grove Farm owned by Martin Lines, chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network,...
Read more17th May 2021
Tucked away in the depths of East Kent lies a patch of country that I'm privileged to call my workplace. You'd think that anywhere sandwiched between London and the channel ports would be a bit of a jungle of roads, railways and development but thankfully the Kent downs have in many parts confounded the unstoppable...
Read moreWe started establishing wildlife corridors along the Chalfield and Lenton brooks in the mid-1970s encouraged by David Rice then County Forester for Wiltshire. Most of the 350 acres I farm and the woods that I manage now belong to the National Trust. We enjoy a good mix of habitats: encouraging biodiversity is both a high...
Read moreI grasped this opportunity to volunteer for many reasons, but in 2020 when we were all wondering where any of our freedoms and constraints were heading, I knew I wanted to be in the outdoors and this small reserve of 11 ha was on one of my daily walks. Somerset Wildlife Trust had sufficient trust...
Read moreOn a beautiful, sunny afternoon in June 2019 we attended a Colour in the Margins Arable Plant meeting and farm walk in Somerset. Before heading off around the fields we were asked if anyone had experience of managing AB11 plots. It's not just the BBC's 'Line of Duty' who have their acronyms! AB11 is a...
Read more16th March 2021
Having always been a very amateur botanist, over the last few years I've taken a more active interest in arable plant communities in particular. This is in part due to living in an arable-dominated landscape on the mid-Hampshire chalk and the 2020 lockdown meant that local habitats were visited often. I'm in the midst of...
Read more8th October 2020
Colouring in the margins: Discovering the arable habitat and resources to help Colour in the Margins is a Back from the Brink project running since 2018. Led by Plantlife in partnership with the RSPB it has been working to secure the future of some of our rarest arable species. The project has targeted the conservation...
Read more27th August 2020
As many of us wander through the arable countryside for exercise, dog walking or to appreciate the stunning array of plants that surround us, I wonder how many of us stop to think about what lies beneath our feet and the history of past generations that have walked there before us? To have the opportunity...
Read more7th August 2020
During lockdown the National Trust has reported that emboldened wildlife, from raptors and warblers to Badgers, Otters and even orcas, appear to be enjoying the disappearance of humans from its gardens, castles and waterways across the UK. Reports from rangers and gardeners include Peregrine Falcons nesting in the ancient ruins of Corfe Castle in Dorset,...
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