Nature in Harmony - June Round-Up

There has never been a better time to be out at Harmony Woods with a fantastic variety of wildflowers currently in bloom.

Several years of hard work developing the site has culminated in a burst of colour from bedstraws, kidney vetch and scabious, and if you explore further into the woods past the cabin you’ll be greeted by the sight of pyramidal orchids and viper’s bugloss.

Towards the west side of Harmony Woods, you will come across the chalk scrape. A variety of wildflower seeds were planted here by members of the NIH Exchange Project and their hard work has clearly paid off due to the spread of poppies, scarlet pimpernel and birdsfoot trefoil across the once-barren site.

Wildflower Walk

On June 18th we held a wildflower walk event with ATU volunteers and members of the public. We did not need to stray far from the cabin before we found a huge range of different flowers to identify and discuss.

Many of the plants we found have (or once had) some unexpected uses. Lady’s bedstraw flowers were once used as an alternative to rennet in the cheese production process as they contain and enzyme that can curdle milk. The flowers have also been used to give Double Gloucester cheese its yellow colouring.

The brightly coloured sainfoin is highly nutritious when fed to livestock but is also invaluable to honeybees. Bees that feed on sainfoin are said to produce higher yields of honey and the plant’s extended flowering period also means that it attracts many butterfly species throughout the spring and summer.

At the end of the walk we discovered a clump of kidney vetch flowers and spent some time looking for eggs of the small blue butterfly, the larvae of which only feed on this flower species. While we didn’t find any small blue eggs, we did manage to find a caterpillar!

We then finished our day off by having a go at painting some of the wildflowers we saw out in the woods.

Exchange Project

With the Costa Rica expedition almost upon us, members of the Exchange Project have been hard at work with the final preparations. To follow the group on their expedition, we’ve set up accounts on Twitter and Instagram. Go and follow them to find out more!

Bat Walk

On the evening of Wednesday 6th July, we will be holding a bat walk at Harmony Woods where we’ll be using bat detectors to try and identify which species of bat call the area home.

Bats hunt for insects at night using echolocation, a high pitched frequency which humans cannot hear. Fortunately our bat detectors are able to pick up this frequency and turn it into an audible sound. Since different bat species emit calls of different frequencies, we can determine which ones are in the area.

During our last bat detection event in May we identified a lot of common pipistrelle bats in Harmony Woods. I wonder if we’ll find some different species in July?

If you have any questions about the event or would like to sign up, please email megan.broughton@andovertrees.org.uk