We hope you are enjoying the summer. We wanted to share news from the meadows and some of the glorious images captured recently. Did you know that there is an image gallery on the website? Click HERE to see more. If you would like to share any you take please email them to info@bishopsmeadowtrust.com Thank you to Jonathan Durham and David Gosnell for the most recent pictures.
Take a seat!
At the last AGM in September it was agreed that a new bench would be installed to replace the one beside the footpath from the churchyard going on to the Meadows.
The RSPB and Waverley Borough have a number of benches supplied by the Classic Memorial Bench company and it was decided to follow their lead. Due to demand it to took a while to arrive but it was installed on 22nd May. The company installed the bench using long metal rods and will hopefully provide a restful spot for many for years to come!
Biodiversity and hay cuts
During the summer of last year the Trust was informed that the previous hay contractor was not going to be taking another hay crop in 2023. The cuts help improve the structural variation and biodiversity and so another approach was taken. The Trust organised a partial cut of the meadows in strips, instead of flailing the whole 35 acres.
A contractor who completed this work in February on the meadow opposite the Bishop’s Meadows agreed to do the work as soon as the land and grass was dry enough. The work was estimated to take two and half days. Unfortunately given the wet spring, the contractor was unable to come out in March/April as requested, and it happened in May. It would have been better earlier in the season as it did impact some of the wild flowers that started to show.
The variation between long and short grass provides some benefit to butterflies, grasshoppers and other invertebrates, but it was certainly not ideal that some of the wildflowers were impacted with the cut being delayed by the wet weather.
Curious about the meadows?...
Another piece from our continued series by Mick Frank on different environmental elements on the meadows. Below is a piece which has not been highlighted in previous letters and makes for a fascinating read - the full article can be found on the website. There are now 6 different topics and all the articles can be found HERE. We hope you enjoy!
SOIL! Getting our hands dirty...
In this article we introduce some fundamental aspects of soil. Later we will report on the nature of the soil of Bishops meadow. The nature of an area’s soil can be useful in understanding what sort of ecosystem it may potentially support.
Soil is not one thing, in fact it is an extremely complicated, shifting natural amalgamation. Not only are there all manner of soils in terms of composition but it is a layer that combines all three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas, a huge microscopic biomass and macroscopic plants and animals.
To read on click HERE
To see all the articles please click here
Thankyou to you!
Huge thank you to Philip Dunford who cleared a load of household rubbish from the ditches and to those volunteers who have reported the full public bins to Waverley which have recently been emptied.
The Trust also appreciates the reports of signs that have either been vandalised or removed which are reported into us, they have been put back.
Image courtesy of Jonathan Durham
If you would like to make a donation towards the Meadows and support the work that we do, you can do so HERE
The more we raise from our members donations the safer the future of the Meadows is.
We hope that you have a very pleasant summer!
Yours,
Nick Green - Chair
www.bishopsmeadowtrust.com