Posts Tagged ‘HayMeadows’
Batty about Bats
Devon is home to 15 species of bats, including the Greater and Lesser Horseshoe, Whiskered, Natterer’s, Daubenton’s, Noctule, Leisler’s, Common and Soprano Pipistrelle, Barbastelle and Brown Long-eared. Bats are an excellent indicator of a diverse, well-connected and insect rich habitat and we have the latter part of this year surveying their activity on our land…
Read MoreGuest Blog: What the Moths Taught Me
Imagine a snow storm – satin, white, ice green, Prussian blue – streaming out of the night, texture upon texture, colour upon colour. Snowflakes pelt into my face, brush my fingers, unhitching the neat lines of the everyday. But it’s the hottest night in England since records began. Normally cool on Dartmoor even in mid-summer,…
Read MoreGranite Elements Artists visit Pudsham Meadows
In late summer, DPA Ecologist Albert Knott led a guided tour of our land at Pudsham Meadows for local art group, Granite Elements. The idea was to encounter some of the special flora and fauna on site and perhaps inspire an artistic response to these very special hay meadows. To help the visiting artists connect…
Read MoreTraditional Scything at DPA Hay Meadows
The time of year has come for the annual bracken cut at Pudsham Meadows, and our Conservation Volunteers turned out in force to clear the fields of this fast growing plant. We’re keen to retain some bracken at Pudsham Meadows, as it is important for the brreding cycle of Fritillary butterflies, but our aim is…
Read MoreDrystone Walling with Nic Kirkham
The field boundary wall at Pudsham Meadows has been standing for hundreds of years and was in need of some well deserved TLC, which was delivered by an enthusiastic cohort of walling students on our recent drystone walling course. Instructor Nic Kirkham, of the Dry Stone Walling Association, joined us to offer a free two…
Read MoreMoth Survey with Devon Moth Group
The meadows at Pudsham are a haven for insects, birds and small mammals. During the evening and night time a whole different array of wildlife comes out to make use of the site, when the daytime inhabitants have gone to sleep. We have been working with our Ecologist, Albert Knott, and a team of dedicated…
Read MoreGuest Blog: Pudsham Meadow through the Seasons – A Wild Writing year
‘The bird that calls from the willow, lovely is its little beak with its clear call’ 9th century Irish I wanted to hear the willow-warbler, the slide of its song, the lilt and the lift. A tiny bird that every Spring flies from the African continent over the deserts and half way round the world…
Read MoreMeadow Improvement at Pudsham
The DPA are proud to offer a broad variety of volunteering opportunities, with workdays happening across our land holdings on both weekdays and weekends. Our most recent conservation workday at Pudsham Meadows was on Sunday the 8th of February and we had an excellent turnout. The weather was also much kinder than it has been…
Read MoreMarvellous Meadows: Land Management at Pudsham
Pudsham Meadows is a marvellous example of flower rich grassland with associated scrub edges, recognized as a County Wildlife Site. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan identifies such fields as Priority Habitat due to their alarming decline over the past half-century. Now, they are highly localized, and Dartmoor alone accounts for about 6% of the national…
Read MoreGuest Blog: Trees, Bushes and Berries of Pudsham Meadows
My love of four meadows and fascination with those people in the past who scythed and stooked here has led me to seek a sense of our ancestors’ relationship with the trees, bushes and berries of Pudsham as well as to learn some useful knowledge about trees. Again I find help from the old books…
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