By Julie Kerans, Biodiversity Officer
This year, we carried out surveys of 38 existing and proposed Local Wildlife Sites in Oxfordshire. These areas are important for nature and help protect rare plants and animals. So far, we’ve added over 3,700 new species records to our database, and we’re still counting.
Some of the highlights include visits to Wigwell in West Oxfordshire, an ancient woodland site in South Oxfordshire, a calcareous grassland site in Vale of White Horse and an area of lowland hay meadow in Cherwell.
Wigwell Nature Reserve, West Oxfordshire
Wigwell is a grassland field on a south facing slope in Charlbury, West Oxfordshire. It is managed by Wychwood Forest Trust as a nature reserve and cared for by local volunteers, the Wigwell Friends. It has a population of the GB red listed – Near threatened species Meadow Clary. The steeper bank is species-rich having abundant lady’s bedstraw with black knapweed, meadow crane’s-bill, salad burnet, rough hawkbit, common bird’s-foot trefoil, and small amounts of agrimony, field scabious, meadow vetchling, burnet saxifrage, cowslip and goat’s-beard.
Chalk Grassland near Blewbury
In July, we surveyed a chalk grassland featuring a terraced slope that encircles an old hill fort, located on the boundary between the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire near Blewbury. The grassland includes the priority habitat – lowland calcareous grassland. The more species-rich sections of the site include squinancywort, yellow-wort, quaking-grass, common rock-rose, crested hair-grass, fairy flax, common restharrow, mouse-ear hawkweed, salad burnet, cowslip and wild thyme.
Lowland Hay Meadows, River Ray Floodplain
Another highlight was our survey of two unimproved hay meadows on the River Ray floodplain, to the east of Bicester. These fields support the priority habitat - lowland meadow with abundant wildflowers including great burnet, yellow rattle, meadowsweet, meadow vetchling, common knapweed, lady’s bedstraw and tufted vetch.
Blackhouse Wood, South Oxfordshire
In May we surveyed Blackhouse Wood, a small block of ancient woodland on the South Oxfordshire border with Reading Borough that is publicly accessible.
The majority of the woodland is dominated by oak and ash with a range of other species including beech, wild cherry and sycamore. The woodland has a well-developed understorey of frequent holly, hazel, hawthorn, elder and field maple. The ground flora is dominated by bramble and bluebell and supports a good range of ancient woodland indicators, considering the small size of the wood. Eighteen indicator species were recorded in total including wood anemone, remote sedge, wood-sedge, wood melick, wood millet, three-nerved sandwort, wood meadow-grass, goldilocks buttercup, field-rose, wood speedwell and bush vetch. A tall wild service-tree occurs in the south of the site, and there are considerable amounts of standing and fallen dead wood, which provide important habitat for a range of species including fungi, invertebrates, birds, bats and small mammals.
