By Rob Curtis, Biodiversity Officer
This year 51 local wildlife sites were surveyed throughout Berkshire including the last 3 from a contract with Slough Borough Council. The total included 2 proposed LWS and 11 extensions to existing sites, some of which are quite small. Site sizes ranged from a 0.10 hectare wet woodland to one of 152 hectares (which includes a 90 hectares extension). Just over half the sites were less than 4 hectares in size demonstrating the fragmented sites this project addresses.
As with previous years, the vast majority of sites were woodlands or contained a mixture of habitats. Wetland and water bodies were significant within 5 of them. Grassland dominated 5 of the sites. A mixture of private and publicly accessible sites were surveyed.
Notable sites
A privately owned woodland in Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) was surveyed in May. The majority of the woodland is covered by Pedunculate Oak with some Sweet Chestnut on the top. A total of 27 indicators of ancient woodland were recorded which is relatively high for the sites surveyed this year. These species include Bluebell, Yellow Archangel, Wood Melick, Ramsons, Spurge-laurel and Wood Anemone. It’s significant for the active management undertaken by members of Wild Maidenhead – some Hazel had been coppiced last winter.
Another private site surveyed comprised a pond, some swamp fen and wet grassland adjacent to the Thames in West Berkshire. 9 species associated with fen and swamp were recorded including Greater & Lesser Pond-sedges, Meadowsweet, Water Mint, Wild Angelica and Reed Canary-grass. There were also 9 indicator and typical species associated with lowland meadow including Brown Sedge, Marsh Stitchwort, Meadow Vetchling, Marsh-bedstraw and Common Knapweed. This site is visible from the adjacent national trail and a number of bird records have been made. Records from the last 5 years will be checked against the criterions for birds as set out in the LWS selection criteria.
Bracknell Forest Borough Council proposed a site of theirs down near the border with Hampshire. As well as the sizeable water body, Horseshoe Lake has some varied habitat around the edge including emergent vegetation at the margins, a little wet woodland, wet meadow, scrub and deciduous woodland. Some indicators and typical species of lowland fen and lowland meadow were recorded such as Reed and Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil plus Sneezewort and Lesser Stitchwort. However, the main reason is likely to be the bird assemblage of open water. The council sent me data from their ranger’s surveys. This will be combined with records made by other birders. As with the previous wetland site, this data is collated by the county bird recorder from the Berkshire Ornithological Club (BOC) and shared with TVERC through a data exchange agreement.
The National Trust’s Basildon Park was by far the largest site surveyed this time comprising the existing woodland and a proposed extension covering the wood pasture and listed parkland. Some of the woodland is within the ancient woodland inventory so species such as Woodruff, Hard Shield-Fern, Hairy-Brome, Primrose and Wood Spurge are present. Some calcareous grassland is present within the parkland and enclosed by woodland. This includes species such as Wild Parsnip, Fairy Flax, Dwarf Thistle, Rough Hawkbit and Burnet-saxifrage.
In the parkland, 19 veteran trees were recorded. These passed the minimum girth and contained a number of veteran features e.g. hollows, rot or presence of fungi. They were mainly Lime and Sweet Chestnut with some Pedunculate Oak.
My faunal sightings tend to be casual just noting everything I see or hear whilst surveying the vegetation. There were many common woodland and water birds, some mammals and a couple of reptiles. A number of common invertebrates were recorded especially butterflies with 23 species. A few sites contained Clouded Yellows which have had a good year.
I’m always grateful to the landowners for granting me access to undertake the surveys and also to everybody that has made any species records within these local wildlife sites. Also a special thanks to Andy Cruse for undertaking bat surveys in some Reading Borough sites.