| RESERVES |
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We have three reserves totalling 130 acres, Magdalen Hill Down & Yew
Hill near Winchester & Bentley Station Meadow adjoining the Alice Holt
Forest, near Farnham. They are open to the public all the year round,
without charge. Forty of the county's forty-six butterfly species may
be seen on these reserves & their sensitive management is recognised
by Countryside Stewardship Agreements. All reserves have educational
access agreements. Visits are welcomed from other conservation
bodies, photographic societies, U3A, WI's and children's groups like
Brownies and Cubs. Please contact our Reserves Officer, whose details
can be found in the
Committee
section.
If you would like to know more about the
management of our reserves, then please contact our
Reserves Officer, Lynn
Fomison, whose
details can be found in the Committee
section. Lynn is employed by the branch to oversee policy regarding
the management of our reserves and to ensure that they provide a
suitable habitat for the conservation of butterflies and moths. From
time to time she has announcements to make to the members of the
branch and this web site is one of the suitable mediums to ensure that
these quickly reach those with computers.
Click on the links below for more information on our reserves.
Tuesday 1st July
Last Friday we held the first work party for this season to clear ragwort on Magdalen Hill Down. We removed almost twenty bags from the western end of the original reserve and there is still more to clear so if you can spare an hour or two this coming Friday 4thJuly we are there from 10am to 1pm. Park inside our entrance opposite St Swithun's school. We will be having a series of these work parties through the summer & YOUR help would be appreciated. Please bring gloves.
Thursday 26th June
Magdalen Hill Down - Help needed with ragwort
clearance
We have a work party planned fro Friday 27th June lasting
from 10am to 2pm clearing ragwort on original reserve - Tumuli
area & the hillside below. Use entrance opposite St Swithun's
School & park on grass. Please contact Lynn to go on the email
list for impromptu ragwort work parties which we frequently
arrange through the summer. You can combine good butterfly
watching with giving us some much needed help. See you there!
Lynn Fomison Reserves Officer Hampshire & Isle of Wight Branch
01962 772251
Tuesday 24th June
Not much magical about the figure 30 you might be thinking.
But if I were to tell you I had counted 30 Pyramidal orchids on
a 50 yard stretch of chalk grassland it starts sounding slightly
fascinating. But when I add this was on the Extension at
Magdalen Hill Down - an area that was an arable field until it
was sown with native grass & wild flowers in 1997 then the magic
can be appreciated. The orchids were not sown but colonised from
nearby ancient chalk grassland. It really was some thing special
to find just so many this morning in one small area & I guess if
I had walked further I could have found more. I am always
stressing that our reserves are not just good for butterflies
and moths but for all wildlife. We see time & time again that
the grassland management - mainly winter grazing - that so
benefits butterflies is great for many plants & other insects
too & the wild life that depends on them. Those orchids are a
lovely bit of proof of that.
Lynn Fomison
Thursday 19th June 2008
Magdalen Hill Down Conservation News
 On
Wednesday 11th June members of the Wednesday Conservation
Volunteers helped with a variety of tasks at Magdalen Hill Down.
They undertook clearance of long vegetation on paths to make
access more pleasant for butterfly watchers and also to enhance
the habitat for butterflies. They did light trimming in a
sensitive way to a hedgerow overhanging an access path & helped
with clearance of wild clematis which is a real pest on our
fence lines. Wednesday Conservation Volunteers have been
giving us valuable help for a number of years and they are
always interested in new members joining them. See the web site
for more details or contact Mac Millington on 01730 829454 http://www.wednesdaycv.org.uk
They will be with us again at Magdalen Hill Down on Wednesday
16th July so do join us. Butterfly Conservation will be
arranging some gatherings to pull ragwort whilst enjoying a walk
around the reserve so if you are not already on the email list
that I write to please contact me & ask for your name to be
included. These are friendly gatherings and new faces are always
most welcome. It is necessary to wear gloves.
Magdalen Hill Down Educational Visits News
 John
Arnott ( 3rd from the left) is a tutor at Merrist Wood College
who has been bringing groups of students to Magdalen Hill Down
and Yew Hill for a number of years. 2008 is however John's last
visit with a college visit. John has long recognised that our
sites are ideal for demonstrating a range of management
techniques and their impact. Butterfly Conservation has an
educational access agreement with Natural England & we welcome
groups of all kinds for specially themed and guided walks at our
three reserves. Enquiries welcomed by Lynn Fomison.
Monday 12th May 2008
Magdalen Hill Down North
 The
200 sheep moved from the roadside field onto the top field on
1st May. I just loved this photo showing some of them against
the Winchester landscape. I would like to have lived a hundred
or more years ago when the city was encircled with natural
downland with rotational sheep grazing. What butterflies we
would have seen! You can see the M3 with St Catherine's Hill
to the right and in the middle of the horizon to the right is
our Yew Hill reserve. Look below that to see St Cross Hospital -
a picturesque old building almost in the water meadows. Sheep
will not be there for many more days - we have just used them to
take the vegetation down a bit as the ground is still pretty
fertile being an ex arable field.
Bentley Station Meadow
I have visited Bentley Station meadow a few times recently.
Pretty quiet for butterflies but plants doing well. Bugle is
just starting to flower well in the north meadow - remember last
year - Broad-bordered Hawkmoths were seen nectaring on it on
several occasions. Sue Clark has made a very special discovery
- Adders Tongue Fern and also found a second patch of Herb
Paris.
Monday 21st April 2008
Magdalen Hill Down
Lynn Fomison writes "If you have not seen Magdalen Hill Down at
Cowslip time now is the time to go. They are looking splendid
especially on the Extension. This photo was taken on 20th April.
The seed was sown in autumn 1997 so this is really their 10th
Spring & they have just kept on increasing. If anyone would
like to bring a group to see them and other delights at the
reserve please contact me."
 200
hundred sheep arrived on Magdalen Hill Down North on Friday 18th
April. This area of the reserve was sown with wildflower seed
in Autumn 2004 as part of an important joint scheme with
Hampshire County Council of habitat creation on a grand scale.
The cowslips are doing well and the sward is a mass of
wildflower plants. Grazing is an important part of the process
of establishing good wild flower meadows. In the background
the tree and shrub planting at the eastern end can also be seen.
The lovely mixture of native species are getting well
established and the clumps of "scrub" are interlaced with
flowery glades. There is another similar area at the western
end. Ideal butterfly & moth habitats. We just need the
sunshine!
Tuesday 8th April 2008
Yew Hill Update
 Dan
Hoare's photo of Yew Hill in the snow of Sunday 6th April
reminded me that it's a good time to give an update of what we
have done at Yew Hill this winter. Work parties run by Colin
Matthews have been very well supported & we had help on the big
task of derelict tree maintenance on the bridle path and
clearance of fallen trees in a hedgerow from Hampshire
Conservation Volunteers wielding two chain saws. A very large
ash tree fell down into the field 'Hilltop' we rent from
Southern Water as extra grazing land (and also to preserve it
from 'agricultural improvement'). SW kindly arranged for this to
be cleared but we had to pay for a new length of fencing. On
the 12th March in a very fierce gale! Colin & I planted just
over 50 new hedging plants - hawthorn, buckthorn and holly - in
the gaps in the hedge around Hilltop - the field we rent. There
is no public access to this field but we do take any guided
walks in there to show people how it is developing as a
conservation sward. We have helped it on its way by spreading
green hay & planting plug plants. Both the reserve & Hilltop
were well grazed by cattle this winter. The only problem we have
is too many rabbits both on the reserve and the surrounding
land. Lets hope that we will get warm spring weather soon to
encourage Yew Hill's butterflies to make an appearance. However
it must be said it is not a good site for early sightings.
Lynn Fomison Reserves Officer
Friday 7th March 2008 - Butterfly Conservations 40th Birthday
Magdalen Hill Down
On Friday 7th March we celebrated Butterfly Conservation’s
40th Birthday with a work party at Magdalen Hill Down Nature
Reserve. Well over 40 people attended and were addressed by Dr
Martin Warren, Chief Executive of the society, and by
journalist, author and broadcaster Rosie Boycott. Rosie is a
member of Butterfly Conservation who has her own West Country
smallholding and champions closer links to the countryside. She
spoke with great enthusiasm for the beauty and magic of
butterflies and the importance of creating and maintaining
habitats for them.
Members and staff of Butterfly Conservation spent the day
working alongside other friends of the reserve and volunteers
from other conservation groups, cutting back and digging out
scrub and striving to achieve the flower-rich grassland on which
butterflies depend. Native shrubs and wild flowers were also
planted. The Wednesday Group was well represented and Butterfly
Conservation is grateful to them for the regular work that they
do at the reserve.
Lynn Fomison reports that the work party on Friday was the
last one for the winter season and we have achieved much of the
work we set out to do. The reserve is in top class condition,
just ready for the fine weather. Last summer butterflies
everywhere suffered because of the continual rain. Hopefully
we’ll have a better summer this year and there’ll again be a
profusion of butterflies, particularly Chalkhill Blues, to
provide a shimmering mass of blue over the down. It’s
magnificent sight.
 The Hampshire work party was just one of 15 being organised
on key butterfly sites nationwide to mark Butterfly
Conservation’s 40th birthday. They are the first of a series of
activities throughout the year marking the anniversary.
Over the past 40 years Butterfly Conservation has grown from
a handful of members to more than 13,000, many of them actively
participating in conservation work and in recording butterfly
numbers. Butterflies are much more sensitive to change than
other wildlife. The monitoring of them on this large scale
provides invaluable data about what is happening to our
environment and about climate change.
24th February 2008
Bentley Station Meadow
It was the last work party of the 2007/2008 winter
season on Wednesday 20th February. We like to finish all major
winter work on this small site by the end of February so as not
to cause undue disturbance to wildlife. Earlier in the winter
a contractor was paid to cut down some of the turkey oaks in the
small oak copse by the railway line. The aim is to provide
dappled shade in which violets will thrive & so provide good
breeding habitat for Silver-washed Fritillaries. Work that we
have done over the last few years has transformed the copse from
an area of rank grass and bramble into a much
more butterfly-friendly area. The restrictions placed
following the outbreak of Foot & Mouth disease in Surrey last
year meant we could not have cattle to graze the reserve. So the
cutting down of scrub regrowth was a bigger job for our
contactor this year. But this work has been done in the last few
days and as the photograph shows the meadow is looking in good
condition for Spring.
ThThe old anthills are really prominent & very soon early
flowers will be appearing. In the background of the photo the
1812 oaks can also be seen. A small part of the woodland owned
by the Forestry Commission is in the BSM SSSI and a number of
oaks have been felled in there this winter by FC. It is hoped
that the open-ness that this has provided will benefit
butterflies by giving better links to other parts of the Alice
Holt forest In late December a number of trees were felled in
the meadow with the aim of letting in more light and to
diversify the age structure of the sallows. This is important
work to provide suitable habitat for Purple Emperors. We had a
lot of help with the clearing up work and other essential tasks
at the southern end of the meadow from the Blackwater Valley
Conservation volunteers. We are looking forward to the 2008
butterfly season and we hope that the weather will be good to
enable butterfly numbers to recover from the low numbers
recorded in 2007.
Lynn Fomison Reserves Officer p>
24th November 2007
Magdalen Hill Down
ToToday the 120 Black-faced sheep were moved from the section of
Magdalen Hill Down North next to the Alresford road into the field at
the top. The sheep are doing a good job nibbling their way through the
vegetation. It was VERY cold up there today. Unlike Wednesday when I
actually saw a butterfly - Red Admiral of course! Wednesday (21st) was a
fine day not warm! but ideal for the work party. The Wednesday
Conservation Volunteers and some of the Magdalen Hill Down regulars
tackled the coppicing of a scrub block on the original reserve - these
are cut on an 18-year rotation. Magdalen is being well grazed by
suckler cows with their calves on the extension, 8 dry cows on the
original & 120 Black-faced sheep on Magdalen Hill Down North.
Photographs taken at this time of year with the setting sun about 3.45
over Winchester and the sheep in the foreground makes a lovely picture.
Not that I have yet managed to take it! But watch this space..
Yew Hill
The winter season of work parties at Yew Hill got of to a good start
on Friday 2nd November. The weather was quite amazing for a day in
winter! An account from one participant read.. "We were pestered by
Ladybirds that flew up from disturbed vegetation and were quite active
in the warm November sunshine. Two species identified were the standard
Seven-spot and the black background version of the Two-spot (Adalia
2-punctata f sexpustula). One of the latter landed on the back of my
neck!" He added that " A pair of Red-legged and a lone Grey Partridge
flew across during the lunch break disturbing respectively a serious
discussion of solar induced energy in butterflies, and how species
recover from serious area-wide population crashes." We enjoyed cake
in the sunshine, cleared a lot of troublesome scrub and had a bonfire of
some debris from last year. All in all a pleasant and fruitful
time. Of course as well as work parties being essential to good
habitat management so is grazing. Thankfully six young cattle arrived on
10th November and are now happily munching away. Our next Yew Hill Work
party is Sunday 2nd December with Hampshire Conservation Volunteers.
Lynn Fomison Branch Reserves Officerp>
19th October 2007
Bentley Station Meadow
Friday 19th October saw us making a great start to our winter work party programme.
The southern end of the meadow is pretty well sorted out for winter
now. The bramble patches are really important for butterflies and they
were given a light trim to keep them in shape. Numerous sycamores
were sawn down and treated with amcide to prevent the nuisance of
seeding.
As well as checking and clearing much of the fenceline - lower down the
reserve fallen sallow branches were cleared one dead tree and two badly
damaged ones were marked up to receive attention when we have the
tree felling done in the winter.
Ben Spraggon cut the scallops down the path side. The work we
have done over the years means these are now full of flowering plants
and we do not want them to get overgrown with brambles again.
This cutting job was very welcome as we may not get cattle
this winter.
We have lots of conservation work planned and I hope you will join us
on a future occasion. Volunteers welcome for an odd hour - it all
helps.
Lynn Fomison
31st July 2007
We used events at reserves to focus on Save our Butterlfies
Week from 20th - 29th July. We had a walk at each reserve and all three
were well attended - over 60 people in all. And of course lots of
butterflies. At Bentley Station Meadow on 20th July we saw just the one
Silver-washed Fritillary. Nice - as this was one of the events to
celebrate the Branch's Silver Jubilee.
At both Yew Hill and Magdalen on 24th & 29th respectively numerous
Chalkhill Blues were seen, but the weather had obviosly affected them
& numbers were lower than normal.
It was also nice to mark SoB week with a practical exercise - Hampshire
Conservation Volunteers came & cleared ragwort at Magdalen Hill
Down.
There are still a few events to come at our reserves so check these out in Events.
We have also had lots of visits from groups this summer - if you belong
to a group that would like a special visit - please contact me
Lynn Fomison
Reserves Officer
24th May 2007
Bentley Station Meadow
Our programme of group visits to the reserves is well underway.
Members of Ludshott Photographic Club (www.ludshottpc.org.uk) really
enjoyed a visit to Bentley on 24th May. Despite the lack of
butterflies Lynn Fomison was able to convince them that butterflies
and moths were worthy subjects being both challenging & interesting to
photograph. Those present hoped to make good use of Lynn's hints and
tips on butterfly photography on future visits.
An unusual high spot to the end of the visit were several sightings
of two weasels scampering up & down the platform at Bentley Station!
And just before that the group had a lovely sighting of a hare!
14th April 2007
Lynn Fomison writes ... "Here are the sheep & cowslips at MHD
Extension, taken on 13th April. The sheep moved in on 12th April
having spent the previous month grazing MHD North. As you can see they
are very photogenic and I am just hoping they won't eat the cowslips
before our first public walk of the season on 21st April! It is
important that the sheep graze the extension at this time of year to
control the coarser grasses like false oat grass".
This lovely photo from Sue Clark shows the beauty of spring flowers
at Bentley Station Meadow. Much of our conservation work has been
targeted at increasing primroses and violets so nice to see its
working! Both plants are good nectar sources for butterflies and the
violets are essential for Silver-washed Fritillaries to breed.
On 4th April we had help from staff and a volunteer from the
Blackwater Countryside Partnership in brushcutting bramble under the
oak trees. This ongoing management is effective in controlling bramble
& increasing the primroses and violets.
2nd April 2007
Yesterday 1st April saw the start of the transect season. As far as
our 3 reserves are concerned the information gathered during the
course of the season is important for two reasons. The fluctuations in
butterfly numbers sometimes help us decide on appropriate management.
For example when Small Copper number dropped at MHD we implemented a
bare ground strategy - areas of sparsely vegetated ground where their
larval food plant sorrel would thrive without too much competition &
where the areas of bare ground would provide the warm conditions that
the species likes.
Secondly when transect figures demonstrate a huge increase in
butterfly numbers we can us these in publicity to achieve the
recognition that Butterfly Conservation deserves for it success in
helping butterflies. Did you know the transect on the original reserve
at Magdalen Hill Down started in 1990. 437 chalkhill Blues were
recorded. We were thrilled when in 2003 numbers broke the 200 mark
with 2196 recorded and imagine our delight when the 2006 figure was
3236!
A third good use of transect data is show us if our reserves are
being colonised by other species.
From time to time we need new people as transect recorders. We aim
to have a team of 5 for each transect - 5 of these in all - 3 at MHD,
one at Yew Hill and one at Bentley. Sharing the weeks on a rota basis
means each person does about 5 weeks through the period April to
September. If you think this is somhing you would like to help with in
2008 and if you feel in need of training in 2007 we can arrange for
you to walk the transect of your choice a few times with one of the
existing recorders.
If you feel unable to make a commitment for rota-ed attendance
there are opportunities to visit reserves to look for specific species
- often those present in low number sand difficult to pick up on
transect - like Green Hairstreak at Bentley, White-letter Hairstreak
and Small Blue at Yew Hill, Duke of Burgundy & Small Blue at MHD.
Do contact me if you would like to help in gathering important data
for our reserves.
I am also pleased to hear from anyone who can run moth lamps at
reserves particularly Magdalen Hill Down
Lynn Fomison 01962 772251
27th January 2007
On Sunday 21st January myself plus Patrick Fleet & three other
Hampshire volunteers went to a work party at Butterfly Conservation's
Alner's Gorse reserve in Dorset. This was a return visit as a Thank
you for the visit Dorset members had made to Magdalen Hill Down in
December. There is a further visit from Hampshire to Alner's Gorse on
Saturday 10th March. Do go if you can. It is a relatively new reserve
with lots of work to be done with trees being felled & gorse cleared
away to create flower rich grassland.
The highlight of the trip was seeing the invaluable help given by
the pony - well trained to track trees to the fire. All the large wood
is being saved to be sold as fire wood or to be made into charcoal.
At the Alner's Gorse work party on 21st January Nigel Spring felled
many conifer trees to help to expand the butterfly habitat.
We have just had some major tree surgery done on trees at Magdalen
Hill Down on the boundary between the original reserve & the
extension.
Volunteers at the work party on 24th January helped burn up the
debris & stack the logs into nice habitat piles. we even got some help
from the cattle who devoured the ivy off the felled branches. They
were SO keen on it we stacked the majority in brambles on the original
reserve and excluded the cattle. Whilst a little ivy does no harm
gorging themselves on it is not recommended . Besides which we were
mindful that pupa of Holly Blues were likely to be present in the
stems.
As the picture shows the winter view from MHD is quite pleasing -
do join us on our last work day on Friday 23rd February.
Archive
Reserve news from previous years are available to download
as a PDF file. An indication of the file size is provided.
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