01/08/2026
🦋 August Wildlife Update: Wiggly Woods is Alive! 🌾
Our fields and woodland edges are absolutely bustling with life. Have you noticed a change on your walks? Here is a look at what’s thriving right now:
📌 Top Left: A perfectly camouflaged Meadow Brown resting low in the grass tracks.
📌 Top Right: A stunning Small Tortoiseshell butterfly fuelling up on pink Hemp-agrimony froth.
📌 Bottom Left: The yellow Trefoil carpet completely taking over an unmown habitat island.
📌 Bottom Centre: Delicate white Yarrow clusters waking up beautifully along our mown path edges.
📌 Bottom Right: Frothy, honey-scented Meadowsweet exploding across our lower wet meadow.
🌱 The Secret Behind the Flowers:
These plants weren't sown by hand! By shifting how we mow the fields and knocking back the choking rushes, we have triggered a natural dormant seedbank regeneration. These native seeds have been waiting patiently in the soil for years, and our careful management has finally given them the light and space they need to wake up and repopulate the land.
🐝 The Wildlife Powerhouse:
▪️Yellow Trefoil is a massive wildlife engine, supporting over 130 insect species and acting as the vital food plant for Common Blue caterpillars.
▪️Hemp-agrimony & Yarrow are late-summer super-stations, providing massive nectar reserves for native bumblebees, hoverflies, and butterflies.
▪️Meadowsweet fills the lower valley with a beautiful, sweet fragrance and provides excellent ground cover for our millions of frogs, toads and dragonflies.
✨ Keep Your Eyes Peeled!
We’ve spotted our first brilliant sky-blue 'Common Blue' butterflies flitting around the yellow trefoil patches, plus some orange ones and yellow ones in the lower fields (yet to be fully identified). Bright neon blue and giant striped dragonflies also patrol the air.
📸 Share your photos!
If you spot any of these beauties on your next slot, we would love to see them as I’ve so far failed to photo most of the butterflies or dragonflies!
🪵 Woodland Care Update:
You will also see Marc has been continuing work in the woodland section below 'Fun Field' felling several dead Ash trees. While it might look a bit drastic, this vital safety work opens up the dark canopy so sunlight can hit the forest floor, triggering the next generation of native trees and woodland wildflowers! This is work in progress - watch this space!
Thank you all for your continued support, your bookings directly help us fund, manage and regenerate this beautiful Devon habitat! 🚜🦓🦋