The crisp and crunchy season is here!

Making way for the low, warm light and the cooler breeze, Autumn in all of it's glory feels like it has well and truly arrived now, doesn't it? And with it of course come all of this season's tasks too!

Definitely far more than just pumpkins on our patches at this time of year - apart from maybe a few at Grow Wilder! A chance to get a bit more of a glimpse of what's involved as we've moved from summer in to these autumn months below, and that's just for starters. Supporting us with our seed saving, hay cutting, scrub clearing, drystone walling and pond repairs as well as creating a brand new reception guide for Great George Street, the incredible support from so many of you with the vast amount that needs doing across the Trust has been as wide and diverse as ever and yet again, absolutely invaluable.

We've also had some fantastic opportunities these last few months to get up and close with nature and wildlife too with the Young Volunteers fungi session, the mini ones from Wildlife Watch club witnessing some fox cubs feeding, a group at Grow Wilder learning about how to process flax and we've also got some exciting information to share about an opportunity for you to be featured in the BBC Wildlife Magazine. All the details are below.

So as ever, a pretty eclectic mixture that all feeds in to our support of nature's recovery. A HUGE thank you as ever for both your time and energy across all of our different groups, reserves and projects to help make that happen. We'd be totally lost without you!

Wishing you a gentle and cosy, all be it probably rather blustery next few months.

Fungi Foraging at Grow Wilder for our Young Volunteers

Our young volunteers had a wonderfully autumnal session this month, enjoying a fungi foray at Grow Wilder followed by some industrious hedgehog hibernation box building and installing. 

Armed with wildlife guidebooks and the identification apps, our passionate young people headed out across the site in the hopes of finding and ID-ing mushrooms and were rewarded with a variety of treasures. They found hare’s foot inkcaps, fairy ring champignon and all kinds of bracket fungi. There’s something beautifully grounding (pun intended) about hunting for mushrooms that comes from spending time in spaces normally overlooked; gently crawling amongst decaying leaves and slowly moving through seemingly uninhabited lawns. Taking notice of what’s around us, leaves turning and mushrooms newly emerging, helps reconnect us to nature, and this is something we make time for in our young volunteer sessions. 

After much fungi finding and tea drinking the group got to work on constructing and installing hedgehog hibernations boxes. Hedgehog’s numbers have been declining at an alarming rate across the UK and so benefit from any help gardeners and landowners can offer. Our cosy hedgehog homes were made from a variety of materials including an upcycled drawer found on the street and some old plastic buckets. Once stuffed with dry leaves and hay and weatherproofed, one box was hidden amongst the hazel trees on the Grow Wilder site and the others were taken home to be installed in some of the volunteer’s gardens. 

If you know someone aged 14 – 24 who’d love to join our volunteers (perhaps it’s you!) please contact Sophie or on whatsapp 07917 920 747. We meet on the first Saturday of every month, with our next session being held at Grow Wilder on November 5th. For more details, please get in touch. We look forward to welcoming you!

Wildlife Watch Club

Pretty exciting time recently for our Wildlife Watch group who got to learn more about animal tracks after Rose, one of our watch leaders shared her fantastic camera footage from around Grow Wilder of this bushy one!

Alongside foxes, our Wildlife Watch group for 5-10 year olds have been exploring all sorts of different animal tracks badgers, rats and foxes, and having to work out what each animal was. This was fantastic as the children got to see clips of fox cubs feeding from their mother and badgers scratching their bellies not too far from where we were sitting, which really got our imaginations running of how busy the site is at nighttime once the people leave!  Our marvellous volunteers also dissected barn owl pellets with the children, trying to work out exactly what owls eat, taking a closer look at tiny skeletons of voles and mice certainly got us ready for the spooky season!

This session was so much fun, and I'm sure many children went home wanting to discover the tracks and signs of animals that live nearby them. Thank you to all of the volunteers for your commitment and passion to these sessions, all of your love for nature shines through and is taken home by the kids.

Commercial Development Volunteer

Are you looking for a career changer, recently retired or maybe you've had experience of planning and coordinating tasks at some scale? We're looking for a volunteer to play a pivotal role in working alongside the commercial development manager on key commercial projects, helping to set up new initiatives like a visitors centre and enhancing our current processes around things like our online shop.

We're on a mission to build a core team of volunteers in this area as we seek new ways of raising funds that will support and enable People to Take Action for Nature and help us in our work to tackle the Climate Emergency. If you're interested in finding out a bit more, details of the role can be found here or alternatively do drop Keily an email with any questions you might have.

Do you want to be featured in BBC Wildlife Magazine?

The BBC Wildlife Magazine have been in touch as they're looking for volunteers to feature in their 'Go Wild' section. Might that be you?

They're looking to interview wildlife volunteers and have asked us at AWT if any of you who volunteer regularly with us might be willing to be interviewed. Sounds like a fairly simple process by which they'll send across a Word doc questionnaire to be filled in, and will need you to supply a high-res image and then you should be good to go!

They are particularly interested in featuring people from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.Please get in touch with them directly via Megan on megan.shersby@immediate.co.uk

Grow Wilder

We have had a really busy autumn at Grow Wilder, developing our event and course offerings on site, which this month has included a flax processing workshop and an Introduction to Agroforestry course.

On the ground we have been harvesting the last of the summer crops, planting out overwintering crops such as broad beans, peas, garlic and winter greens, and most importantly, saving seed! We have had a bountiful harvest of tomato and cucumber seed this year, as well as beans, parsnip, chard and cauliflower. This is what our cauliflower seed crop looks like being hung up to fully ripen & dry in the polytunnel 

Keep an eye on our Facebook & Eventbrite page for more exciting events to be released soon! And in the meantime we wanted to share a gorgeous quote from one of our recent course participants...

Many thanks for a perfect day spent on one fascinating, necessary topic. I learnt so much and found my motor skills and my coordination tested to a degree not found since learning how to tie a bowline as a child.  Your subject came alive in our (my) arthritic hands and the history layered the flax and the necessity to revive it, into my soul. 

Land Management & Reserve Volunteers

As ever our Land Management teams and Reserve Volunteers have been busy as usual pouring their energy into the management of the reserve as late summer gives way to a glorious colourful autumn.

The lovely grassy glades in the woods between the carpark and the steep grassland have been cut and raked.  A few turkey oaks Quercus Cerris have been felled near the goat shed at the bottom of the grassland to slow self seeding onto the grassland and surrounding woods. 

Out on the grassland itself, to support the browsing habits of the goats there, invasive cotoneaster has been cleared, an ongoing job on many limestone grassland sites especially near to gardens, from which it escapes very easily. Infrastructure repairs have also been taking place, with attention to the fence around the grassland (those goats!) and steps on the footpaths being renovated for our happy visitors smooth and carefree perambulations. 

The Friday Group have also been on the reserve twice recently, specifically to help cut back the vegetation along the main ride leading from the car park all the way around the hillside. With several brushcutters beating back the summers growth fast progress was made. Since many dieback stricken ash trees were felled along the ride last year, we now have an opportunity to maintain a beautiful wide ride with a great variety of vegetation now the sunlight can reach the ground. Huge thanks to all of you who've mucked in and helped to keep Browne's Folly in a healthy, much loved condition.

The Dolebury Warren crew have been attending to hawthorn and blackthorn seedlings and saplings encroaching on grassland and heather fields. As nesting season came to an end more focus has been put on to pushing back scrub, with WAG and Friday Group knocking back bramble and reeds at the wetland reserve Moorend Spout (owned and managed by NEWT, Nailsea), and WAG also getting out to Lawrence Weston Moor to push back scrub to improve the Rhyne habitat for water voles! 

Groups have been undertaking hay cuts on all our grasslands to suppress vigorous growth of grasses and remove the nutrients to ensure continued vital regrowth of the wildflowers the next year. Our Friday group have done an excellent job of cutting many of our sites, and WAG have also been scything hard to get it all done. The dedicated Walton Common group have been working alongside the lovely herd of Dexter cattle to keep this stunning grassland in top shape and give the wildflowers the best chance when Spring arrives. They have also been delicately tending to the archaeological feature on the reserve, known as the ‘banjo’, to ensure it doesn’t become engulfed with vegetation. 

The opening up of paths and rides for access has also been a focus, with the Goblin Combe crew doing a great job of keeping good access across the site and allowing light through the scrub along rides for ground flora. They have also undertaken some notable tree management, by clearing surrounding invasives and coppicing hazel to allow more light through to older and high value trees. Last year at Goblin Combe the volunteer group created many coppice stool nests to protect the regrowth from browsing deer, which have worked very well as the regrowth is flourishing! The Gordano Conservation Group have done a fantastic job in recent weeks at Clapton Moor and Taggart’s Wood, cutting back vegetation along footpaths to maintain good access. 

Our lovely Mendip group that look after Hellenge, Purn and Hutton have been doing a fantastic job of rebuilding the drystone wall at Hutton. They have also been busy repairing the old Dew pond at Hellenge with Tina Bath (local limestone mortar, hedgelaying and dry stone walling expert). They have done a beautiful job of restoring the pond with the original stone and limestone mortar. A big shoutout to Dolebury John for organising this fantastic restoration project of the pond, and to Tina for leading with such amazing skill and the RAGS Reptile and Amphibian Group for all of their support. A large adder was spotted by the volunteers next to the completed pond on the last day of building!  

A special shout out for Dolebury Warren’s wonderful volunteer group as they are currently looking for more members! Please e-mail volunteer@avonwildlifetrust.org.uk to find out more/register your interest and be sure to mention Dolebury in the title.
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A huge thank you to all of our reserves volunteers, who do such an amazing job to take care of these special places! 

We are incredibly grateful to all of our volunteers for their awesome dedication and energy in supporting nature to thrive across Avon. We could not function as an organisation without the support of our volunteers, and for that we are so appreciative. If you are interested in volunteering with any of our local groups, please enquire via the website.

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