BBOWT

THE highest number of glow worms ever recorded at a nature reserve was one of the highlights of 2023 for the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.

The trust also saw record numbers of orchids, a rare golden hoverfly and goshawks breeding at a woodland for the first time.

However, numbers of butterflies, dormice and other beloved species continued to decline and the trust has warned that urgent action is needed to help wildlife on our doorsteps or it could be lost forever.

Colin Williams, senior ecology officer at the trust, said: “I am so pleased with some of the fantastic wildlife we’ve recorded on our nature reserves this year.

“Getting record numbers of glow worms or seeing new dragonflies is great but this is almost entirely down to decades of incredible work by our staff and thousands of tireless unpaid volunteers creating robust and diverse habitats.

“We’re indebted to the 125 volunteers who helped us carry out this year’s wildlife surveys, along with our staff and wildlife trainees.

“However, the wider picture for wildlife in our three counties is incredibly distressing and nature is in crisis across our region.

“What we are doing is slowing that decline to hopefully reach a point where we’ll be able to reverse the damage humans have caused and start to see improvements. We’re doing our best to hold on to things we still have until we can reverse those trends.”

The record glow worm number was recorded at Whitecross Green Wood nature reserve on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border near Bicester, where staff and volunteers have been working for years to create the perfect grassland habitat.

Volunteer surveyors counted 303 glowing females in the summer, the highest total since the census started in 1999.

At the same reserve, the trust also recorded a very rare southern migrant hawker dragonfly laying eggs, the first time the species has been recorded breeding in Oxfordshire.

The dragonfly was sighted at a new pond the charity created specifically for invertebrates and amphibians, so is another example of targeted conservation work paying off.

At the trust’s Dancersend reserve in Buckinghamshire, volunteer invertebrate expert Sue Taylor identified a golden long-horned hoverfly, the first record of the species at the site and one of very few in the county.

Mr Williams said that orchids had an excellent year at the trust’s nature reserves, including a record 1,111 rare military orchids at the Homefield Wood reserve near Marlow.

The trust has been monitoring orchids at this site since 1975, when not a single military orchid was seen.

One of the ways volunteers help is painstakingly putting protective shields around each plant to stop deer and rabbits eating them.

Staff recorded just two hazel dormice across all its nature reserves, down from more than 100 in 2004.

Butterflies also had an average or below-average year but Mr Williams personally recorded excellent numbers of brown argus and holly blue butterflies.

Pete Hughes