Good news…….
The family of pigs which were dumped in Rail Copse last week have been caught, and have found a new home. They have all been rounded up and taken by a rare breed farm, as pets.
The mother who was heavily pregnant gave birth to eight piglets at her new home!
‘Picnicking in style’
To mark the longest day a party arrived from Chipperfield in a Stanley 1914 – People Carrier, for a picnic. Very English, but wait the car is an American model 812 Mountain Wagon, developed to carry passengers around the Colorado Rockies!
The scene may have been a regular event around Ashridge and Beacon Hill in the Edwardian era.
The group was divided up into three teams.
One team went with Emily and dug up various turfs in various locations in Ashridge and transplanted them into the new pond area to enrich the wild flower diversity there.
Another group were “skipping the rope” in the deep bracken, to try to find nesting birds before the large bracken bashing device rolls over them. The Trust have an ongoing programme of removing some of the extensive bracken to improve habitat diversity. The areas are “rolled” regularly which impairs the growth, and the bracken will eventually die off.
Another team were completing the building of an earth barrier by topping it with turf. The grass barrier looks a lot more sympathetic with the landscape rather than the spikey posts which have been replaced.
Whatever next – Ashridge are adding pigs to their livestock collection of cattle and sheep. The pigs will soon clear out the bracken.
Not really – a family of pigs were dumped in Rail Copse on Aldbury common during the week.
Can any of you ‘Followers’ guess where this is? Richard was out litter picking when he stumbled across the concrete post with GB on it.
Despite being a misty and somewhat drizzly morning on Northchurch Common it was still well worth getting up early for. I was delighted to see that Meadow Pipits were particularly plentiful, singing mainly on the wing or from perches. In my opinion, far more than usual of this species were seen on the ground upon the pathways and they allowed us to get much closer to them before flying off.
In contrast, I believe that Skylark numbers were down, with significantly fewer singing in flight. However, several older juveniles were seen, singly or in twos. With or without a parent present. Yellow Hammers were also heard again.
Posted on behalf of Roz
Duke of Burgundy are one of the rarer species of butterfly that grace the chalk grassland in our area. Indeed, they are of sufficient interest that a group of volunteers have been diligently counting their number since they first started to emerge a few weeks ago.
Now they are coming to the end of their season, it is time to search the cowslip leaves upon which their caterpillars feed, in the hope of finding evidence of the next generation. Volunteers and staff learnt to identify the particular type of holes made by the Duke of Burgundy larvae. Tiny eggs laid by the female butterflies were also identified, along with the larvae themselves.
As an absolute beginner, I found this type of surveying a fascinating, challenging and a delight. Particularly as we spent the morning amongst some of the most beautiful countryside on the estate, surrounded by wild flowers and being serenaded by glorious bird song.
Posted on behalf of Roz. Picture taken by Rikki.
With an abundance of flints in the area it is not surprising that they appear everywhere, in churches, houses and garden walls. So it was at Ashridge when the Bridgewaters required a coach route throughout the Park, and it was walled in flint-work. After some two hundred years the longest artefact on the Estate required complete rebuilding – a huge undertaking. That’s when the flint-work team stepped in and after many years of effort , they still have some way to go. So they are now looking for some new recruits to finish the job. Any offers!
Please fill out the form below and you will be contacted as soon as possible.
Take a bike ride along the footpath through the woods at Aldbury Nowers.
It only takes seven minutes on the video. Illegal of course because it is not a bridleway, but this is what some mountain bikers get up to – lifting their bikes over a kissing gate.
Posted on behalf of Roz
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Ashridge Volunteers 