June Focus

Here’s what we’ve been up to

The weather is getting warmer and plants and animals are becoming easier to notice with wild plants’ bright flowers and with insects and birds flying around.

It is an excellent time of year for us to check on what species we have in Mitchells Field. This is the area next to the Hook Schools, which has been the focus of Wilder Hook’s activities. Here we have been working to increase wildlife friendly space and create a corridor for wild things to spread through the village. So, in May we held our annual surveys there for birds and plants. Look out for the results of our efforts in the next Hook Focus!

We also held our Wilder Hook AGM where Pete West gave us an excellent talk “Rustles in the Brambles and Ripples in the Reedbeds’.

‘Let it Bloom in June’ – your garden lawn

You might have seen the wild flower meadow area in Mitchell’s Field opposite the path to the tennis courts. You can have your own mini meadow in your garden if you have been joining in with not cutting the lawn during ‘No Mow May’, and you now decide to continue this into ‘Let it Bloom in June’!

The main benefits include that it looks lovely to see all the flowers, and you’ll find that butterflies’ eggs laid in the grass stems get a chance to hatch into caterpillars.

Feed the Birds?

Did you know that the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ have recently advised we should take a break from feeding garden birds during May to October? It’s been found that birds have plenty of food without our garden feeders and are actually healthier without them because birds don’t catch diseases from each other whilst they cluster on the feeders.

But it’s great to start feeding birds again later in the year and we all enjoy watching them in our gardens.]

What have you spotted in your garden or on road verges in Hook?

At Wilder Hook we are very keen to know what types of wildlife the residents of Hook are seeing or hearing in gardens, work places and on the road verges in Hook. Do let us know what you find by emailing the address below. More pairs of eyes and ears really help us get a better picture and as a result we will be able to find out what we need to protect and encourage, and whether our efforts to create corridors are helping.

When we find interesting plants such as orchids on the road sides we can look into whether grass cutting regimes might be changed. In recent times we have seen Common Spotted Orchids and Pyramidal and Bee Orchids near our roads. You could also see these in your own gardens.

Upcoming events – get involved

Keep an eye on our Wilder Hook Facebook page (scan the QR code below) to get up to date information on our events which include:

• Hook Village Litter Pick 2 pm Sunday 14th June
• Butterfly Walk at Bartley Heath 2-4 pm Saturday 4th July - Peter Vaughan will lead a walk. The car park on the B3349 will be opened for the event.
• Bioblitz Sunday 12th July – join us at Mitchells Field to help us count and study all the wildlife we have including the flowers and butterflies in the meadow. We will have some experts to chat to and help us identify what we find.
• Marsh Gentian Walk at Bartley Heath 2- 4 pm Sunday 23rd August

Find out more

You can join our mailing list by contacting our email address below or see our Facebook page with details of the events.

Email address wilder.hook.hart@gmail.com