Amplifying nature’s chorus in Purbeck
- Published:
- 16 January 2025
- Last updated:
- 16 January 2025
We have launched an exciting project to amplify nature's chorus across Purbeck. The National Trust is restoring areas of wood pasture, a prime habitat for our much-loved songbirds.
Wood pasture is one of the UK’s most biodiverse habitats, a mosaic of grassland, scrub, hedges and trees. It provides important nesting, roosting and foraging sites for a wide variety of wildlife, including birds such as the yellowhammer, linnet and goldfinch, as well as the extremely rare turtle dove and nightingale.
Ben Cooke, Area Ranger for the National Trust, said:
“We haven’t yet lost this soundscape in Purbeck, but it has quietened, with some birds disappearing altogether. By restoring wood pasture, we want to reverse this trend and bring back a cacophony of birdsong and the hum of insects, not just in a few places, but across Purbeck. Imagine how fantastic it would be if the calls of lost species such as the turtle dove became part of our lives again.”
Wood pasture, typified by the New Forest landscapes, benefits wildlife because of the mix of habitats. The open ground and grassland encourage an abundance of wildflowers and insects. Scrub islands provide shelter and food for birds, insects and small mammals, while trees are especially attractive to bats, birds and lichens.
Ben added: “Together these will create a landscape that’s teeming with the sights, sounds and scents of nature. It will be a place where people can immerse themselves in the natural world, and hopefully inspire them to create similar habitats in their own gardens, schools or parks.”
Working with our tenant farmers, the aim is to create 380ha (940 acres) of wood pasture across Purbeck which involves planting around 60,000 trees and shrubs over the next six years. To maximise on blossom and fruit, the trees planted will be native species such as crab apple, hazel, holly, hawthorn, elder and wild pear.
Currently, four tenant farmers in Purbeck are taking part in the wood pasture project, and others are expected to join. With the help of local schools and other community groups, seeds and berries are being harvested from hedgerows and woods. These are being planted in small plots of land which have been rotavated to create bare ground where the seedlings can grow.
Ben said: “This looks drastic at first, but the new vegetation will soon take hold, whether it’s been planted or regenerated naturally. We are also experimenting with ways to protect saplings from grazing animals, especially deer, which not only eat the new growth but can jump high fences to get to it.”
In some areas, this involves using protective layers of thorny gorse, bramble and hawthorn, or piles of dead branches. In others, deer-proof exclosures have been erected.
Ben said: “We’ll be checking to establish which methods work to protect the saplings, as well as monitoring wildlife species each year to see if numbers are increasing. Hopefully the results will be dramatic - and we'll hear nature singing out loud again! ”
