Category: Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Our Biggest Wild Animal

Our Biggest Wild Animal

The biggest wild animal we have in the Parish is the Badger and this has been the case for hundreds of years ever since the last wolf was hunted to extinction. But this could all be about to change. The deer is Britain’s largest land mammal, and the species is gradually spreading throughout the mainland. The population is believed to be about 2 million, an increase of 1.5 million in the last 50 years. Deer come in all shapes and sizes with the largest being the Red Deer. However, the species most likely to appear first in our Parish is the Muntjac, shown in the photo. Around the size of a dog it has been spotted in Lisvane so should not take long to spread through the Vale. Although taller than a badger it is not heavier so it could be argued that the badger will continue to be our largest until other varieties such as Roe or Fallow put in an appearance

Muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi) buck showing tusk

So, is this good news? Many would argue otherwise as deer can cause significant damage to crops and your gardens. They browse on young trees so prevent regrowth and reduce biodiversity. They can be a hazard on roads causing accidents for drivers and damaging vehicles, particularly during the mating seasons when they are more active. Around 350,000 are culled every year but this has done little to check the increase in their populations.

But there is another mammal which could become our largest. Weighing in at up to 200 kilograms – a badger may get to 35 kgs – these can also cause major damage to gardens, parks and other green spaces. Whilst well-established in the Forest of Dean there have been occasional sightings near Cwmcarn. This is about 25 miles away by road – less as the crow flies. Once a common feature in the Welsh countryside and featured in the Mabinogion it is, of course, the Wild Boar.

Wenvoe Community Wassailing

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Wenvoe Community Wassailing

Mike Tucker has been out and about trimming and laying the hedgerows planted by the Wildlife Group and the Scouts. Another ancient tradition that we have managed to re-establish in the village.

Mike has also been crafting and installing rustic props to help secure those fruit trees that have started to lean, often as a result of the considerable weight a good crop of fruit can add to a tree. Unsecured trees can eventually collapse but you can see in many old orchards trees that have been propped up and carry on happily growing and producing fruit for many years. Thank you, Mike.

Wenvoe Community Wassailing

We were delighted to be joined by 24 Wassailers on a gloriously sunny January morning. We blessed apple trees in the community orchard and also outside the Church Hall, proceeding to the Community Centre for hot spicy apple juice, tasty apple cakes and a lovely tale from our Wassailer in chief, Cath Little.

Big thanks to:

  • Wenvoe Community Centre, for hosting us
  • Llanbethian Orchards, for the donation of cider
  • Volunteers Sue Hoddell (for the cakes!), Sian and Steve Cumner Jones and Annie Bennett, all for making the event run smoothly.
  • Cath Little, a lovely and talented storyteller.
  • Special thanks to Claire Bottomley for getting the whole show on the road. Claire continues the story here and includes photographs which capture aspects of the day.

We look forward to Wassailing again next year!

A big thank you to everyone who supported and took part in the village Wassail (blessing of apple trees), hosted by Wenvoe Wildlife Group. We picked an auspicious date, as 17 January is Twelfth Night in the old Julian calendar, the traditional date for Wassailing.

We gathered on a beautiful, dry and sunny morning, starting with a Wassail blessing to the small apple tree outside the Church Hall. A group of 24 Wassailers continued on to the Community Orchard, where we blessed the apple trees with cider (kindly donated by Llanbethian Orchards) and toast, raising a hullabaloo banging pans, singing and chiming bells. Here’s to a bumper crop later this year!

The Wassail was led by storyteller, Cath Little, with additional Wassailing songs from Blanche Rowen, and we lingered a while in the sunny orchard before heading to the Community Centre for spiced apple juice, apple cakes made from apples harvested in the orchards last year, closing with a traditional tale about an apple tree from Cath Little.

This was our first Wassail in the village (at least for many years), and hopefully there will be another one next year, possibly incorporating Mari Lwyd.

Thank you everyone,

Claire.

Our First Wassail

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Celebrating Our Orchards

Wenvoe Wildlife Group will be hosting our first Wassail to celebrate our orchards in the Community Orchard on Saturday 17 January, 11.00 am- 12.00 noon at the orchard, followed by celebrations, singing and storytelling in the Community Centre.

Wassailing is an ancient new year tradition of blessing the apple orchards and to wish them and the community good health for the coming year. Bring a piece of toast if you can (for blessing the trees), a saucepan and wooden spoons to make noise for the tree blessings.

We will meet at 11.00 am at the small patch of land outside the Church Hall and toast the fruit trees there. If the weather is fair, we’ll then walk together over to the Community Orchard for more Wassailing, then back to the Community Centre for warming refreshments. If the weather is unsuitable to visit the orchard, we’ll continue directly to the Community Centre where there will be storytelling and song led by Cath Little, professional storyteller, and a chance to find out more about the Wenvoe Wildlife Group.

This will be a free event for all the family and there is no need to pre-book. Just turn up well wrapped up and in wellies if it’s wet. Dogs on leads will be welcome although they cannot enter the Community Centre.

The Community Orchard is a short walk from the centre of Wenvoe, adjacent to the Wenvoe Playing Fields. The Orchard is nurtured and maintained by Wenvoe Wildlife Group and has around 25 trees including a selection of apples, plums and pears along with medlar, quince and mulberry. The apple varieties include Tom Putt, Claygate Pearmain, Grenadier, Ashmeads Kernel, Ribston Pippin, Bardsley, Bakers Delicious and Morgan Sweet.

We are a community managed wildlife group based in and around Wenvoe, and the group is made up of local volunteers as well as other people who help with our various projects. Our activities involve conservation, hosting visits, leading wildlife and foraging walks, monitoring wildlife and giving advice on local biodiversity.

We look forward to celebrating our lovely orchard with you at this free family event.

Please contact Claire Bottomley on 074455 61389 if you need any further information and keep an eye out for reminders in the Village WhatsApp group.

The Big Garden Birdwatch

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

IT’S THE RSPB AND WENVOE WILDLIFE GROUP’S
BIG GARDEN BIRD WATCH THIS MONTH!

The Big Garden Birdwatch, run by the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), takes place again this year across the whole of the UK from 26th to 28th January.

We would like people who took part last year to take part again and ask new people to get involved too. We want you to share your findings with the RSPB and the Wenvoe Wildlife Group. This enables us to compare last year’s findings with this year and helps us identify which birds are doing well in the parish and which are not. (A summary of last years finding below)

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the numbers of house sparrows locally are declining quite quickly and blackbirds are not such a common sight possibly due to a virus. The Birdwatch will help us to find out more! Will the blue tit be the most seen bird again in 2026?

It’s easy and fun to take part – you simply watch the birds in your garden for one hour and record what you see. It is a great activity that you can do either on your own or with family members, including children. Don’t worry if your bird knowledge is limited as the RSPB has guides on their website to show you the different species.

All you do is count the birds you see in your garden for one hour over the Birdwatch weekend. It doesn’t matter what time of day you do your Birdwatch, but you will see more birds if you do it first thing in the morning. Count the highest number of each species you see at any one time. For example, if you saw four Starlings together and then two Starlings later your final count will be four (not six). If you see one robin 6 times you only count one robin. If you see few birds or none at all, that’s also really useful information for RSPB and the Wenvoe Wildlife Group.

Send your findings to the RSPB by filling in their simple form online. Also please send/give your results to the Wenvoe Wildlife Group via any of the following:

nigelrbillingham@yahoo.co.uk

bruce7@btinternet.com

Post or message Facebook-Wenvoe Wildlife.

Use ‘Contacts’ on our website-http://

wenvoewildlifegroup,weebly.com/

Please include your postcode. This helps us log where the different species of birds are within the parish. The results will be published in Wenvoe What’s On as soon as possible. Thank you.

Here is a summary of last year’s findings.

WENVOE BIRD WATCH RESULTS

January 24th – 27th, 2025

Summary

339 birds were spotted.

29 different bird species were recorded.

17 survey results were submitted.

Top Ten Wenvoe Birds

      • Blue Tit 37
      • Wood Pigeon 36
      • Blackbird 30
      • Long Tailed Tit 26
      • Jackdaw 24
      • Great Tit 23
      • Robin 21
      • House Sparrow 18
      • Goldfinch 17
      • Chaffinch 16
      • Coal Tit 16

Most Successful Reindeer Sale

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Most Successful Reindeer Sale

A very Happy Christmas and New Year to all our supporters.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

A most successful Reindeer Sale event took place again and our great thanks to Mike and Glenys for their generous support for WWG. This is our main source of funding, and we could not achieve a fraction of what we do without it. Our chutneys and jams, using fruits from our orchards, sold out quickly and we were delighted to hear of other residents using fruit such as Medlars in their home cooking. We have 6 Medlar trees, and they seem to produce an abundance each year – a great little tree with attractive blossom and seems to cope well with our climate.

The weather has conspired against some of our efforts to do maintenance in the orchards but there is always plenty to do if you can spare a few minutes. We were delighted to help the School on their Tree Day and Angela helped several classes with games and project work.

 

 

Orchard Maintenance

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Orchard Maintenance

Sian has cleared a section of the Watercress Beds at Goldsland. Llewellyn from the Vale Local Partnership team has done a fantastic job cutting the Community Orchard, Wild, Goldsland and Elizabethan orchards whilst also widening the paths around the Upper Orchid Field.

These and many other jobs are made possible through the money raised by the Tuckers’ events and all of you who support them. Other items we have spent this money on include new benches in the Community Orchard, new noticeboard in the Community Orchard, junior workshops for 7- to 11-year-olds, insurance, schoolbooks and items in the wildlife patch, leaflets, signage, tools and materials. Thank you to all who support us directly and those who participate in the Tucker events.

Date for your 2026 diary. The Garden Birdwatch takes place between Friday 23rd and Sunday 25th January. More details will follow nearer the time.

Many Tributes to The Late Ian Moody

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Many Tributes to The Late Ian Moody

There were many tributes to the late Ian Moody in the last issue of What’s On but he also played a major role in the Wenvoe Wildlife Group. A founder member, it was Ian who started the ball rolling by suggesting we formed a group to start maintaining the Upper Orchid Field. Ian was closely involved with the planting of the orchards, the design and construction of the Bee Hotels, excavation and stocking of the ponds and clearance of vegetation. Ian also instigated and ran the monthly conservation sessions on the Upper Orchid Field. One of the activities Ian participated in was the recording of Ancient and Veteran trees. These receive no special protection and only by recording them on the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Register can we reduce the risk that they will be cut down. Ian and Bruce recorded these whenever they came across them on their walks around South Wales. On one occasion Ian spotted a large Oak near Tretower.

The tree was measured and photographed, and it turned out to have been unrecorded up to that point. An Ancient, pollarded Oak proved to be one of the oldest in Wales. A WWG member subsequently mentioned reading a book called Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare in which he describes growing up on a farm near Tretower where there was a massive Oak. It turned out to be the same tree, so it had appeared in literature but had never been officially located and described. At over 9 metres in girth and many hundreds of years old, it was thanks to Ian’s eagle eyes that the tree was registered and celebrated.

So, the legacy is there. Orchards that should be good for 100 years and a tree that could have witnessed the times of Owen Glendower.

We shall be covering the topic of funding and what we spend it on in the next issue but meantime our grateful thanks to Glenys and Mike and everyone else who supported the event for raising the amazing sum of over £1,200 for WWG at the Village Show

Busy Installing And Refurbishing Structures

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Busy Installing And Refurbishing Structures

A number of residents have been busy installing and refurbishing structures in the orchards. Steve Jenkins has placed two new benches in the Community Orchard made of recycled materials which should last for several years. Martin Thomas and Bernard Jenkins have designed and constructed a nice new noticeboard for the same orchard after the vandalising of our previous noticeboard. Lenn Morris from Barry has refurbished an anonymously donated bench in the Goldsland Orchard. Your efforts are very much appreciated!

Our final junior workshop took place in the Elizabethan Orchard – again fully booked with a waiting list. Our thanks to Angela Peterken and Claire Newland for organising and running these very popular events. These workshops have been made possible through funding from the Tuckers’ Plant and Reindeer sales.

It is encouraging to see more and more residents posting images of wildlife seen locally on Facebook. Some are common – some less so like the dramatic-looking Wasp Spider seen in the photo – you do need colour to see it at its best. These records are registered with SEWBREC and will be available for consulting in the event of planning applications.

Wenvoe Community Orchid Field

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Wenvoe Community Orchid Field

Once known as the Sledging Field, this meadow is now a Community Nature reserve with over 300 species of flowers, grasses, insects and birds. It is managed as a traditional meadow with an annual mowing to encourage the sort of wildflowers that are fast disappearing from our landscape.

The 5 acre field is surrounded by hedgerows and woodland and there are fine views from the higher points across the valley. On a clear day you can see Penarth and beyond that England across the Bristol Channel. There are several benches around the field, some in the sun, others in shade.

Mature trees enclose the site including Oak and Sweet Chestnut. A public right of way runs through the bottom of the meadow but you can follow any of the paths that meander around the field. An information sign near the entrance shows the different routes you can take.

In Winter look out for Ravens, Buzzards and Wood-peckers with Bullfinches patrolling the hedgerows. The bright red berries of Black Bryony still trail over the shrubs whilst rabbits and moles are in evidence.

With Spring comes masses of yellow – Primroses and Cowslips carpet the field.

From late Spring to early Autumn you can see seven different species of Orchid but the best time is June when the field is covered in several thousand Common Spotted Orchids.

Unusual plants include Herb Paris and the Spiked Star of Bethlehem. Shrews and Field Voles will be lurking in the undergrowth and Slowworms are common. Ringlet butterflies are on the field and Holly Blues on the hedges. Summer also sees a profusion of insects from small ladybirds and froghoppers through lacewings and scorpion flies to the larger burying beetles.

The Elephant Hawk Moth enjoys the big clumps of Rosebay Willowherb. Hoverflies roam
around the Brambles and pose on Fleabane.To find out more about insects and to get ideas on building homes for them visit Insectopia at the top of the field.

From late Summer the Black Knapweed which covers the meadow is host to large numbers of bees. On wet days, wander up to Molluscopolis where many of the secrets of slugs and snails are revealed. As they love damper weather you should find several different species.

How to find us.

Entering Wenvoe from the A4050 by the Walston Castle Premier Inn.

Turn right and then immediately left and follow the narrow lane to the top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entering Wenvoe from the A4050 near the church.
Turn left by the church in to Walston Road, follow the road to the far end. Parking is on the road; take care not to cause an obstruction for local residents. Follow the marked footpath through the old quarry to the Orchid Field.

 

 

 

 

Want to know more?

The Upper Orchid Field is a meadow owned by the Vale of Glamorgan Council and managed by the Wenvoe Wildlife Group. If you need more information or would like to help with conservation, contact us at The Wenvoe Wildlife Group

Interested in bringing a group to the field?

We have hosted visits from younger age groups such as Beavers and Cubs and can help with school visits. Students and specialists should be able to find suitable topics for research. Species lists can be found on the main noticeboard on the field.

There are no facilities on site but there are two pubs nearby, the Horse and Jockey at Twyn-yr-Odyn and the Walston Castle in Wenvoe. Wenvoe has a village shop and Post Office

 

The Sites Are In Tip-Top Condition.

Wenvoe Wildlife Group

The Sites Are In Tip-Top Condition.

Activities this month included strimming the Welsh Orchard, continuing to clear the Upper Orchid Field and working on the Community Orchard. We attended the Playing Fields Open Day but had very few visitors to the Community Orchard – not surprising as the weather was pretty miserable. The willows on the Community Orchard are due to be cut back at the end of the month but they will continue to provide a screen at the northern end of the orchard. Most of the fruit seems to be doing well and the Shepherds Bullace is already being harvested by enthusiastic jam-makers. We still get asked where the orchards are so you can pick up a leaflet showing their locations from the Tuckers’ noticeboard dispenser outside 29 Vennwood Close.

We were delighted to hear that our 7 sites had all passed the Green Flag assessment. Another independent vote of confidence in the quality and accessibility of the nature reserves. Thanks are due to the members of the group, landowners and residents who aim to keep the sites in tip-top condition.

 

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