Beautiful Butterfly

Yarner Wood, Bovey Valley and Trendlebere Down, located within the East Dartmoor Woods and Heaths National Nature Reserve, are fabulous hotspots for butterflies! Yarner Wood was one of the first sites to take on the annual recording of butterflies back in 1976, when the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme began. https://ukbms.org/methods Volunteer butterfly surveyors walking the Yarner Wood transect The ‘transect walk’ is quite an undertaking, requiring surveyors to walk a fixed route, in good weather, on a weekly basis betweenRead more

Yarner Wood: Open Air Laboratory and Conservation Gem

Natural England are linking up with external contributors in our blogs to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the declaration of Yarner Wood as a National Nature Reserve (NNR). Yarner Wood, made ancient by the crucial relationship between trees and fungi, has seen many shifting attitudes towards it across it’s long past. In recent centuries, up to 1952, these beautiful woodlands were owned as part of the Yarner Estate. During this time, Yarner Wood was not a place of particular conservationRead more

Shades of Light & Dark

The varied chain of woodlands along the Bovey Valley are among the significant habitat features of the East Dartmoor National Nature Reserve (NNR). They also form part of a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). These classifications aren’t handed out lightly; they are only bestowed on places where local wildlife is a priority, where there is something of note that is so remarkable that we need to protect it and conserve it forRead more

The Battle of the Bovey

From a lichen’s perspective the Bovey Valley in East Dartmoor National Nature Reserve is an ideal home. In fact, Hisley Wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest recognised for its assemblages of lichen, but having legal protection is only part of the story. To sustain these precious and rare species, more information is needed about the local lichen present in the woods. This is where the Lichen Lovers come in. To maintain SSSI designation the nature reserve must beRead more

Ivy on Larch Trees at Hisley Wood

Ivy on trees is often the subject of great debate. On one hand it casts dense shade and on the other it’s a valuable source of late season nectar, but one October morning a group of conservationists walked through Hisley Wood with a view to protecting some of the ivy clad larch trees above the derelict remains of Boveycombe farmstead. They were on site to provide advice to the felling team who would select and save some of the monumentalRead more