The Natural History of Willoughby

Below are a number of articles from our blog. If you would like to write for this page, please send us your contributions!

2022 Footpath Report

2022 Footpath Report

Village resident Rob Bowyer acts as our Footpaths Officer; below you can read his annual report. Notts County Council Rights of Way officers are beginning to get back to normal on their work, having asked everyone to bear in mind, that because of the COVID-19...

Protect your Pooch with the Neighbourhood Watch

Protect your Pooch with the Neighbourhood Watch

In response to the increased fear of pet theft, Neighbourhood Watch has launched our PROTECT YOUR POOCH campaign. You can support the campaign by acting on their advice & you can help make pet theft a specific criminal offence by signing a petition or writing to...

Autumn 2020 News from Willoughby Wood

Autumn 2020 News from Willoughby Wood

Willoughby's beautiful Millennium Wood is maintained by a wonderful team of volunteers. Now led by Dick Merriman - and before that for many years by Brian Thornally - the team looks after the trees, maintains the pathways and sees that any jobs that need doing are...

Churchyards as Time Capsules

Churchyards as Time Capsules

The thought that a church yard is full of echoes of the history of its parish and of rural England is deeply embedded in our culture, and I feel conscious of it whenever I sit on the seat for a rest and a think, or cut the west hedge. The sentiment appears in...

Wildlife of Willoughby

Wildlife of Willoughby

Willoughby has no formally designated wild flower gardens, though some gardens are semi-wild by default, including mine. In its wildness some cowslips mysteriously colonised my front lawn many years ago, and with no encouragement beyond taking care to avoid them with...

Birds to Spot in Willoughby

Birds to Spot in Willoughby

I think I have identified over 40 species of bird in Willoughby in recent years, but I dare say that there are many residents, far more expert in ornithology, who could name many more. Of all the vertebrate wild animal life, it is probably the birds which attract the...

Signs of Autumn in Willoughby

Signs of Autumn in Willoughby

“To autumn” by John Keats (1792-1821) must surely be one of the most quoted poems in English, with its “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. But what of our local natural history in autumn, and of its fruitfulness?  As drivers we’re not always pleased to see the...