by Willoughby Parish Council | Nov 2, 2020 | Autumn, Nature & Wildlife
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...
by Willoughby Parish Council | Apr 10, 2020 | Community posts, Nature & Wildlife
This is the ideal time of year to make use of hedgerow foods. The present shortages will challenge our skills in making food stretch further. When going for your daily walk around our wonderful countryside, take a plastic bag and a pair of rubber gloves. The nettles...
by Willoughby Parish Council | May 12, 2017 | Natural History Page, Nature & Wildlife
There is a whole world of grasses at our feet waiting to be explored and appreciated as part of the scenery and of our rural environment. If we count the cereal crops, which we should include because botanically and genetically they belong amongst the grasses, then 26...
by Willoughby Parish Council | May 12, 2017 | Natural History Page, Nature & Wildlife
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...
by Willoughby Parish Council | May 11, 2017 | Natural History Page, Nature & Wildlife
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...
by Willoughby Parish Council | Apr 12, 2017 | Autumn, Natural History Page, Nature & Wildlife
“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...
