Smiling Tree Farm, next Sun 27th June

It has been all smiles so far for our field meetings programme which is going very well, and our next outing is a recording visit to Smiling Tree Farm, no less!.  The aim is to record as much as we can on the farm as the owners are really interested to know what they have there.  All we know so far is:

Smiling Tree Farm is in South Shropshire between New Invention and Bucknell, at SO31627582 and is a pastoral enterprise, so there will be fields and hedgerows, cows and sheep and beautiful views of rolling countryside!  Booking is necessary, email: Mags Cousins, so you can be given access instructions, as it is quite rural with limited parking.

Hope to see some smiling faces at Smiling Tree Farm!

best wishes

Mags Cousins

Next field meeting Muxton Marsh Sun 6th June

The first field visit of the season, last Saturday, to Brook Vessons delivered on all promises; plants, weather, company, views and there is a lovely photo album on Dan's Facebook page

Next one is Sun. 6th June to Muxton Marsh SSSI and Shropshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve at Granville Country Park, north east of Telford.  It combines industrial heritage with fabulous species rich habitats, with damp meadows, sedge fen, alder carr and some ancient woodland. 

Muxton Marsh SSSI citation says "The site is part of a complex of habitats which have developed in an area of north-east Telford left semi-derelict by past coal-mining. Impeded drainage caused by spoil dumping has contributed to the formation of wetland habitats here...  and this site is the best remaining example of unimproved grassland, fen and carr. 

Shropshire Wildlife Trust reserve description is slightly more poetic; "An abundance of bird’s-foot trefoil now feeds generations of caterpillars of Telford’s speciality butterflies, the dingy skipper and green hairstreak. Orchids, ox-eye daisy, cowslips and yellow rattle, rarely seen now in agricultural fields, have miraculously appeared in what was, in the not-so-distant past, a grim and uninviting landscape."

Penny knows it well and is leading this one, meeting at 11:00 am in Woodbine Close. This is a cul-de-sac off Marshbrook Way, Muxton at SJ7146 1351. Park between drive ways as discreetly as possible.  For further information about the meeting please contact Penny Wysome, 01952 242617, pennywysome@yahoo.com.