Under the umbrella of the Environment Group, 2025 is the year we are looking to collect and record data to establish what is going in the environment of Stonesfield recording what we find onto national recording databases.

This will be mainly centred on just over an acre of glebe land on the right as you go down Brook Lane. The Parish Council have approved the development of a five year plan to manage the site for the protection of the limestone grassland and the various wildlife from the fungi in the soil to the birds that fly overhead. You can hear the tawny owls most evenings hooting for territory and a barn owl has been seen on the site hunting for voles. On the ground wax caps have appeared.

The five year plan will be finished by the end of the month and then be out for consultation and comment. We are working with ‘Wild Oxfordshire’ and have had a grant from the ‘Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment’

We have had very generous support and advice from many specialists. Many will be helping with the baseline data collection.

Moths

Does anyone in the village have a moth trap? Or know how to tell one moth from another? If so, we need your help please. As a minimum we will be recording moths from May to August. This gives us a base line for future years. Stonesfield was the last place in the country to record the Pale Shinning Brown moth (moths all have great names) it is now thought to be extinct. We hope to prove otherwise.

Butterflies

We will record all we see on site.

We will use two butterflies for particular attention and aim to have them both breeding on site by 2030. The Brimstone, over the last 14 years there has been an 18% decline recorded ( the big butterfly count) In 2024 Stonesfield only recorded 6 sightings over the big butterfly count. The site has the food plant for the caterpillars, common buckthorn. The common blue has a 52% decline in the last 14 years and no recordings in the big butterfly count in 2024. The site should be ideal and does have Birdsfoot Trefoil on site

Glow-worms

There have been glow-worms on site and we will be surveying to find out if they are still there. The female glows for a few days trying to attract a mate. We have been given details by the National Trust on how to monitor male glow-worms which we will record as well.

On 6 November 2024 a glow-worm was seen glowing in Baggs Bottom. Recording this it was the latest sighting ever seen in the UK for any year since records have been kept. We only held the record for two days as another was seen on the south coast on the 8 November. Worryingly this is probably a sign of global warming disturbing the life cycle.

We plan to arrange a complete survey of glow-worms in and around Stonesfield in june and July. details will follow nearer the time volunteers most welcome.

We will also record insects, bats, mammals and birds.

You will have seen that we have done considerable work in 2024 following advice we have removed invading trees, ivy and particularly Clematis Vitalba (Old Mans Beard) that has been swamping the trees and shrubs. Here is some we have taken out. We should see a great improvement in the trees.

Trees

We are creeping up to our target of a tree planted for everyone in the village (1,575 people at the last census) having planted a small orchard in the rectory paddock we are up to 1,541 trees planted…. Only 34 to go, you helped sponsor 1,600 trees in Madagascar so will have two trees per person. The area the trees are planted has just found two species of lemur new to the forest.

Our first trees, just over 85 planted, on the Stonesfield Straight are doing well with about 5% died mostly outcompeted by blackthorn. This is a comparatively low figure and reflects the hard work preparing the sites for the trees.

The river

We continue to monitor nitrogen and phosphates with no sign of improvement.

When the river is low enough to be safe we monitor the river flies for 2025 we hope to test for e-coli so we can report what we find.

Do get in touch if you would like to get involved.

John.sampson9@btinternet.com