Wild Isles: Avon’s wildflowers

Here, Abbie Hall, Communications Officer from Avon Wildlife Trust shares a bit more about the amazing places that made a cameo in yesterday’s Wild Isles.

Did you join us in marvelling at the woodland floors carpeted in bluebells or gasp at the weird and wonderful behaviour of lords-and-ladies in last night’s very first episode of BBC Wild Isles? And the amazing thing is – it was all filmed right here in Britain and Ireland! The Wildlife Trusts were particularly delighted to have been part of the filming for this episode, with several of Avon Wildlife Trust’s nature reserves used to film the fantastic floral displays. Here, Abbie Hall, Communications Officer from Avon Wildlife Trust shares a bit more about the amazing places that made a cameo in yesterday’s Wild Isles.

A generous gift

When local builder and landowner Bernard Cole sadly died in 2018, he left Avon Wildlife Trust an incredibly generous gift of land in his will: Hutton Hill.

The 45 hectares of woodland and grassland is leased to us from the Woodland Trust, and forms part of a wider pastoral landscape around the Mendips, dominated by rolling fields, hedgerows and woods.

It's close to our Hellenge Hill, Purn Hill and Walborough nature reserves, and together they protect key areas of habitats for a range of wild plants and animals, including greater and lesser horseshoe bat. Having this land also puts us in a fantastic position to restore and nurture an almost continuous link of wildflower-rich grassland across the ridge of the Mendip Hills.

Avon Wildlife Trust manages Hutton Hill by working within its current environmental stewardship agreement, run by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This scheme provides payment to landowners for the environmental benefits they deliver, and in the long term we’ll be working to blur the boundaries between the woodland and grassland to create a rich mosaic of habitats to help our local wildlife thrive.

The lords-and-ladies of Hutton Woods

Within Hutton Hill you’ll find Hutton Woods, which is home to perhaps one of the most fascinating floral finds that will be featured on Wild Isles: lord-and-ladies. Known by a number of other names, including cuckoo pint, they are often seen in April and May and put on a distinctive display with large, arrow-shaped leaves and a leaf-life flower head curled around a purple or yellow ‘spadix’, which is a spike of tiny flowers on a fleshy stem.

It's the lords-and-ladies unusual approach to pollination which captured the Wild Isles’ team’s eye though, and they were able to get footage of it in action here in Avon. The plant’s spadix is known for emitting a powerfully pungent stench, attracting flies and luring them deep within the flower. It then uses backward-pointing hairs, made up of sterile male flowers, to entrap the pollinator and keep them burrowing down towards the seed-producing female flowers at the bottom. If the pollinating fly has already been to another lords-and-ladies plant, the pollen they’ve collected will be deposited and they’ll be released from their floral prison to continue the pollination process.

Our beloved bluebell woods

Also featured in Wild Isles is our ever-popular destination for sensational bluebells – Prior’s Woods. This wildlife-rich nature reserve is known for its magnificent carpet of bluebells in the spring, and it didn’t fail to put on a show for the Wild Isles film crew!

With parts of its ancient woodland dating back to the 1600, this nature reserve is also blessed with streams and plantations. Small-leaved lime trees, oak and hazel are abundant here, and along with them comes a rich bird life, including buzzards, garden warblers and chiffchaffs.

You’ll be able to see our show-stopping bluebells for yourself from late April onwards, however we’d ask you to be considerate of our neighbours when parking. Bluebells are a protected species, so please don’t pick them, but do feel free to get a selfie with these rising TV stars!

Wonderous wildflowers

Last, but by no means least, we come to our final nature reserve that was featured on a small screen near you – Folly Farm. While the film crew only spent half a day here, they managed to capture a stunning array of wonderful wildflowers, including:

Bluebells
Dog violet
Early purple orchid
Hawthorn blossom
Lesser celandine
Wood anemone
Primrose
Willow blossom

Providing spectacular views over Chew Valley Lake and the Mendips, Folly Farm is a stunning nature reserve to spend time in.

The wildflower meadows on this site are something of a rarity, unspoilt by pesticides or fertilisers, allowing them to bloom with betony, ox-eye daisy and heath spotted orchid in summer. Late summer see the arrival of black knapweed and devil’s-bit scabious, attracting butterflies such as ringlets, small tortoiseshells, gatekeepers and marbled whites.

Dowling’s Wood provided some of the woodland floor flora that will spring up in Wild Isles, and if you were to take a wonder along our Access for All path you might catch a glimpse of nuthatch, buzzard or even a great-spotted woodpecker.

Discover more about the work of Avon Wildlife Trust: www.avonwildlifetrust.org.uk

Catch up on the BBC Wild Isles series on BBC iPlayer.