PAST EVENTS

Biodiversity at Westbury Arts Centre

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In 2019 Kate Wyatt, a resident artist at Westbury and Milton Keynes' Natural History Society undertook a project to have closer look at our wonderful grounds and its biodiversity.

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Kate Wyatt shares what biodiversity means for Westbury 'Biodiversity

The variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable.

Definition: 'Biological diversity' means the variability among living organisms from all sources including,inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity within species and of ecosystems.'

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Westbury Biodiversity

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Species, plants, mammals, birds.

Westbury has one of the last areas of gardens and grounds which one could consider wild, a variety of trees, some veteran apple and willow 150 years approx - recognised by the Tree Registry UK in January 2019. It is diverse and unusual and provides a much needed wildlife corridor and habitat for many different species of plants, animals and birds.

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We are lucky enough to have a beekeeper with active beehives. There is also a wildflower meadow which was planted in the garden where there had been ancient ant-hills about five years ago. Brambles and nettles give a much needed shelter and food for different birds, woodmice, bank voles and watershrews. Westbury has a pair of moorhens who produce young in the spring, as well as a passing heron fishing occasionally in the moat/pond. There is a myriad of aquatic life in the pond as well as a population of very rare great crested newts both in the pond and in the swimming pool, these are a Grade I protected species and are particular to Milton Keynes.

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Last year a pair of green woodpeckers nested in a hole in the willow tree by the pond, and successfully hatched two young, male and female, who were extremely noisy as they grew. These eventually fledged, first the larger one, then the other. They still called for their parents for quite some time, they are very vulnerable when they are on the ground and are not good at flying.

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Lesser and common whitethroat, now increasingly rare, are and have nested in the gardens and also blackcap. Westbury has a couple couple of pairs of robins who are rearing young and blue tits nesting in the old apple tree in a hole. Jackdaws caw noisily down the chimneys during meetings in the house and build their nests on top of the chimneys. Bullfinches, another declining species, were seen in February, as well as great tits, magpies, blackbirds, who are at present nesting amongst the brambles over the cattle grid near the front gate. The bird feeders are extremely popular, particularly for the grey squirrels.

 

We have recently filmed a fox using the grounds, in fact there seems to have been quite a few foxes over the years, there may be a fox den in the bank of the moat. Badgers have been seen in the past. Hedgehogs have been tracked and noted in the garden.

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Primroses, dog violets, wood anemones, celandines, nettles, brambles, honesty and a variety of planted flowers are present during the spring and summer. There is a patch of common comfrey near the barn which provides a much a much needed major source of nectar for bees.

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Trees, bushes, hedgerows and low lying areas provide much needed shelter for many birds and other animals.

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Westbury is on top of a hill and can sometimes be quite windswept but enjoys a unique habitat for many different plants, animals and birds and is of great importance especially with the decline of many species throughout Britain. Gardening is being done as sympathetically as it is possible to do, whilst encouraging wildlife as much as possible, maintaining a neater appearance in some areas which appeals to visitors and artists.'

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The video footage below was captured over a few months in our grounds.