Help Nature Thrive Here

Our local environment needs care and everyone can play a part.

🌿 Get Involved

Everyone is welcome – no expertise needed
Join when you can – regular activities and one-off events
As energetic or relaxed as you like
Friendly and informal – often with tea and cake

📧 Contact us at B ensonAreaNature@yahoo.com

⏰ Regular Activities

Ewelme Watercress Beds conservation
- 1st Saturday and 3rd Wednesday of the month 9:30-12:30
Conservation activities in Benson or Ewelme, with the Green Gym,
- 2nd Tuesday of the month from 10:00-1:00
Conservation somewhere in the villages,
- 1st Sunday in the month, 10:00-12:00

Path mowing at Warwick Spinney and Millbrook Mead

- from May to October

📅 Ongoing Activities

🌿 Our Green Spaces

Plant hedgerows and trees and create wildflower patches. Restore habitats by maintaining the meadows, hedgerows, scrub and roadside verges. We often use traditional techniques such as scything, hedge laying and coppicing hazel. We are hoping to create a community orchard at Cuckoo Pen, Benson, but it’s early days and we are just beginning to plan it.

💧 Our Watercourses, our brooks, ditches and ponds

Go “mud spotting” to track detrimental sediment joining in the water courses. Help “rewiggle” the Benson brook to revitalise this rare chalk stream and create diverse habitats for fish, plants, invertebrates and more.

🌼 Wildlife in Your Garden

Make your garden or allotment nature friendly. Plant pollinators, add a wildlife pond and leave some long grass as mini meadow. Encourage birds, bees, butterflies and worms and record your sightings. Create hedgehog-friendly corners and a hedgehog highway into your neighbours’ gardens.

📊 Citizen Science

Survey wildlife – We survey birds, butterflies, moths, water voles, otters and more. You can photograph and share your findings, or submit them to national databases. Join the moth counts at our Moth Discovery Breakfasts.

Monitor water quality - We monitor riverflies, which are a good indicator of the health of the water. We also monitor phosphate and nitrate levels.

Track ecosystem changes and biodiversity – We collect environmental data to track ecosystem changes and monitor the success of biodiversity measures in our new housing developments.

ℹ️ See “Ongoing Activities” for more details and photos

📧 Interested? Contact us at BensonAreaNature@yahoo.com