Out & About January 2018

OA outdoors

Nature calling Connect with the wildlife of West Berkshire through a newWild Links app, says HILARY PHILLIPS of the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust

I t’s June 2011 and I’m standing silently in gathering gloom at the end of a bright summer day, and straining to hear any snippet of sound that could be a nightjar’s distinctive ‘churring’. I’m here as a volunteer surveyor with the Wildlife Trust, helping to map nightjars on Greenham Common and contributing to an important conservation initiative, while improving my own knowledge and skills. After an hour-and-a-half I realise my ‘lucky dip’ site was not so lucky as far as calling nightjars was concerned, but time spent in that magical period when day melts into night and colours briefly intensify before becoming shadow is never time wasted. Six-and-a-half years later, in the depths of winter, the nightjars are warming their wings somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa and I’m the new Living Landscapes community engagement manager with the Linking the Landscape in West Berkshire project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This winter we’ve launched the new Wild Links app to inspire even more local people to connect with West Berkshire’s extraordinary natural heritage and share their information and experiences.

Loaded with interactive maps of our nature reserves, including Bowdown Woods, Greenham and Crookham Commons, the walking routes on those reserves and wildlife sightings, Wild Links also helps people to share their own ‘wild moments’ with other visitors. The Wild Links app for both Android and iPhone is available on App Store and Google Play Store – just search for Wild Links. In the last few years we’ve been linking up and strengthening threatened wildlife habitats, including the important nightjar sites at Crookham Common and Greenham Common, and monitoring the effectiveness of our work. Initial findings suggest that breeding nightjars are increasing in number and use more sites now than at the start of the project. When all the data is finally analysed we’ll be holding a conference to share our findings more widely. If you visit the commons this month, you’ll hear the staccato calls of stonechats and Dartford warblers. By June, the Wild Links app will show where the eerie churring of nightjars has been heard, so that visitors will have better luck than I did all those years ago.

Download theWild Links app now and use it when you visit our nature reserves and find out about our events 14 January: Family Wassail celebration at the Thatcham Community Orchard, Nature Discovery Centre, Thatcham. 16 February: Under the Microscope at West Berkshire Museum, Newbury.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT LOCAL WILDLIFE EVENTS Wherever you are, go wild with your local wildlife trust

PICTURES: Hilary Phillips, Living Landscapes Community Engagement Manager. Credit Sam Cartwright Wild Links app shows you where to go and what to see on BBOWT nature reserves in West Berkshire. Credit Wendy Tobitt Snowdrops in Bowdown Woods, part of the West Berkshire Living Landscape, now available on Wild Links app. Credit Rob Appleby

www.bbowt.org.uk/whats-on

@bbowildlifetrust

@bbowt

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