Forward thinking

Dom looks forward 150 years to what Monkwood and Green Farm might look like following our ambitious restoration plans...

I’m Dom and I’ve been the western reserve officer for Worcestershire Wildlife Trust for just over six years now (how did that happen; it seems only yesterday that I came to the Trust to start my traineeship back in 2012). It’s my privilege to manage nature reserves like Monkwood, The Knapp & Papermill and Blackhouse Wood in this beautiful corner of Worcestershire.

I’ve been involved with Green Farm from the very beginning when we walked across the fields in 2019 dreaming about buying it. For this blog, I’d like to take you towards the end of the journey as we look 150 years into the future…

Wandering through Monkwood now is a very different experience to how it was in the past. For starters, it’s now part of the West Midlands National Park – a large area of managed land with wildlife at its heart that stretches from the historic boundaries of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire to the Shropshire Hills in the north. Much of Herefordshire is included and as far east as the River Severn in Worcestershire. Monkwood now takes in not just the fabulous woodland the Trust first bought in the 1980s but also much of the surrounding landscape; the nature reserve grew with national park designation.

Boundaries blur as the nature reserve connects seamlessly to a patchwork of sensitively managed farmland, waterways and orchards. After the Trust restored woodland to the land at Green Farm, they set about connecting the waterways, ditches and ponds with the Grimley Brook and beyond to the River Severn. All sorts of wildlife benefitted and thanks to expansive reedbeds planted alongside the river to help with water storage and flood prevention, bitterns returned as a breeding bird to Worcestershire.

Four common cranes with their beaks open, displaying to each other — Common cranes by Nick Upton/2020VISION/naturepl.com

Common cranes and white storks nest here too, sometimes flying over Monkwood to the delight of visiting school groups. Beavers returned pretty quickly after a series of reintroductions to Britain in the 2000s and are thriving on the Grimley Brook. They’ve created a network of ponds, fast-flowing streams and flood meadows, which are a lifeline to all during our hot summers. Otters are still here and, not long after the beavers came back, water voles returned too. Sit anywhere along the riverbank and you are immersed in the sights and sounds of thousands of shimmering dragonflies. At dusk in early summer when the mayflies start to hatch, brown trout and salmon vie for the best places to leap out of the water and snatch their prey.

The wood pasture scrubland that started off in a small field at Green Farm proved to be so wonderfully biodiverse that it became one of the main habitats around here. It’s grazed by a wandering herd of bison, native sheep and Exmoor ponies to the soundtrack of purring turtle doves and melodic nightingales. After a few sightings at Tiddesley Wood in the 2020s, dazzling purple emperor butterflies made it to Monkwood and are now one of our star species during the summer.

Turtle dove perched on a tree branch — Turtle dove by Russell Savory

At just shy of 150 years old, the oaks, limes and chestnuts that were planted by the staff and volunteers, who dreamt up this vision, are now magnificent. Over their long lifetimes they’ve developed lots of cracks, holes and crevices that are home to beetles, roosting bats and nesting birds. The trees are only just getting into their stride and if they’re lucky, they’ve got another 150 years in them at least!

A dormouse (sandy-coloured small mammal with a long tail) stretching as it moves from one stem to another by Ian Pratt — Dormouse by Ian Pratt

Traditional coppicing continues to play a huge role in the management of our woodland blocks here, as it has done at Monkwood for millennia. Over the years, we’ve welcomed different tree species to be resilient in an ever-changing and unpredictable climate. Diversity is key, so we’ve worked hard to find a balance between native species to Worcestershire and some from further afield (like Corsican pine, beech and almond) which cope with our hotter summers. On our trailcams, we often see pine martens leaping through the branches and whilst we still don’t have red squirrels back in Worcestershire, grey squirrels are much reduced thanks to the presence of their bushy-tailed nemesis. Hazel dormice are no longer confined to Monkwood and can now move along miles of flowering hedgerows, through copses at field edges and diverse woodland owned by others in the local area.

The Trust returned to the old ways of managing a hay meadow not long after buying Green Farm. On dry days in early August, teams of volunteers, youth groups and trainee conservationists lined up for a couple of days to scythe sections of each meadow. The hay was baled and brought out again in the winter to sustain our wild wandering herds when the weather got bad. Sometimes it has snowed for days on end, so having shelter and hay has been essential. Bison, Herdwick sheep and Exmoor ponies are hardy but still need some TLC!

The current reserve officer no longer has to worry about biodiversity decline here but there are other concerns. There is always more to learn, more to understand and more to do to help sustain our vision of a wilder Worcestershire that started here in these quiet fields at Green Farm all those years ago…

Monkwood trees on the left hand side with buttercups in a Green Farm field to the right, stretching off into the distance by Paul Lane — Green Farm by Paul Lane

In the current world of wildlife conservation, which is fairly bleak, these musings may seem unlikely and even fanciful. But I see no point in embarking on such a long-term vision without having hope that it will come to pass! Whilst we face many challenges to make it happen, it’s not impossible. And wouldn’t it be nice if it came true?