Past Events

A Fungal Foray
led by Dr Eirene Williams

St Nectan’s Church, Stoke

There is no church service this Sunday. Allow 1.5-2 hrs for event. Wear appropriate footwear and clothing as some rough terrain but walking time probably only 30 mins, the rest will be chatting about fungi.

Sunday 19th October 2pm

Insects & How to Photograph them

Wednesday 24th September

7.30pm – 9pm

The Hart pub, Hartland

A talk by Jamie Owen of North Devon Coast – National Landscape. He will chat about how to take great photos of insects. Concentrating on how to get the best shot and not getting bogged down in technical stuff and expensive equipment.

Report of HNS Pondnet stand at Hartland Garden Show 26^th July 2025

On Saturday 26^th of July a group of HNS volunteers manned our first stand at the Hartland Garden Show, launching and showcasing our Hartland Pondnet Project. The aim of this project is to educate local people about the importance of ponds for wildlife. We wanted to find out how many people living in Hartland currently have ponds in their gardens, and to try and encourage more people to consider creating a pond to improve the networks for wildlife movement in the area and help increase biodiversity generally.

We have started to create a map of existing ponds in Hartland, and we also chatted to quite a few people who were either already considering creating a pond or who hadn’t considered this but were hopefully persuaded to do so by our discussion and helpful leaflets. If we repeat this event next year we may be able to find out if they have actually done so. The map shown is a work in progress and each red spot represents a pond. This is just a section from the Hartland area.

The weather was almost perfect (apart from the occasional strong gust of wind that threatened to blow our paperwork and leaflets away) and both the Garden Show and our stand were well attended. We met people visiting from as far away as London and the Isle of Lewis, as well as Hartland residents.

We are indebted to Jess and Jamie of NDC-NL for providing us with the stand, equipment and lots of information, as well as their expertise and enthusiasm. We are also indebted to Richard and Chris Hannington, Mandy Strawson and Clare Gurton for providing samples taken from their ponds, that contained an interesting array of pond plants and creatures including tadpoles, toadpoles, newts, diving beetles and even a water scorpion. These proved to be a great attraction, particularly with children who enjoyed using magnifying lenses to study the creatures more closely. Jamie proved to be a natural at engaging their interest and explaining more about the creatures they were looking at.

We would like to thank Hartland Garden Society for allowing us to have the stand and to talk about ponds.

Summer Nature Walk ~ Saturday 19th July

Saturday 19th July at 2pm
Summer Nature Walk at Kerswell Farm, Parkham Ash
HNS members Elaine and Adrian kindly walked us around their beautiful wildflower meadows, culm grassland, woods and lake at Kerswell Farm
Elaine kindly gave us tea and a choice of 3 cakes afterwards

Bat Evening at Fosfelle ~ Friday 4th July

Bat Evening

Friday 4th July, 8.45pm

@ Fosfelle ~ Meet in reception Area

There will be bat detectors to borrow and Fred Raynor, a bat expert, will guide and help us with identification

Swifts & House Martins Appreciation Evening

7.00pm Saturday 28th June ~ Meet in Hartland Square

Come and join us as we tour Hartland watching these wonderful birds fly around The Square and Fore Street. There are many nest boxes to survey

HNS has a video Camera in one of the Swift Boxes on St Johns Chapel and you will be able to view this in the Chapel

Common Swift (Apus-apus) As ever, in flight.

Social @ The Hart, Hartland 7.30pm, 25th June

Come along to our regular two-monthly social and share your ideas and views and help us plan for the second half of the year.

We have lots of updates and info to talk about

Ask to borrow our trail camera – see below

Event: 31st May & 21st June ~ Big Balsam Pull

Catch up on our latest event

Saturday 24^th May. HNS Late Spring Nature Walk

@ East Titchberry Farm led by Paul Collom

A total of 17 HNS members met at East Titchberry Farm on the morning of Saturday 24^th May. The farm is owned by the National Trust, and the walk, led by National Trust Ranger Paul Collom, aimed to demonstrate some of the changes that are being introduced to both improve public access to parts of the farm and also to increase the natural biodiversity in this farmland setting.

Our first stop was in a newly-created Wildflower Meadow. This was previously agricultural land that had stood fallow for several years. It was harrowed and then sown last Autumn with a specially-selected wildflower meadow seed mix containing a variety of grasses and flowering plant species including Yellow Rattle, Cuckoo Flower, Yarrow, Knapweed, and Wild Carrot. At the time we visited the grasses were flowering and Yellow Rattle and Cuckoo Flower appeared particularly abundant. Paths have been mown to enable people to walk around the meadow and there are plenty of benches for people to rest on and appreciate the view across to the west coast. This field will be managed through taking a single hay-crop in late summer.

In the next-door field and at the edge of the wildflower meadow a big tree-growing project is underway. The National Trust are attempting to grow a variety of native trees from seed, including birch, oak and the endangered Devon Whitebeam. Again these were sown in the Autumn after the ground was harrowed. According to Paul this is potentially cheaper and has much less negative environmental impact than planting young trees, so it will be interesting to see how successful this project is.

We then moved on to a field that is being managed as a wetland area. The field was naturally quite wet anyway, and a number of scrapes (shallow ponds) have been dug that will hold more water when it rains and hopefully remain damp even during dry weather. The field has been sown with a special seed mix of plants suitable for wetlands including Ragged Robin and Flags and will be very lightly grazed by cattle to manage the growth of more invasive species. This field should potentially provide a good habitat for a wide variety of birds, insects, amphibians and small mammals. Swallows, house martins and even some passing sand martins have been seen here, and it is hoped that waders such as Curlew and Snipe might also arrive.

Our walk continued past some fields that are being used to grow arable crops including oats and barley. Each field has a fairly wide margin that was left bare after ploughing and after the main part of the field was sown, in order to self-seed. At the moment they are full of flowering wild mustard. The hedges are cut on rotation, every 3-4 years at most. Some fields have small areas that have been left uncultivated.

The path between the arable fields is edged by wide verges that will eventually become thick hedges of native trees: young trees of a variety of different species have been planted, without any protection from deer etc in the hope that those that survive will be particularly hardy. These margins have also been sown with a mixture of meadow and annual flower seeds, and during our visit we saw corn flowers and corn cockles flowering.

The National Trust is very keen to show that arable farming can be compatible with, and even benefit from, small changes that also benefit the environment. Even though these changes have been put in place very recently, Cirl Buntings and Yellowhammers, both endangered farmland bird species, are currently now breeding in this area.

The farm walk continued along the Coast Path above Shipload Bay and back to East Titchberry Farm Yard where we looked at some of the beautiful old farm buildings, including the 18^th Century Malthouse which is currently being renovated.

This farm trail is only about a mile and a half long, along gravelled tracks on level ground, so should hopefully be accessible to most people. The National Trust have provided numerous benches for people to rest on around the trail, and signboards to indicate the different areas and the changes being made to benefit the environment in each case. It is well worth a visit, and will be interesting to follow the changes, watch things grow and monitor the increase in biodiversity through the next few years.

Caroline Warnes

Saturday May 24th @ 10.30am – 12.30pm

Late Spring Walk at East Titchberry

Lead by National Trust Ranger Paul Collom

Meet at East Titichberry National Trust Car Park. See Map -> Grid Reference SS244270 what3words ///sues.email.sampled

Paul will follow the new one mile route

For those members who have yet to pay their subscription, please have it ready, or pay for this as a one off event. Thank You.

Report on The Hartland Charity Field Open Day on Saturday May 17th

The Open day was blessed with a perfect sunny afternoon, and over 50 people came along to visit the field. It was buzzing with insects and the wildflowers were at their best.

Thank you to everyone who came along. We also owe huge thanks to an army of helpers and supporters who helped to make the day so successful.

Paul Collum from the National Trust had mowed paths through the long grass, making it easier and more inviting for people to explore the field.

Jess and Jamie from the North Devon National Landscapes Team brought enthusiasm, nature spotter guides and a tea tent to support the day.

George Morgan had made kits for people to try their hand at water divining. Much fun was had, and since the field does not have a water supply the findings were of much interest. A couple of places were identified that warrant further digging and exploration. This will be done when we get a small digger in to make places for the fruit trees which will be planted this coming January/February. We hope that Hartland Primary School pupils will get involved with putting eight trees in.

Clare Gurton and others added to the log of plants and creatures living in the field.

John from Fosfelle kindly lent us some outdoor games which were much enjoyed. We hope that going forwards people will use the field for picnics and as a place to just enjoy and spend time. Once the trees are planted we will be putting a bench or two into the field.

We hope that going forwards people will use the field for picnics and as a place to just enjoy and spend time. Once the trees are planted we will be putting a bench or two into the field.

Thank you again to everyone who supported the day, it was great.

Maria Bremridge, A trustee of the Hartland Charity.

25-28^th April ~ Water Testing Weekend

Join the Great UK WaterBlitz this April and fight for healthy freshwater!

Our rivers and freshwater habitats are at crisis point and we need urgent action.

The Great UK WaterBlitz is a biannual campaign calling on everyone to go out and test the quality of their local freshwater including rivers, streams and lakes. This helps to build a national picture of water quality across the UK. The Great UK WaterBlitz is part of our ongoing FreshWater Watch citizen science monitoring programme.

Hartland Nature Society are taking part and have kits for testing. We plan to include 5 of our rivers at the point of exit to the sea/beach.

We need volunteers, if you want to help please contact

Clare: chair@hartlandnaturesociety.org.uk Jennie: Jthgirw@hotmail.com Or Caroline: secretary@hartlandnaturesociety.org.uk

The surveys are fairly quick and can take up to 15-20 minutes to complete, the sampling kits include phosphate test strips, a turbidity tube and a dissolved oxygen probe.

HNS Evening Social ~ The Hart, Hartland. 7.30pm

This will be an evening meeting to discuss a few topics and your opportunity to tell us what you might like to be involved with or want for the next year.

Topics will include:

Bank account, subscriptions and equipment (camera trap)
Himalayan balsam pulling events
Hartland charity field community day
Pondnet

Please let me know if there is anything else you want to put on the agenda This meeting will be the first of regular bi-monthly evening meetings where we hope to make the society more inclusive and social.

The Hart have very kindly agreed to host these meetings for us, so please show support.

Our next evening meeting will be Wednesday June 25th.

Early Spring Walk ~ St Nectan’s to Blackpool Mill ~ 29th March 2025

We had an excellent turnout of 21 people for our first HNS guided walk of this year, led by Clare Gurton. The day was dry, partly sunny, and warm as long as we were out of the wind, and the ground was also dry underfoot.

After spotting, and briefly catching for closer inspection, a Buff-tailed Queen Bumblebee in St Nectan’s churchyard we set off towards Blackpool Mill to see what we could see in the way of Spring plants.

Clare pointed out various different plants along the way and gave us plenty of interesting information about each of them. She showed us a couple of rarities, a native Green Hellebore and Moschatel, apparently also known as Town Hall Clock because of the four-sided arrangement of its flowers. We also learned, amongst many other things, why Dog’s Mercury is a good indicator of old, undisturbed woodland, why Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage is so named, how to tell Liverworts from Mosses, why Pennywort is good to eat, what makes Lesser Celandines and Dandelions good sources of nectar for insects, how primroses have adapted to avoid self-pollination and how to distinguish between different varieties of violet.

We were lucky to have bird-expert Richard Hannington with us, who drew our attention to various birds from their calls: we heard Chiff-chaffs, Wren and a Blackbird when we all stopped to listen, and also the Rooks and Jackdaws that were very busy nesting around the Churchyard.

When we reached the bridge crossing the Abbey River, Clare, Frannie and Ellen scrambled down and took a sample of water to check for the presence of wildlife: the numbers, variety and presence or absence of specific aquatic species is a good indicator of water quality. Sadly this sample had both low numbers and poor variety: just 1 mayfly larva, 2 shrimp and 1 leech, suggesting poor water quality at that location. This will be followed up in the next month or so with a more detailed survey of the rivers in the Hartland area.

We are very grateful to Clare for her excellent and comprehensive knowledge of plants, to Richard for his bird expertise and to David for taking photos. Thank you to everyone who came along and made this a very enjoyable event.