Throwing handfuls of colour

Local volunteers had the rare opportunity to return one of our vanishing wildflower meadows by sowing wildflower seeds, on a rather cloudy but cheery October morning at RSPB Winterbourne Downs.

Seeds had been harvested from one of the reserve's wildflower rich fields just two weeks earlier, and were sown by our bucket brandishing volunteers sowing handfuls of colour along cultivated strips in the 20 acre meadow. The strips were cultivated to provide a bare earth seed bed for germination and will be rolled to give the seeds good contact with the earth.  

The seed sowing event has started the floristic enhancement of what had been a productive but species poor rye-grass meadow. This was an effectively flower-free zone right in the centre of the nature reserve. As the wildflowers spread across the field this should make it easier for wildlife to move across the reserve, and indeed on a larger scale strengthen the reserve's role in connecting the chalkland biodiversity of Porton Down to Salisbury Plain. 

This will take a few years but in the interim you will be able to see this process unfold when you visit the reserve, as this field is just across the road from the Winterbourne Downs visitor car park; below the road  and between the nature trail and the River Bourne. We hope that you will start to see strips of colour form next summer, probably dominated by pink as there was a lot of sainfoin and red clover in the mix. You may also be able to make out the white of ox-eye daisy, yellows of bird's-foot trefoil, yellow  rattle, lady's  bedstraw and hawkbits, and later on the blues and purples of scabiouses and knapweeds.

 Winterbourne Downs is one of many nature reserves where you can see the RSPB volunteers making a difference in Giving Nature a Home.