Dorset Wildlife Trust project: Hibbitt Woods

 Storm Ingrid positioned herself off the coast of Cornwall, hunkered down and unleashed rain and wind across South West England. Maybe not an obvious day then to begin my Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) project, but an inclement day would be perfect for a muddy boots experience. Hibbitt Woods, just into Dorset,  a few miles south of Yeovil, was to be my destination, accompanied by my wife, with the hope of seeing a bullfinch in our mind as a target species.

 

 

I've been getting it wrong for weeks by calling this 7 hectare (22 acre) reserve Hibbitt's Wood. I'm not entirely sure why it is called Hibbitt Woods as this reserve comprises an ancient wood and meadow (known as South Clarkham Copse) lying to the south of a quiet lane to Halstock and  two parcels of woodland (North Clarkham Copse and Harper's Hill Copse) now merged into one wood to the north, on the opposite side of the lane. Who or what Hibbitt was shall remain a mystery.

 

  

Wet doesnt really do justice to our time here. To be fair the rain had eased from torrential to steady, but underfoot on entering the reserve, it was a sodden squelchy affair. Wellingtons were a necessity, yet even on this challenging winter's day I realised this was a special and uplifting place. A cursory glance as we crossed over the small meadow revealed a stand of mostly oak and ash with beech, hazel, blackthorn and holly, the latter providing an extensive understory.

 

 

 From the meadow you enter the wood via a gate and then cross a bridge over a small stream. Just a few footsteps but you enter another world. 

 

 

 Above us the roar of Storm Ingrid made herself known through the bare branches heralding, even on a dark midwinter day with the rain falling, a green oasis. Everywhere there was moss, over the ground, up tree trunks, dangling off branches, stumps and fallen trees. The colour was startling.

 

 

 

The rain added an extra dimension to this habitat. At one tree I watched rivulets of water trickling down through the luxuriant moss, drip upon drip. You could hear it. I posted a clip of it on my Instagram page. 

 

Although open access we kept to the single route around the wood. There was little evidence of other visitors, meaning this place felt unobserved, a small remnant of ancient woodland in a very rural area quietly just getting on with life.

 

  

 

Although for one unlucky woodpigeon life was cut short under the sparrowhawk gaze. Later we saw this predator darting across the meadow where numerous smaller birds flitted through the branches to make their escape.

 

 

 Of course this reserve is not unmanaged but from the couple of hours we spent here I'd suggest DWT are performing a light touch strategy allowing the woodland to exist at nature's, not humans', seasonal timeframe. The reserve is home to the silver washed fritillary butterfly which prefers sunny rides or open woodland edge habitats. Hazel coppicing was in evidence and with selective felling the wood felt open, helped of course by the bareness of winter. 

 

 

 

 Dead wood trees stood in places, fallen trees  littered the ground, slowly decomposing nutrients back to the soil. And everywhere there was ivy which I always enjoy seeing as it spreads over stumps or up trunks, ivy, like bramble, is such an important wildlife resource. 

 

 

 Also in evidence were Parmotrema spp. lichen, I'm no expert in identifying to species level. It was everywhere even happily growing it seemed on fallen branches, a sure sign of an undisturbed habitat with a clean atmosphere.

 

 

Doing my research before visiting, the best time to visit this reserve is in spring. Wild daffodil and bluebell provide a spectacular show I read. But even in deep midwinter life is returning. It is still early in the year and remarkably I only found one violet, host plant to the above mentioned butterfly, however lesser celendine, arum, bluebell and primrose were all showing signs of growth. A flash of pristine emerald amongst the fallen leaves.

 

  

 

That wasn't the only splash of colour on the woodland floor, these scarlet caps, or scarlet elf cups  Sarcoscypha coccinea were common across the reserve, even on the path, another lovely sign of an undisturbed habitat. 

 

 

The more we looked the more we found. A sudden movement showed a mouse, unidentified, as it scurried along next to this fallen branch and out of sight. Taking a closer look the decaying branch provided a well used 'tunnel' for safe passage. Out of the corner of my eye I then saw it exit and scamper off a few feet away.

 

  

 

Further on I noticed this collection of discarded acorns and nuts. The site of a grey squirrel feeding area I suggest, the discards accumulated on the floor over months of feeding on a branch above, or maybe feeding on the ground. The tree in question was thick with ivy all the way up to the canopy. How I'd love to explore what was lurking in there, though sadly my tree climbing days are long gone.

 

 

 

I've not mentioned birds much. In the rush to get out today I'd forgotten my binoculars, normally kept in the car but now languishing at home. Instead I had to rely on my hearing which revealed the woodland was full of song. Great, blue and coal tit were frequent. A jay, chaffinch, great spotted woodpecker, blackbird and robin less so. Woodpigeon flapped overhead. Sadly no bullfinch though, as we sploshed our way through the mud, they'd have heard us long before we'd seen them.

 

  

 

By now we'd been exploring for well over an hour. To be honest I'd have liked to stay longer but the weather was turning against us as was the light. A decision was made not to visit the other woodland to the north of the lane but to return here in the spring. There are two other DWT sites close by, we'll make a day of it on a sunny March or April day maybe. But for now we ended our visit exploring the meadow, which was absolutely waterlogged. I read that adder's tongue fern is found here, though I couldnt see any emerging today. That can wait for our next visit. 

 

 

So I'm off the blocks so to speak. I really enjoyed this reserve, if the remaining reserves to visit sre as good as this I'm in for a wonderful year.

 Back at the car while drying off with a flask of tea we discussed how important these lesser known and  isolated reserves are. The large honeypot reserves provide an excellent experience to the visitor but these hard to find reserves, like Hibbitt Woods, are the real gems of the natural world for me. Maybe on a drier day though. 

 

 

Date of visit : 24th January 2026, mid day to early afternoon.

 

Species encountered :  Great spotted woodpecker, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, robin, jay, long tailed tit, woodpigeon, chaffinch, sparrowhawk, carrion crow, blackbird. Primula spp, ivy, soft rush, male fern, harts tongue fern, arum, lichen, moss, lesser celendine, violet, bluebell, holly, hazel, ash, oak, scarlet elf cup, and not forgetting that mouse.

 

 And just as we were about to leave? I heard a bullfinch calling from a cottage garden we'd parked next to. I couldn't locate it without staring into their property, but that unmistakable soft call ticked off our target species for the day. 

Dorset Wildlife Trust project; its all in the planning

These short January days are perfect for venturing outside. I do a lot more walking these days and last Monday spent a fabulous three hours trudging through a muddy Steart Marsh which, while having my lunch sitting on a bench, afforded one of the best views I've ever had of a Cetti's warbler.

I was alerted to it by at least two wrens' erupting their warning calls continuously, and within the same clump of reeds a Cetti's called. At this point the birds, about twenty feet away, were hidden but after about five minutes of watching, three wrens appeared and, taking positions at the base of the reeds, began calling ferociously. Then the Cetti's appeared, balanced on a single reed stem just below the 'feather' about two to three feet above the wrens, where it returned their chorus of displeasure with its own explosive call. The wrens replied, the Cetti's replied. I'd inadvertently stumbled across an avian Ministry of Sound territorial bust-up. The three wrens were not happy and were giving it loud. It gave me about two or three minutes to observe the Cetti's warbler out in the open. I've seen Cetti's warblers many times but usually the briefest of views before disappearing. This one was in full view. Through my binoculars in some ways it reminded me of a bulky Dartford warbler with the tail of, yes, a wren. Then, as quickly as it had begun the Cetti's flew off, the wrens dispersed and I was left in silence, apart from a quartering marsh harrier in the distance. 

Somewhere in this view are three wrens and a Cetti's warbler

But I digress. These short days also allow stay-at-home time for research and planning of my Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) reserve visits. On Thursday it never really got light due to heavy rain and thick cloud, so I ventured to our local library to print off my notes, taken from the DWT website, of the near fifty reserves.

 

 

 

I don't have a printer at home but decided for this project I'd go old school, partly as some of these reserves will have patchy mobile coverage. Taking an OS map and those printed notes (along with my flask of ginger beer) should avoid any technological unpleasantness.

 

Researching and then printing these notes and re-reading them in the file has been fascinating. The big DWT reserves I know of, Brownsea Island, Kingcombe Meadows and Kimmeridge for example, will reliably deliver. However I'm now more interested in and wish to focus on the many small reserves in the DWT portfolio. I've noted a few and many are just a few fields or some remnant habitat and under 10 hectares.

 

Broadoak Orchard,  a community orchard with bullfinch and glow worms. Girdlers Coppice, an ancient oak woodland with dormice, spotted flycatcher and silver washed fritillary. Hibbitts Wood, good for orchids in the adjacent meadow. Budgens Meadow, just 2 hectares but a wildflower and invertebrate hotspot. Troublefield, tucked behind Bournemouth airport and good for dragonflies. Kings Barrow Quarries on Portland, chalkhill blue and silver-studded blue, Peascombe, a steep sided hill with stream, home to marsh tit and otter (though I'll not see the latter) and last but not least in this brief selection Mill Ham Island (rarely visited I read) home to willow warbler, banded damoiselle and yes you guessed it, otter.

 

My preliminary research is complete. Pages printed, the days are lengthening, birds are becoming vocal, the time has come to venture out. I wonder which reserve on my list will be awarded the first visit?

New Year, New Project in Dorset?

Of all the counties in England Dorset ranks as my absolute favourite. From childhood holidays in the 1970's, through to a solo discovery of both myself and the joys of west Dorset in my teens, to moving south with work in 1993 thus allowing day trips, to my annual visits to Eggardon Hill for over forty years, I have never tried of being in Hardy's Wessex. In fact I vividly recall the intense emotions brought to bare of reading Far From The Madding Crowd in a cottage at Toller Porcorum. On that hot summer's day I can photographically picture the eighteen year old me. I sat in an oversized chair for hour upon hour, feet resting on the sill of a huge sash window, itself fully open to the elemental zephyrs of heat, heavy air, intense sunshine and stridulating insects. I read and read and read, lost in the timeshift of that rural story. Lifting my head for a moment, I observed the stream in the garden, beyond which an undulating chalk landscape stretched into the hazy distance. An awakening locked into my soul possessing emotions I had hitherto not experienced. I was in Dorset. I was being called home.

 It was an extraordinary emotional experience. But why? Why has Dorset crept into my very DNA? I can't say. Northumberland, County Durham, North Yorkshire or the Lake District should be a shoe-in for my primary county. I'm reading a book by Kathryn Aalto at the moment in which she states the golden age in childhood for discovery and its influence on later life, as being between the ages of four and 8. Those northern counties were a huge part of my early childhood. My first encounter with Dorset was in 1975, aged 11. I spent a lot of my own golden age in Essex too. I like Essex but it doesn't call me as Dorset does. Dorset it is then.

 All of this is somewhat of a lingering curtain-raiser to the germ of an idea I have been mulling over for a few months. I like a project to focus on and with this being New Year's Day a new quest for my energies seems pertinent. This is not the unleashing of a New Year Resolution, those annual flim-flams of good intentions have their place, however most if not all, wilt and die before the first aconites appear. No, this is a grand-sounding project, the goal of which however, is more pedestrian. Namely to visit every Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) nature reserve in 2026, and write up those visits here on the blog.

 Having been a member of the Dorset Wildlife Trust since Thomas Hardy was in articles, my knowledge of the near fifty or so sites should have been exceptional. Yet as I began to mull this idea over in September I realised I knew virtually nothing other than at a few hotspot reserves.  All that is, I hope, about to change. Leafing through a recent DWT magazine I noted their reserves map languishing within. It was but that of a moment to cut the map out of the magazine, section Dorset into four zones (north, south, east and west) and paste it into my schedule book - (formerly my sound recording schedule book, now repurposed).

 

 

I have also made a list of the reserves in these zones. All I need now are my boots, binoculars, a stout pair of baggy shorts, a pen, flask of ginger beer, a round of ham sandwches, my car of course (public transport would be fun but looks tricky) and if the sun shines my hat or should the rain fall my brolly. Travel light, travel swift.

 

 

 And that is pretty much it. My plan, if there is one, is to not have a plan. Common sense would suggest visiting some reserves during their sweet spot of wildlife activity. Yet many DWT reserved seem to be year round exemplars. What I feel does give the project a light frisson of a quest is to maybe search for each keystone species specific to that reserve, be that animal, vegetable or mineral during my visit. I'll research these nearer my arrival. Clusters of reserves I shall attempt to visit in one go, some outliers however will be a special endeavour.

 

At approximately one nature reserve a week will this be feasible? I hope so. Having retired in 2025 time has opened up its stall and thrown me its slippers of availability. Watch this space, what larks, what adventures are in store.

 

Oh and Happy New Year.