Ross-On-Wye Local Branch

Friday 12th April sees us reach the last in the series of talks this season. What a way to finish though, by delving into the subject of the symbol of Ross, the humble hedgehog. The talk is given by Helen Saunders and Mary Harries who are hedgehog carers and were part of the hedgehog festival in Ross.

Last month's talk was given in the upper hall at the Baptist church which was very spacious and comfortable but there are problems with heating and no hot water urn, so for the hedgehog talk there will be a change of meeting place to The Venue, Hill Street, Ross-on-Wye, with the usual start time of 7:30pm. To find the venue please use: what3words ///bleaker.wharfs.unpainted, Google Maps link https://maps.app.goo.gl/PvvLdabawu7x11Pk8

On 23rd March Ross Branch held its first Wild about Gardens workshop on wildlife gardening and 13 people signed up. It was a 3 hour session covering the needs of wildlife in our gardens including food, shelter and water and how we can help. It received very positive feedback from the attendees who came from far and wide. We're hoping to organise another two this year in early summer and autumn.

We've agreed with the Ross Open Gardens organisers to include a wildlife gardening section in their next biennial event in 2025, and we’ll be checking out gardens for wildlife friendly features and awarding them 1, 2 or 3 hedgehogs to indicate how wildlife friendly they are. Also there will be a Gardeners Question Time event in the autumn this year answering questions on wildlife in our gardens.

We have a new project which is about to start with the objective to produce a map of Ross and its surroundings from the perspective of nature. It's called the Nature of Ross. We are very fortunate to have an MSc ecology student doing the first iteration of the map for his university assignment. We will be reaching out for volunteers to do survey work at some point when we're clearer about how to further develop the project, so give it some thought if you want to be involved. Once we have the map we can identify wildlife opportunities, and start consulting with land owners to see if we can agree to make some improvements.

HWT has defined the geographic scope of each branch so that every member of HWT can belong to an active branch. As a consequence the Ross branch now goes out to the Welsh border beyond Ewyas Harold, as far North as Woolhope and Aconbury and to the North East just past Colwall. This means that the memberships of Ross branch have increased from under 500 to over 800 since the last newsletter! Welcome to all the new branch members!! We send out regular newsletters detailing the talks, projects and events and we'll send a refresh on the projects soon to keep you in touch with what we are up to. Our winter programme of 7 talks, with the final one still to come, has been very popular with over 70 people coming to the last couple to hear some fascinating speakers. Over the summer we will be putting together another series of talks for next winter and running some events, so watch out for details either here, on HWT website (https://www.herefordshirewt.org/ross-wye-local-branch), or on our Facebook group "Ross Branch HWT". We hope to see you on 12th April. In any case enjoy your wildlife year and we look forward seeing you at next winter’s talks. If you are inspired by the ideas of wildlife gardening, we hope you can realise these by starting or improving these habitats in your garden