Lime in West Meadow One of the great pleasures of walks round Watlington is seeing the lime tree when you enter West Meadow. Magnificent in summer, it also has charms in winter. The many bundles of vegetation in its branches are mistletoe. Mistletoe has spread widely in the last few years – some of us have noticed its appearance in our gardens – and there is a very interesting story as to why. It turns out that mistletoe seeds are spread by birds, particularly blackcaps and m

A group of us visited the Broad Arboretum mid-April as nature was already well engaged into its mesmerising spring cycle. The arboretum, a living library, takes its name from Ken Broad, Woodland Project Manager, and planting started 30 years ago to capture every tree and shrub species native to Oxfordshire and help local farmers identify trees on their lands. John Brannan, who was part of the planning and planting team when the project started in 1998, was our expert guide fo

WCAG worked with WEG and ArtWeeks to put on a Wildlife and Nature stop at St Leonard's Church - an ArtWeeks first! The artists were all...

This group of cherries and silver birch stand on the footpath leading from Spring Lane on the corner of the horse pond, across the wild...

We are lucky to have around Watlington beautiful natural habitats. From our precious chalk grasslands to our rare chalk streams, from the...

Now that hibernation time has truly ended for our prickly friends, they will be out and about feverishly foraging for food to build up...

Last Thursday was the long awaited launch screening of “The Chalgrove Brook – Rescuing A Chalk Stream” which was held at Icknield...

About 1.1 billion single-use plates and 4.25 billion items of cutlery, mostly plastic, are used annually in the UK, but only 10% are...

With next to zero knowledge of birds and nature in general, I took a day off work for this walk. This turned out to be a very enriching...

The Ghost Hedgehog workshop was the last event of the Nature Festival and was attended by several families despite wet and windy weather....

On Saturday the 17th October, the chalk pits on Watlington Hill were transformed into a Viking camp. Upon entering the chalk pits,...

On Sunday 27th September the weather, the apples, the pears, the bottles, and the press all aligned like beautiful stars between 11 am...

FULLY BOOKED Press your own apples Sunday 27th September 11am-3pm The Spire & Spoke Book your 20min slot watlingtonnaturefestival@gmail.c...

Remember how good it felt to be allowed to take that first walk in the countryside when we went into lockdown? The abundance of...

We are planning a Watlington Nature Festival 2020 for September/October (Covid-19 regulation compliant). We will celebrate our uniquely...