Moorhaven is a great place for birds, with house martins, swallows and swifts nesting around the main building, especially the tower, and cuckoos in the woods edging the Lud Brook. The mature trees in the village are home to green and greater spotted woodpeckers, tawny owls, nuthatches, blackcaps, starlings, goldcrests and firecrests, and many other small birds. Mammals include pipistrelle and long-eared bats, occasional foxes, and wood mice and voles that provide an important food source for owls. Grass snakes and slowworms are frequent.
We are lucky to have a population of hedgehogs, a species whose numbers have declined drastically in recent years. Please protect them by avoiding slug pellets (even so-called 'nature friendly' ones) and other pesticides, and by not strimming under hedges or burning woodpiles without moving them first.
To provide food for this and other wildlife, Moorhaven management aims to keep a balance between mown 'Victorian' lawns and wilder areas. Meadows are allowed to grow tall around trees, for example in the Arboretum and entrance to Moor Park.
Of note is the old hospital burial ground or cemetery, which has been managed as a community wildflower meadow since 2021, with a group coming together to scythe the grass and remove cuttings at the end of the summer. Plants include primroses, snowdrops, bluebells, lady's smock, common sorrel, betony, ox-eye daisy, lesser stitchwort, knapweed, field scabious, wild carrot, and bird's foot trefoil. These attract many more butterflies than the mown lawns, including meadow brown, common blue, brimstone and ringlet, and numerous hoverflies, bumblebees, and damselflies. The meadow is home to nursery web spiders that weave elegant nests on the tall grass stalks, wolf spiders that carry their babies on their backs through the undergrowth, and tiny crab spiders that change colour to match that of the flowers they sit in.
In 2022, we planted a thicket of native fruit and nut-bearing trees in the cemetery to provide food and shelter for wildlife and fixed a nesting box to the mature tree marking the end of the thicket. A pair of great tits is raising its young there this year. In autumn, the ground beneath the trees hosts a spectacular display of earthstars. The Green at the entrance to Moorfields has also benefited from tree planting including 8 apple trees for blossom and fruit, and a small copse of wild cherry, birch, and rowan courtesy of the Woodland Trust.
There are 15 acres of communal grounds at Moorhaven, with scope for doing much more for wildlife. If you have ideas, please let us know by emailing the Moorhaven Village Management Company.
There is more information about how the meadow was started here: https://devonhedgerow.wordpress.com
Jackie Andrade