Species recording at Abbotts Hall Farm, Great Wigborough
The remaining hedgerows are mostly somewhat thin and largely consist of Elm Ulmus procera or
Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna and Blackthorn Prunus spinosa, with scattered Oak Quercus robur
standards. Approximately 50 acres adjacent to the seawall included a piped, tidal exchange area
and associated lagoons grassland and rough ground. Two significant blocks of Saltmarsh totalling
over 125 acres are also included in the reserve area. Other non-arable features of the farm include
a small Elm copse, two freshwater pools (dug as decoy ponds), various field corners and margins
recently planted with trees and a number of smaller ponds. Around the house is about 5.5 acres of
formal garden, a large pond, fruit trees and planted mixed woodland with poplars Populus and
willows Salix.
During the course of the year there were many changes to the farm, but the details of those are
outside of the scope of this paper. In summary, a new freshwater lake was excavated; field margins
were put in place (mostly at the end of the year); beetle banks were installed; winter bird cover was
sown, 80 acres of grassland was seeded and 120 acres of the farm was returned to the sea by
breaching the seawall in five places.
Recording Effort and Methods
When we started the push towards 1000 species, we had already completed a botanical survey of
the field margins, hedgerows and plantation areas giving us a core of about 220 plants. To this
were added mammals recorded by John Dobson, moths trapped by George Catchpole in the garden
at the end of the summer and various aquatic invertebrates identified by Peter and Pam Wilson
along with some dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies and approximately 100 bird species, all of
which had been recorded by a variety of people during 2001. This put us at around 400 species in
January 2002.
The main collecting technique was simply walking around various sections of the farm recording
or catching anything that we could identify. The slow and frustrating start and end to the year
prompted desperate measures (such as having a go at lichens and mosses!) but the major effort for
much of the year was focussed on invertebrates. George Catchpole's continuing moth catches,
augmented by those attracted to the outside lights, were extremely important and inputting the
species recorded by the BUZZ project (a Centre for Ecology and Hydrology project looking at
arable field margins) during 2002 contributed around 200 more species, mostly beetles, flies, spiders
and bugs. No other particularly unusual collecting methods were used.
Results
Selected groups are covered in varying detail below. The number in brackets after the heading
shows the number of species recorded at the time of writing.
Fungi (18)
Little attention has been given to mushrooms and toadstools, due to a lack of in-house expertise,
but a number of gall causing species have been recorded including Synchytrium anomalum, which
causes a gall on Lesser Celandine Ranunculus ficaria, and was the 1000th species added to list on
10th April 2003!
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 20 (2003)
93