<![CDATA[4Bs Biodiversity Website

<![CDATA[4Bs Biodiversity Website - Blog]]>Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:28:37 +0100Weebly<![CDATA[Anticipating the Effects of the Super El Nino 2026]]>Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:56:44 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/anticipating-the-effects-of-the-super-el-nino-2026El Niño is a natural climate pattern that occurs every two to seven years, when the surface waters of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm. Normally, trade winds blow warm water westward towards Asia and Australia, allowing cooler water to rise along the coast of South America. During El Niño these winds weaken, and the warm water spreads back east across the Pacific. This large shift in ocean heat alters rainfall and wind patterns around the world, bringing drought to some regions and floods to others, and it temporarily raises global average temperatures as the ocean releases heat into the atmosphere. Its opposite phase, La Niña, brings cooler Pacific waters. Together they make up the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the biggest source of year-to-year variation in the world's climate.

This year’s record breaking Super El Nino and has yet to peak. We are in unprecedented times and experts are uncertain as to how it will play out. It’s a super El Nino on top of accelerated global warming and it is predicted to add 0.2C to global warming average temperatures next year. This is equivalent to the 0.2C we are adding every 8 years with our impact on global warming. During large El Niño events, extra heat is released from ocean to atmosphere, particularly in the calendar year following the winter peak. That makes 2027 the year to watch for records, and very likely a full calendar year above 1.5°C.

The most likely prediction for the UK is a wet winter – heavy and sustained rain and stormy weather. The current lack of soil moisture could lead to flash flooding and sustained wet weather will help recharge reservoirs and aquifers but sustained wet weather will impact on farmers especially if it persists into spring.

Elsewhere there will be both flooding and drought. Likely to be drier conditions in Asia and floods in other parts of the world. This will have significant impacts on agriculture and food production all over the world.

There are cascading risks to food systems as global warming, El Nino and global politics interact. The UK has just in time supply chains and low food stocks so is quite vulnerable. We are not well placed to respond to what is likely to happen. The effects on food production and supply chains will vary across the world and are not easy to predict.

UK farmers are struggling with higher input costs. Third year of below average wheat yields. Fodder crops down and silage used in summer drought. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will hold a week of evidence sessions on the resilience of the UK’s food supply to disruptions, on Monday 12 October at 3.30pm and Thursday 15 October at 10am.

If we are to come to terms with climate change, of which super El Nino’s is one manifestation, we need to be adapting what we do and how we live now and accelerate investment in adaptation at all scales. Here is the opportunity for our own community to begin this process of adaptation and our events on October 26th and November 2nd provide us with the opportunity to think about how we might adapt.

These notes are based on an online National Emergency Briefing held on 12/10/26. About 2000 people watched the live stream via zoom or youtube and many questions were asked. The NEB organisers are planning to make the briefing available via youtube. The National Emergency Briefing model is now being rolled out in 10 other countries

]]><![CDATA[Climate Change Is Already Here — What Do We Do About it?]]>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/climate-change-is-already-here-what-do-we-do-about-it

Look back over the last twelve months. A wet winter that seemed to go on forever, waterlogged lawns and drowning bulbs. Then a summer so hot and dry it scorched the grass brown and left ponds shrinking by the week. That’s not a freak year. That’s very likely the shape of things to come.

This is the pragmatic way to frame climate change: not only as a distant threat for some future generation, but as something already knocking on our front door — frying our gardens, flooding the banks of the River Mole cutting off the road to Leigh, unsettling the rhythms every gardener and dog-walker in the 4Bs parishes has come to expect. The urgency isn’t abstract. It’s immediate, and it’s local. Acting now is as much about protecting our own near-term future as it is about the folks who come after us.
If nature is already adjusting — however imperfectly — to a climate that’s shifting faster than it can keep pace with, then so must we. The question isn’t whether to prepare. It’s how to prepare, and where to start. And “where to start” is closer to home than most of us think: our own gardens, verges, and the small patches of ground we each have some say over.

Questions to Ask Now, in Our Own Homes, Gardens and Streets

Water: Where does rain go when it falls hard and fast? Could a rain garden, a water butt, or simply less paving on our own plot help soak up a wet winter instead of sending it downhill to a neighbour?
Drought: Which plants in our garden struggled this summer — and which shrugged it off? Are we watering a lawn that would be better left to go gold and recover, or a hedge that’s actually doing the work of shading and cooling?
Shade and heat: Do we have anywhere to sit outside on a 35°C day? Could a tree planted now — even a small one — be the shade we will need in ten years?
Wildlife under strain: Are we providing water for birds, insects, and amphibians through dry spells, when ponds and puddles disappear just when they’re needed most?
Soil: Is our soil holding water like a sponge, or shedding it like a roof? Compost and mulch aren’t just tidiness — they’re resilience.

None of these questions wait for a future decision. They’re this autumn’s questions, ahead of a winter that may well be wet again, and a summer after it that may well be dry again. Betchworth Parish Council is hosting a ‘Peoples Emergency Briefing on Climate Change’ on Monday October 26th at Betchworth Village Hall. Please do join us and share your views and ideas on how we might prepare.

]]><![CDATA[September 20th, 2026]]>Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:09:38 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/september-20th-2026Teasel earns a place on a wildflower site for several reasons at once: its spiny seedheads are a key winter food source for goldfinches, who work them right through the colder months when many other seeds are gone; the tall second-year flower spikes (up to 2m) provide a late nectar source in July–August for long-tongued bumblebees and hoverflies at a point when many earlier grassland forbs have finished; and the dead stems left standing over winter shelter overwintering invertebrates, quite apart from the plant's own value as a striking, architectural presence on rough or disturbed ground like your bund. Being biennial, it spends its first year as a low rosette and only bolts and flowers in its second, so there's nothing to cut in year one regardless.

The stems from flowered plants are best left standing right through autumn and winter — that's precisely when the goldfinch and invertebrate value is being delivered — and only cut back in late February or March, once the seed has dropped or been eaten and before the new season's rosettes get going in earnest. Cutting any earlier sacrifices most of what makes it worth having; cutting much later risks getting in the way of spring growth. If it's spreading further than you want across the field or bund, late-winter cutting is also the point to thin it out, since by then you can see how much has self-seeded and make a judgement call on density rather than guessing mid-summer.

]]><![CDATA[August's Record Heat — Why It Matters Here in Betchworth]]>Sun, 13 Sep 2026 11:54:54 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/augusts-record-heat-why-it-matters-here-in-betchworth

I recently came across this image that did more to bring home the idea that the Earth is warming than most images I had seen.

This August tied as the hottest month ever measured globally, matching the previous record set in July 2023, according to the EU's Copernicus climate service. Global temperatures for the month sat 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels — over the critical 1.5°C threshold that countries have agreed marks the edge of climate change's worst consequences. One record month doesn't mean that line has been permanently crossed, but it's a clear sign of the direction of travel.

Two forces combined to drive it: the underlying warming from fossil fuel emissions, and a strengthening El Niño — a natural Pacific Ocean pattern that periodically releases huge stores of ocean heat into the atmosphere. Copernicus scientists say El Niño's biggest impact on global temperatures is still to come over the next year, so this run of records may not be over yet.

Closer to home, the same summer made Western Europe's hottest on record, and gave the UK its hottest summer since records began in 1884 — a summer the Met Office calculates was made around 130 times more likely by human-caused climate change. Researchers are also clear that this isn't simply a "new normal" to adapt to and accept; without a shift away from fossil fuels, they expect these records to keep falling, faster than communities can adjust.

It's a national and global story, but it's also our story. Betchworth has just lived through its third exceptionally dry summer in five years — scorched lawns, parched flowerbeds, stressed trees, cracked walls and driveways. The pattern behind those headlines and the pattern behind our own gardens is the same one.

That's exactly why Betchworth Parish Council, Re-Betchworth and the 4Bs Biodiversity Group are bringing the village together on Monday 26th October, 7–9pm at Betchworth Memorial Village Hall, for Our Village, Our Future: Facing Up to Climate Change Together — a video screening and open discussion on what all of this means for us, and what we can actually do about it. Everyone is welcome, and we'd particularly love to hear from residents of every generation.

Source: BBC News, "August joint-hottest month on record as climate change and El Niño drive heat," 10 September 2026.

]]><![CDATA[Long Hot Summer]]>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/long-hot-summerIt's official, with an average mean temperature of 16.5°C puts this summer as the warmest on record - since 1884. It was also one of the sunniest summers on record (dating back to 1910) and one of the driest in the south east.

Head of Climate Attribution at the Met Office, Dr Mark McCarthy, said: “The summer of 2026 has been remarkable and is an example of the extremes we can expect to see more frequently as a consequence of human induced climate change. Our analysis shows a summer like the one we’ve just experienced is now around 130 times more likely because of climate change. In a climate unaffected by human emissions of greenhouse gases, a summer like this would be exceptionally unlikely, i.e. 1 in over 1,000 years. In our current climate, which is changing because of the effect of burning of fossil fuels, we should now expect this to be roughly a 1 in 9 year event."

What have been the effects of our long hot summer?
Everyone living in the 4Bs will have their own memory of the summer of 26 summer — a parched lawn, shrivelled flowers, early apple falls, a pond or stream shrinking to nothing, the feeling that we are living in the south of France. It’s been the hottest and one of the driest springs and summers in living memory. Climate change is now affecting us and the wildlife around us in a significant way. Farmers have borne the brunt of this drought, watching crops and pasture struggle through the driest months in years. We need to act now to help build a more resilient environment by adapting our homes and gardens to cope with more extremes of weather as human impacts on climate become more profound.

What does this mean for wildlife?
The direct effects of hot dry weather are visible already: trees shutting down early and dropping leaves out of season to conserve water; ponds and brooks shrinking or disappearing, taking amphibian and dragonfly larvae with them; and rivers and streams running low enough to concentrate fish, deplete oxygen and stress the invertebrates that feed everything from trout to house martins.

Reduced insect abundance in a dry summer means less food for wild birds, so fewer young survive to fledge. Baked ground cuts birds off from earthworms. Blackbirds, song thrushes, robins and starlings all hunt earthworms near the surface by sight and vibration. In drought, earthworms retreat deep into the soil profile and the surface bakes hard enough that even a bird that finds one can't dig it out. Hedgehogs depend heavily on earthworms and soil invertebrates, and hard ground ahead of hibernation is a genuine concern.

Small mammals are surprisingly exposed. Shrews have very high metabolic rates and need to eat roughly their own bodyweight in invertebrates daily — a sharp drop in surface invertebrate availability can be lethal to them directly, not just growth-limiting. Vole populations often crash in drought years as grass growth (their main food and cover) stalls and this affects barn owls and kestrels that depend on them as a food source.

Drought stress compounds year on year — this is Surrey's third dry summer in five, and trees already weakened by 2022 and 2025 have less reserve capacity to cope with 2026, making them more vulnerable to pests, disease and storm damage in years to come.

What we can do — now, and for the future in the garden this autumn
Keep a shallow dish of water topped up for birds, hedgehogs and insects; resist the urge to tidy borders and cut hedges hard while conditions are dry, since long grass, leaf litter and log piles are the moisture refuges wildlife needs most right now; and top up garden ponds using stored rainwater rather than mains water where possible. Protecting the soil carbon and organic matter already in our gardens, hedgerows and woodland — through mulching, minimal digging and leaving deadwood in place — does more for long-term drought resilience than any amount of new planting. Where new planting is done, choose deep-rooted, drought-tolerant native species that are more resilient to drought and flooding.

When you walk the Betchworth & Buckland Nature Trail this autumn, let us know what you see — a dry pond, a dying tree, and any signs of recovery. Help build the picture of how the 4Bs is coping with a hot dry summer. 4bnaturegroup@gmail.com

]]><![CDATA[2026 4Bs Butterfly Count]]>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 23:00:00 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/2026-4bs-butterfly-countFor the second year running the Big Butterfly Count took place in the middle of a long hot summer. While much of our wildlife has been stressed the butterfly count turned up some cheering numbers. Across 49 x fifteen-minute counts, 4Bs volunteers logged 718 butterflies and day-flying moths — an average of nearly fifteen per count, up a quarter on last year's tally despite fewer counts being made.

Gatekeeper topped the table this year (210 individuals), with Meadow Brown and Common Blue close behind, followed by Large and Small Whites. The Common Blue butterfly is a fussy species, needing species-rich, unimproved grassland with vetches and trefoils that's becoming harder to find in the wider countryside — its steady presence here says something good about what we're protecting.

The full results for the national survey are yet to be published but preliminary data suggests the average per count will be around 10.1 compared to our local count of 14.7 which is a genuinely positive sign.

Top five in 4Bs Butterfly Count 2026

But according to Professor Richard Fox there a sting in the tail?
Heatwaves, like those we’ve experienced this summer, aren’t likely to be a major problem for butterflies themselves. But very high temperatures may impact on a butterfly’s fertility, as well as killing the eggs they have laid through dehydration. But the biggest threat comes from drought. Newly hatched caterpillars need fresh green plants on which to feed. During prolonged drought, many of the plants that caterpillars rely on wither and die, starving the caterpillars. Fewer caterpillars mean fewer butterflies, so the next generation of butterflies will be much reduced.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Big Butterfly Count this year

A report of the 2026 4Bs butterfly count can be found on the 4Bs Biodiversity Initiative website https://www.biodiversitypark.uk/4bs-butterflies.html

]]><![CDATA[Butterfly Month]]>Mon, 03 Aug 2026 23:00:00 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/september-04th-2026August is the month when the meadow that has served us with vibrant wildflowers since May, looks ragged and exhausted. Now is the time to cut and leave the seeds to fall before removing every last windrow of cuttings, taking the fertility with them, leaving the soil leaner and poorer and better suited to the wildflowers that will grow next year.

August belongs to the butterflies. This is season for the Big Butterfly Count. The idea is simple: find a patch of flowers in the sun, spend fifteen minutes, and count every butterfly species you see. Nothing more technical than that. There is a smartphone app which makes it easy to identify and count the butterflies and upload the results to a national database. The data builds, year on year, into one of the most important citizen science records in British natural history. If you haven’t taken part before, this is the year to start — and the 4Bs parishes offer some fine counting ground: the chalk grassland above Betchworth, the thistle patches along the Greensand Way, the buddleia and amy number of flower species in village gardens.

Some of the more colourful butterflies found in the 4Bs
1 Silver washed fritillary, 2 Painted Lady 3 Peacock 4 Red Admiral 5 Chalkhill Blue and 6) Comma

What might you see? On warm afternoons along the scrubby North Downs, look for the Chalkhill Blue — the male a pale, luminous silver-blue quite unlike any other butterfly on the wing, the female a more subtle brown, often overlooked. Gatekeepers are still busy in the bramble edges, the male’s orange-and-brown wings carrying a distinctive double white-pupilled eye-spot. Small Tortoiseshells and Commas are visitors to garden nectar sources, fuelling up for hibernation. And if you’re very fortunate, a Silver-washed Fritillary may still be crossing a sunny woodland ride — a large, fast, glittering orange sail, gone almost before you’ve registered it.

Elsewhere this month: watch out for dragonflies like common darters resting on warm stone and bare earth, or the large beautiful southern hawker laying eggs on a pond. Listen in the evenings for the churring of any late nightjars on the heath. In the hedgerows, young birds of the year are now largely indistinguishable from adults and August birdsong has a different, quieter quality to May’s chorus. Something is ending, and something is resting before the next act.

]]><![CDATA[Busy pollinators]]>Thu, 09 Jul 2026 23:00:00 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/busy-pollinatorsJuly is the month when our wildflower meadows come fully into their own. Walk the margins of Common Field or pause at Rectory Green on a warm morning, and the air hums with purpose. Bumblebees work the clover and knapweed with an unhurried thoroughness, their amber-dusted bodies swaying from flower to flower. Smaller, sharper-featured solitary bees — mining bees, leafcutters — dart between stems in bursts of concentrated energy, each on its own errands, each a tiny engine of the summer.

Among the grasses, look too for the orchids that make these meadows so special. Common spotted orchids are at their peak in early July, their pink-purple spikes rising from leaves neatly blotched as if marked with a fine brush. The pyramidal orchid is more slender, its dense cone of flowers a deeper pink against the pale grass. And if you search carefully — and have a little luck — the bee orchid rewards a quiet eye: that extraordinary flower, with its velvet lip mimicking the body of a bee so precisely that it seems almost impossible that such a thing could arise by chance. It did, of course, though the full story of how and why still captivates botanists.

Some of our busiest pollinators

The butterflies are everywhere now, and the meadow grasses are where to find them. Meadow Browns drift in low, lazy arcs, perfectly at home among the seed-heads. Marbled Whites — that most striking of our local species, patterned in bold black-and-white checks — are on the wing through July, favouring tall, flower-rich swards; look for them nectaring on knapweed and field scabious. Skippers, small and orange-golden, skip and settle with barely a pause. And the common blue, jewel-bright on a sunny afternoon, can be found wherever bird’s-foot trefoil grows in the turf.

Drop your gaze lower still, and there is more to see. Crickets rasp and chirp from deep in the grass stems — heard before they are seen, and often not seen at all. At your feet, lines of ants go about their business with a purposefulness that puts most of us to shame, threading between grass roots and bare earth on routes only they understand.

It is easy to walk past all of this. July asks you to slow down and notice what is happening all around.

Things to watch for this month: Bee orchids, which can appear in unexpected corners — uncut lawns, verges, as well as in the meadows. The first broods of common blue emerging on warm afternoons. And listen as well as look: the sustained, contented drone of a bumblebee working a flower is one of the most reassuring sounds of an English summer.

]]><![CDATA[Wandering through the wildflowers]]>Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:55:38 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/wandering-through-the-wildflowers

There is nothing quite like wandering with a small group of people each of whom shares your delight in wildflowers. This years wildflower wander was in mid-June a little earlier than in the past. Leaving St Michaels car park we crossed Goulburn Green admiring the wildflower strip by the red garden wall, that sown by Re-Betchworth in 2022. A symbol of the care for nature shown by our community. This year the oxeye daisies were the dominant flower with red campion, knapweed, birds-foot- trefoil, meadow buttercup, teasel and red sorrel. We spotted many pollinators but the highlight was the red admiral sunning itself on the wall.

Next stop was the Common Field where the Hamilton Estate has sown a 250m long x 15m wide strip along the field margin. This is the largest wildflower cultivation anywhere in the 4Bs The biodiversity of this corridor is incredible with over 30 species identified in surveys. We spotted, oxeye daisy, rutabaga, red and white campion, clumps of pink mallow birds-foot-trefoil, hawks beard, meadow buttercup, purple & white clover, sainfoin, cornflower, poppy, teasel and red sorrel.

Next stop was the beautiful cultivated meadow at Potters Farm. Tended since 2011 there is no doubt that it is the best cultivation of knapweed in the whole of the 4Bs. Knapweed does not sound exciting but it is ranked among the top nectar-producing plants for bees, butterflies, and beetles. It’s a favourite of all kinds of butterflies, including common blues, marbled whites and meadow browns, and is sometimes covered in these species.

Crossing the A25 we encountered one of the biodiversity hot spots of Betchworth. The grass verge by the side of the roundabout. Actually, its more accurate to say by the woodland that was here well before the roundabout and the drainage ditch that separates it from the woodland. Spend a few minutes here and you can find over 20 species of plant and a profusion of wildflowers including oxeye daisy, red campion, rough hawksbeard, birds-foot-trefoil, hedge bedstraw, meadow buttercup, red clover, ragwort, spear thistle, knapweed, red sorrel and teasel. Not to mention the nettle, bramble, giant hog weed and great burdock. Walking quickly past as most people do you would think it’s a tangled mess, but go slowly or stop and you will be amazed at the diversity of plants and the number and variety of insects feeding off them.

Next stop the beautiful natural meadow below the railway. Sometimes all we have to do with nature is leave it alone to perform itself. We see an expanse of grass and immediately want to cut it, or destroy the plants that are not grass to make a perfect lawn. This garden abandoned the idea of a lawn nearly a decade ago and decided to cut the grass only once a year to enable the wildflowers in the seed bank to grow. The result is a stunning wildflower meadow from May to September. It begins with a dazzling display of 50cm high oxeye daisies with a ground cover of creeping buttercup, birds-foot-trefoil and purple clover. Then come the orchids – pyramid, common spotted and bee orchids together with purple self heal. Covering several acres it provides a food source for a diverse population of insects which in turn feed birds, dragonflies and bats.

Our final stop was Betchworth Station’s goods yard. It used to be full of coal but now its owners have embarked on a labour of love to restore nature. It’s a managed project and it has involved a lot of effort to clear the site, create pathways through the woodland, add topsoil to tarmac, dig some ponds, plant bulbs, seed and trees. And through a combination of self-seeding and new introductions of plants the tarmac is slowly being replaced by nature.

We took only 2 hours out of our busy lives. We walked and stopped and looked, really looked, and what we saw was beautiful and wholesome and free and we felt good in ourselves for having seen nature and each other.

]]><![CDATA[Our place in the Surrey Local Nature Recovery Strategy Norman Jackson]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:14:33 GMThttps://www.biodiversitypark.uk/blog/june-03rd-2026The Surrey Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) was formally launched on June 2nd at Denbies Vineyard It has taken over 3 years to develop with a lot of contributions from nature-based organisations and community groups and several public consultations. It will provides decision makers, especially those involved in planning with an evidence base to inform decisions about new development. It will also form the basis for funding to enhance biodiversity.
The full document and map can be found at:

Part 1: A description of the strategy area and its biodiversity (PDF) – A concise overview of the LNRS area, outlining its key landscapes, habitats, ecological features, and current biodiversity condition, providing the baseline context for recovery action.

Part 2: A statement of biodiversity priorities and species priority list (PDF) – The definitive list of priorities and potential measures that together will deliver a thriving, connected and wildlife-rich Surrey.

Part 3: The Local Habitat Map – An interactive map showing:

Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity (APIB) – Areas already identified as being of particular importance for biodiversity, including nationally and internationally designated sites, local nature reserves, local wildlife sites, and irreplaceable habitats.
Areas that Could become of Importance for Biodiversity (ACIB) – The area outside of the APIB identified as having the potential to deliver the greatest benefits for nature if targeted potential measures are implemented, helping expand and connect existing high‑value habitats.
Potential Measures – Areas where proposed specific nature recovery actions should be delivered to best achieve LNRS priorities, identifying locations where targeted measures can restore or enhance biodiversity.

The Local Habitat Map is of particular importance. It shows areas of highest biodiversity significance and areas which have the potential to become significant for biodiversity. Figure 1 provides an extract from the map for the area covered by the 4Bs Biodiversity Initiative. The most significant areas from a biodiversity perspective are coloured in dark green. In the 4Bs these are ancient woodlands and chalk grasslands of the North Downs, and other fragments of ancient woodland dotted through our landscape there are also a number of veteran tree locations.

Areas with the potential to become significant from a biodiversity perspective are concentrated along the scarp slope of the North Downs, which is currently mostly farmland – arable, pasture and grass crops. Other areas highlighted are along the River Mole and its system of tributaries.

Of particular interest to the 4Bs biodiversity initiative is the area in and around Tranquil Wood which has both a high value ancient woodland and an extensive area which has the potential to become significant for biodiversity.

Figure 1 4Bs Biodiversity Initiative Area within the Surrey Local Habitat Map

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