Beautiful butterflies

15 Tuesday Jul 2025

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, insects, News, seasons

Tags

butterflies, insects, News, orchards, summer

You may have seen reports that 2025 is a good year for butterflies. I have certainly noticed more of them in my garden. However, butterfly and moth numbers are in overall decline, and one factor is loss of habitat. The Butterfly Conservation Trust has researched the positive impact that even a single tree has on butterfly numbers, so spaces like the orchard are more important than ever.

One of our volunteers has recently recorded these species as making use of the various habitats in the orchard:
ringlet,
small copper
gatekeeper
comma
meadow brown
small skipper
marbled white
common blue
(all above are butterflies )

excitingly, a very speedy hummingbird hawk moth
Nemophora metallica (a type of shiny longhorn moth – see Norfolk Moths for more details)
southern hawker dragonfly
common blue damselfly

If you have taken any snaps of insect wildlife in the orchard, please share them on Facebook or email them and we will put them on the website. It is so exciting to see the changes through the seasons. Thanks to Juliette for these gorgeous photos.

Digging for apples

23 Thursday May 2024

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, News, seasons, volunteering

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

apples, maintenance, orchards, spring, volunteer

Orchard maintenance can sometimes be idyllic – just imagine it. You have beautiful surroundings, the sun is shining, the work is gentle. Imagine doing something like picking off the small spare fruit in early June, or raking up the leaves in the soft autumn light. But… then again…back to reality, where sometimes the weather is a bit British. Our group of volunteers from Hays battled sudden rainstorms to do some proper hard work. They recycled our old picnic benches to make some more raised beds, and they cleared and scythed some of the grass around the beds and the base of the swift tower. They dug up some odd bits and pieces too. Honestly, we have spent over ten years clearing out rubbish from the ground (mainly bits of bicycle, no surprise in Cambridge I suppose) but still, there’s a shoe and a flower pot and goodness knows what else. After all this hard work, the orchard is looking really good now, so pay us a visit and enjoy all the wild flowers. Just don’t leave one of your shoes behind.

overgrown part of the orchard — Before the work began

clearing the orchard — Cleared and mulched. Happy tree, happy volunteer

Making a raised bed using woodwork tools — Measure twice, cut once. Good skills

sawing wood for a raised bed — Recycling the old picnic bench.

volunteers in the rain — The sun did not shine all the time.

rubbish in a bucket — Buried treasure, of a kind.

Grafting skills

26 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, News, seasons, volunteering

≈ Leave a comment

Grafting is an ancient technique for propagating apple varieties. If you plant an apple pip of one variety, say a Histon Favourite, that pip will not grow up into a Histon Favourite apple tree. It will be a unique tree, maybe better, maybe worse. So if you want to get another Histon Favourite tree, you have to take some wood from the tree and somehow attach it to a rootstock. The rootstock helps to control the height and vigour of the tree. This process of ‘sticking’ the variety wood (the scion) to the rootstock is called grafting.
Last week staff from Cambridge city council and a couple of orchard volunteers came along to learn about grafting fruit trees and practice their grafting techniques. It’s great to keep these skills alive. We also noticed the bees were very active, making natural honeycomb in the observation hive.

Swifts and Squirrels

28 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, News, seasons

≈ Leave a comment

We’ve had a swift tower in the orchard for over ten years now, and we’ve had resident swifts for the last few years, enticed by recorded swift calls coming from the tower. However, we have noticed that some pesky squirrels have been gnawing at the entrance holes in the swift box. The squirrels might want to move in, or even predate any eggs and chicks they find. So, with further help from the Swift Conservation charity, we have squirrel-proofed the swift tower.

A group of orchard and swift conservation volunteers wrestled with scaffold towers ,scaffold boards and rope and managed to remove the damaged front and sides of the swift box. They emptied ten years worth of nesting material and replaced the front and sides with a slightly different profile – this includes some metal reinforcements to deter squirrels from chewing the nest box entrance holes. At the same time they have moved the lower bat box on the tower to above the other bat box, in the hope that this will also make access to the nesting area harder for the squirrels. Fingers crossed that our resident swifts like their improved home when they return.

Bugs and Swifts at Trumpington Community Orchard

28 Sunday Aug 2022

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, events, insects, News

≈ Leave a comment

Bugs and Swifts for the Heritage Open Days Sunday 18 September 2022 14:00 – 16:00

Take a tour around our small plant-filled oasis designed to enhance the community and promote biodiversity and educate people about fruit production, wildflower meadows and conservation.

Innovation is not just technology, but the integration of sustainable food production with biodiversity and conservation is an innovative approach to a new way of living to minimize consumerism and maximize a positive environmental impact.

The visit will highlight how the community orchard and wildflower meadow contribute to biodiversity, illustrated by the bugs found. In addition the swift tower and observational beehive illustrate the possible contribution to conservation as both swifts and bees have been in decline (sadly this year swifts have been added to the red list, emphasizing the urgent need for action).

Trumpington Community Orchard illustrates how nature needs to be the central consideration in all INNOVATIVE community planning.

No booking required, just turn up. Please park considerately in this residential area. The event is free but we rely on donations to keep the orchard going.

Bug hunting and bees

26 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, events, insects

≈ Leave a comment

Our Open Cambridge event on Saturday 11 September was a great success. Susanna, who is one of our founder members, said, ‘Saturday went really well with sunshine and lots of happy families joining us at the orchard for the bug hunt and plant potting. Tristan did a stoic job leading the bug hunt and showing people how to use a key to help identify the ” beasties”. There were magnificent spiders , grass hoppers and a couple of fat crickets and every one had a fantastic time. Rosa was in charge of greeting our guests and selling apple juice as well as collecting donations. I led the potting up session with a selection of strawberries, sage and rosemary that I’d set up a few weeks ago from runners or cuttings from my allotment. Everyone took at least one plant home with instructions of how to care for them. One enterprising child found a rosemary beetle and then potted up some rosemary to take home so that she could keep the beetle as a pet ( with parental consent of course!) Chris has been busy again making a shelter at the entrance to the orchard (prompted by us getting soaked on Friday evening when we went down to set up the notice board). He has also painted the sign on the gate and re-varnished the wood so our kissing gate looks beautiful. Dave has not had a chance to put bees into the observation hive this year but a colony has moved in anyway.’

Bees doing their own thing, as they usually do, in the observation hive.

We’re going on a bug hunt

06 Monday Sep 2021

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, events, insects, News

≈ Leave a comment

On Saturday 11th September 2021 from 2 – 4pm in the orchard, we will be searching for as many bugs and minibeasts as we can find. All creatures, once examined and recorded, will be carefully returned to where we found them.

Come along and see what you can find. No experience necessary, and no knowledge of bugs required.

Last time we did this, we found a lot of bugs!

This event is part of Open Cambridge It is a free event, but donations to keep our orchard going are much appreciated.

Orchard minibeasts

07 Friday May 2021

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, insects

≈ 1 Comment

We were delighted to show a group of walkers around the orchard and even more delighted when they showed us what they had found while exploring. Trumpington Orchard is looked after to benefit as many types of animals, insects and wild flora as possible, and it’s great to have some proof of all our hard work.

More information on these fabulous finds are linked to the titles. Warning – these images include a spider. We like spiders, but we recognise not everyone is keen on seeing one unexpectedly.

Photos taken by Paul Rule.

Goodens Nomad Beehttps://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/goodens-nomad-bee/#:~:text=Gooden’s%20Nomad%20bee%20(Nomada%20goodeniana)%20is%20one%20of%20the%20largest,lay%20their%20own%20eggs%20inside.

Flavous Nomad bee (probably)https://www.gedlingconservationtrust.org/species/apocrita-aculeata/flavous-nomad-bee/

Common Cornsaladhttps://www.ukwildflowers.com/Web_pages/valerianella_locusta_common_cornsalad.htm

Cricket Bat Spiderhttps://www.uksafari.com/cricket_bat_spiders.htm

Woundwort Shieldbughttps://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Pentatomidae/eysarcoris_venustissimus.html

Swifts make essential journey home

10 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, News

≈ Leave a comment

The Swift Tower at the orchard is now home to at least three nesting pairs of swifts. These marvellous birds, that weigh the same as a Creme Egg, have travelled all the way from Africa to nest here. The Swift Tower is designed to play a recording of the swift’s cries, in order to entice them in. Apparently no swift likes to be the first swift to make a nest in a particular spot, so you have to fool them that the nest tower is already popular. Whatever the swift psychology, it’s worked. And we are delighted to welcome them.

Juvenile swifts. Photo by Eric Kaiser, at the Swift Conservation Trust who built the tower for us.

Swift Tower Official Opening

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by trumpingtonorchard in biodiversity, events

≈ Leave a comment

On Sunday 29th June we declared the Swift Tower (it deserves those capital letters) open for business, and a group of Orchard supporters gathered to encourage the swifts to take up residence. Looking at one of the photos it seemed that all we managed to lure was a helicopter, but it’s very early days.
We were delighted to welcome The Mayor of Cambridge, Councillor Gerri Bird, and her partner, Mr. Alan Pooley, JP, to our orchard, as the City Council has supported the orchard from the beginning. We also received a ‘big cheque’ from the Waitrose Community Matters Fund, represented by Sadie Takeley. Dick Newell from Action for Swifts, who built our amazing tower, was there with information about these lovely birds.
And a very big thank you to Susanna, one of the orchard’s founders and the main instigator of this project. We hope the swifts come along to see her.