The Big Butterfly Count

Seeing as the farm is brimming with so much wildlife, we are always looking for opportunities to conserve it and protect its future. One of the ways in which we do this every year is to take part in the Big Butterfly Count with the charity Butterfly Conservation, which has taken place this year between 15th July to 7th August. With conservation always in need of extra funding, one of the best ways to help protect wildlife is through ‘citizen science’ – that’s where normal individuals like you and me help keep track of what wildlife there is and where, so that scientists can analyse the data and work out ways to increase those numbers.We attempted a count this morning but the sun wasn’t particularly encouraging and we didn’t find many… So this afternoon we went out again in full sunshine, and what a transformation! We spotted five gatekeepers, four red admirals, fifteen cabbage whites, one comma, four peacocks, one brimstone, one meadow brown and one large white. The area we chose is the old piggery – the pigs used to live there last year but now it is full of wildflowers and the odd pumpkin plant grown from the kitchen scraps we threw in for the pigs!If you would like to get involved with the count, visit www.bigbutterflycount.org and get spotting!Red AdmiralCabbage WhitePeacockComma

Goaty Celebrations

Last weekend we spent a wonderful day at the Weald & Downland Museum in Singleton, who were hosting their annual Rare & Traditional Breeds show to celebrate the nation’s most rare and beautiful breeds of livestock. This year we decided to enter one of our English goats called Sorrel, a year-old goatling who is both pretty and mischievous.We spent the morning watching an array of colourful animals strut around the show rings, including sheep, cows, pigs and pygmy goats. When it came to our turn, Sorrel behaved better than ever and impressed the judge so much that we won third place! We came home with a lovely green rosette and lots of goaty pride.Looking after our rare and traditional breeds is important to us at Butser, as anyone who has seen our four-horned Manx Loaghtans will know. They are an Iron Age breed dating back thousands of years, and have beautiful wool that is reflected in their name ‘Loaghtan’, meaning mousey-brown in Manx.One of our close friends Janet Brown is a goat breeder and regularly helps us with our own goat herd when we need expert advice. She won Best of Breed for her English goat, a breed of which there are only a handful in the UK. The English Goat Breeders’ Association was formed in the 1920s and is dedicated to the preservation of this special breed. Please have a look at their website here, as well as the Rare Breeds Survival Trust here.

A Wild Goosefoot Chase

We have some rather exciting news for all the archaeobotanists out there! A few weeks ago we invited someone from the Species Recovery Trust to use our site for an intriguing plant-based experiment. A small patch of greenery outside our Neolithic longhouse is being used as an experimental area for growing Upright Goosefoot (Chenopodium urbicum), a plant that has existed in Britain since farming began when both the seeds and leaves were eaten. Its last known site was at a medieval farmstead in Essex, where it was last seen in 1995.Thanks to the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens, these plants are now growing fabulously in our Neolithic area! It’s all part of the Ancient Plants Project part-funded by Natural England, and is aiming to restore Upright Goosefoot and Darnel (an extinct grass of Roman origin) back to a network of working Iron Age and Roman sites across the UK.

Adiós! Auf Wiedersehen!

Yesterday we waved goodbye to the second of two fabulous exchange students who have been working at Butser for the last few months. Catalina from Barcelona and Dennis from Germany found places with us through the Erasmus programme, and were here to enhance their studies on Dennis’ undergraduate degree in linguistics and Catalina’s in heritage. They have been unbelievably valuable to us and both have created an interactive activity for visitors; Dennis’ is a Saxon word game in the Saxon house and Catalina has made a livestock game in the Iron Age enclosure!We always welcome new volunteers on exchange and work experience schemes, and although we may be a little biased, all of our temporary team members seem to have a fantastic time, learn brilliant skills and make friends with everyone. If you’re interested in joining us for volunteering or internships, please contact us at admin@butserancientfarm.co.uk. Here is Catalina learning woodworking skills to build her game – good luck to both Dennis and Catalina in their future careers!

In the name of pigs...

We’d like to thank all our young visitors over the last few weeks for putting suggestions in the box for naming our new piggies! We are pleased to announce that the names have now been drawn and are as follows…

The Oxford Sandy & Blacks are called Ron (male) and Sugar (female), and the four Saddlebacks are called Banjo (male), Alex (male), Buffy (female) and Rainbow (female). 

The lucky draw has spoken, for good or bad… Make sure you come and visit our lovely pigs in the sunshine this summer! They love attention, although we don’t recommend touching as they may think your fingers are delicious crudités.

Hello June!

After a beautiful bank holiday weekend in the sunshine, the weather has been a little bit miserable this week. It’s certainly not the June we were wishing for! Hopefully it will brighten up throughout the month and we’ll be treated to a delicious English summer – that means at least one day a week with no rain…For some of our farm wildlife, the rain is always a pleasant treat! We found this handsome toad on the steps of our visitor centre, looking a little bemused and covered in cobwebs (where had he been lurking?!). Fortunately we moved him before he was squashed by dog paws or visitor shoes, and he now lives in the wildflower bank among the comfrey flowers.The swallows have now returned to their nests in the eaves of the roundhouse roof; if you look very closely into the darkness you can see them flitting in and out in search of insects. They certainly don’t seem to mind the smoke! We are also on the lookout for our family of stoats, who last year we watched carrying their kits across the site in search of a new den. We managed to get this photo of one mid-leap!

Elsewhere, the site is always filled with the songs of yellowhammers and wrens, and the cackle of woodpeckers as they dip across the downland. We have lots of great events over the next few months, so why not join us and bring prehistory to life amidst the beautiful scenery of the South Downs? Have a look at our events here.

The pigs are back in town

Regular visitors will know that last year we said goodbye to our biggest pigs Beryl and Bertha due to their mammoth size causing health problems, along with the four weaners that stayed with us for the summer. The great news is that we now have six new piglets living at Butser Ancient Farm!We have four Saddlebacks from our friends at Manor Farm near Southampton, and two Oxford Sandy and Blacks from Bedales School in Petersfield. When we first introduced them to each other there were the usual squabbles and nibbles of ears, but one week later they have devised a hierarchy among themselves and now tumble along together quite happily.But alas! Our piggies are yet to be named! We have set up a name suggestion box in our visitor centre, and we would love your ideas on what to call our new porcine pals. Until we make a decision, here they are in all their ferocity:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWk4FxITV4I[/embed]

Beltain 2016: 'It was the best one!'

What a fantastic weekend it turned out to be in the South Downs! Our annual Beltain festival was bigger and better than ever before, and the team at Butser would like to extend a very warm thank you to all the visitors, volunteers and exhibitors who made the event an evening to remember. This year our mystery wickerman took the form of a great wicker stag, with the body of a man and the head of a deer – complete with white blaze, gleaming eyes and antlers!

The site was filled with an array of brilliant performers and exhibitors, including prehistoric re-enactors, ancient craftsmen, drummers, Morris dancers, live folk music, ancient musicians, storytelling, Roman cookery, astronomy, woodwork, metalwork and magnificent birds of prey. We truly are very grateful to all our performers for making Beltain the magical event that it was meant to be – the visitors seemed thrilled with what we had to offer this year.

Thanks to ticket fees, on-site purchases and the overall generosity of our visitors, we have raised a wonderful amount of money to fund future archaeological projects and develop our education programme. Every year the farm welcomes more and more visitors, and we are keen to develop the site further to enhance your experience with us and really take our visitors on an intriguing journey back to ancient Britain.

We would once again like to thank all our volunteers who worked tirelessly to bring Beltain together. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2017 on Saturday 29th April!

Above: The wickerman by Rebecca Saunders

Above: Pentacle drummers by Inside Hampshire

Above: Drumming by Eleanor Sopwith

Above: Clash of weapons by Eleanor Sopwith

Above: Roman cookery by Eleanor Sopwith

Above: Ancient people by Eleanor Sopwith

Above: Ancient crafts by Eleanor Sopwith

Above: Pentacle drummers by Rebecca Saunders

Above: The burning man by Eleanor Sopwith

Above: Lighting the torches by Rebecca Saunders

Above: The torch procession by Rebecca Saunders

Above: All that remained of the wickerman on Sunday morning!