Butser Wildlife Watch May 2019

We've been keeping track of the wonderful wildlife we see here at Butser as the seasons change. Here is our May update written by team member Victoria Melluish on what we've witnessed this month!

What a curious month it has been for wildlife on the farm! If you follow our Facebook page and blog you will see that we have been renovating our Roman Villa, whilst we have been painting, sweeping and clearing we come across quite a few unusual things. The occasional spider or other interesting bugs and sometimes even mice, however this curious little thing was found in a large roman like pot that we have had in the villa for a number of years.  A petrified frog!

“In geology, petrifaction or petrification is the process by which organic material becomes a fossil through the replacement of the original material and the filling of the original pore spaces with minerals.”

On a rather sunny and peaceful afternoon we also spotted a white shape moving in the field opposite our site, could it be the white hart? We took out our camera and decided to get as close as we could to get a good shot, a few minutes passed and the deer had slipped away back into the forest. Upon looking at the photographs we saw that the white stag had lost his antlers ,we then realised that fallow deer shed their antlers around April/May time, so be sure to have a wonder through your local forest to find them!

We have also been joined by four rather cute pink and black spotted piglets! Known as Gloucestershire old spotted pigs, a rare breed and one of the oldest too. Their other name is the orchard pig, people would say that their black spots were actually bruises from apples that had fallen from the trees! Make sure you come down to the farm and say hello, they are very friendly and will most certainly make you smile with their curious oinks and squeaks.