The variety of wildlife is one of the most attractive features of Wiveliscombe parish. Unlike many other parts of England you do not need to go to nature reserves to see this wildlife, though there are many fine reserves managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust in neighbouring parishes at Huish Moor and Langford Common. In Wiveliscombe you can easily find interesting wildlife in gardens, hedgerows, streams, meadows and woods. The good network of public rights of way allows locals and visitors access to these habitats.
In Langley Marsh, Ford and Wiveliscombe itself many houses have the benefit of large gardens, often with bordering hedgerows and trees and wilder areas of rough vegetation. These areas provide habitat for a range of plants, insects and, not least birds which are also attracted to the bird tables through the winter months. When spring arrives, the wonderful music of blackbirds, robins and song thrushes fills the air. Both the Primary School and Kingsmead School have created conservation areas in their grounds, a pond and other habitats. These support frogs and newts and many many other species and provide fascination and inspiration to hundreds of children each year.
A short walk from the town brings you to rich hedgerows, often raised on earth banks, supporting snowdrops, primroses, red campion, stitchwort and violets in spring. Varied ground flora can also be found in the plantations on Castle Hill and Maundown and especially the ancient broadleaved woodlands around Oakhampton quarry. This fascinating, but hazardous place also has raven and other birds nesting on its cliffs, and special butterflies on the sunny south facing heaps of slate waste. Buzzards, now fully recovered from their pesticide-caused crash of thirty years ago, soar on rising currents of air in good numbers.You may also glimpse a peregrine falcon.
Somerset has one of the highest badger populations in the country, and the deep, rich soils and abundance of habitat in Wiveliscombe parish supports many strong setts. Summer walkers in the late evening are sometimes lucky enough to glimpse one, using a typical historic path crisis-crossing the fields and lanes.
Flower-rich meadows are very rare these days; most fields are now sprayed and fertilised so that little more that lush rye-grass remains. We are fortunate to have a few attractive traditional meadows left in the parish at Cotcombe, Croford and near Deepleigh. Many place names in the parish are linked to water, and rivers and streams with their associated wetlands form some of the most important habitats.
A fine example is the apparently nameless brook which runs from Maundown to Croford by way of Langley Marsh and Ford - call it the Langley-Ford brook. This and the superb River Tone, which forms the western boundary of the parish between Clatworthy and Waterrow, are occasionally visited by the wandering otter, now happily on the increase once again in Somerset
The River Tone around Washbattle Bridge, on the Huish Champflower road also has an intriguing species, the White-clawed crayfish. This small lobster-like crustacean is killed by a disease carried by the Signal crayfish which has been imported to many sites on the River Tone; as a result the native species is now threatened with global extinction.
From the globally threatened White-clawed crayfish to the constantly familiar blackbird, Wiveliscombe has a special wealth of wildlife.
