Wakering & District Natural History Society

News and Events

Photographic Competition - Judging took place on Monday 24th November 2008 with Dave Gonning winning 4 of the six categories along with 'Overall Winner'. Well done once again Dave, your photographs are excellent. Many thanks to all members who attended and supported the competition. The photographs judged by the members to be in the 1st Class are as follows:

• Birds - 'Mandarin Duck' - Richard Kirton
• Mammals - 'Young Otters' - Dave Gonning
• Flora - 'New Zealand Flax with guest' - Dave Gonning
• Habitat - '7 Spot Ladybird' - Dave Gonning
• Other Fauna - 'Hawthorn Shield Bug' - Dave Gonning
• Clouds - 'Clouds' - Maureen Sier

The committee hopes that members who submitted photographs are not too disappointed or disheartened if they did not win a place; there is always next year when the special category is 'Quirks of Nature'. Always keep your camera with you and let's surprise Dave and Richard with your masterpieces next year.  All of the winning photographs including runners up and previous years winners can be see here.

Welcome to our website

Wakering and District Natural History Society is a small society in Essex, England which enables villagers to learn about and enjoy the natural world. The society's main activities include outdoor meetings and activities between April and August and indoor meetings between September and March. Rainfall is monitored on a daily basis and flora and fauna are recorded on outdoor meetings.

In 1995 the society started a Village Map project using the talent of local artists: Ann Bacon, Betty Belcham, Pamela Bridge, Yvonne Bridge, Vera Chapman, Elizabeth Colbert, Betty Dobson, Elizabeth Donaghy, Arthur Golding, Les Groves, Fred Harris, Janet Heard, Irene Hillsdon, Jane Hollywood, Pauline Huxter, Marianne Ings, Diane Jeffries, Jacqueline Johnston, Beryl Jones, Joan Kemp,William McArthur, John Mead, Elsie Morley, Peter Smith, Janet Taylor, Lucille Taylor, Gill Threadgold, Graeme Ward and Sandra Williams.

We are honoured to have our map hanging in houses all round the world, as well as here in Great Wakering. The map is a snapshot of the year 1995 and includes all of the buildings and crops in the district at that time. Maps are still available from John Threadgold or any of the members of the committee at a cost of £5 plus postage. Further details are available on the Village Map page.

Wildlife Records

Rainfall - John Threadgold has been recording rainfall at Millers Farm since 1989 and it has become part of his daily routine. In winter and summer John gets up at the crack of dawn and attends to all of his natural history chores before breakfast.

Birds - Members are encouraged to record their Bird sightings throughout the year and a summary is posted on this website. Being a coastal area, we are very privileged to have such wonderful birds as the Avocet, Oyster Catcher, Brent Goose and several species of gull on a regular basis.

Wildflowers - John Threadgold has been keeping wildflower records since 1966. Also, we are often asked to manage orchid counts in certain areas of our district for other organisations. We are fortunate to have one of the rarest plants in our area, the "Atriplex pedunculata" but for conservation reasons, prefer to keep it's exact location a secret.

Pond Life - Adjacent to Millers farmhouse is 'Millers Pond', the venue of our annual pond dip. The pond supports a wide variety of wildlife including our regular visitor, the ' Great Crested Newt'. It is amazing how the pond can completely dry out then fill again  in the same year and it does not take long for the pond life to return.

Photographic Competition

Many of our members are keen amateur photographers and take part in the annual Photographic Competition in December each year. Five of the six categories, namely Birds, Mammals, Flora, Habitat/Landscape and Other Fauna are fixed but starting 2007 we introduced a special category "Patterns in Nature". The special category for 2008 is "Clouds" and for 2009 is "Quirks in Nature".

The photographs are displayed on boards and points are awarded for each photograph by each member. At the end of the evening the points are totalled and the photographer of the winning photograph in each category wins a book token. The six class winners then enter the final round which is decided by the number of first places that they receive. The overall winner gets a small engraved shield to keep and also the large shield to hold for a year. This judging method seems very fair all round and members are happy to be part of the decision making process themselves. In the past, professional photographers were called upon to judge the photographs but this tended to be very time consuming and technically critical.

Outdoor Meetings

Between April and August each year our outdoor meetings vary from pond dips to visits to wildlife trusts. A very popular trip is the Wildlife Cruise on the 'Springer' which departs from Essex Marina at Wallasea Island and cruises along the river Crouch and river Roach to observe the birds and seals of the area.

Another visited venue is Chafford Gorges Nature Park. This brand new wildlife site is managed by Essex Wildlife Trust and lies at the heart of the Chafford Hundred housing development in Grays Thurrock, near the Lakeside Shopping Centre. It consists of about 200 acres of former chalk quarries known as Warren Gorge, Lion Gorge and Grays Gorge, together with connecting land. For those without a car, there is Rainham Marshes within walking distance of Purfleet station.

Much of it has chalky soil and as a result some of the grassland areas have a great diversity of plants that like alkaline conditions, including Kidney Vetch, Bladder Campion and nine different species of orchid. It has a variety of chalky, sandy and gravelly soils and these support a large number of unusual insects. The large lakes, the woodland and the chalk cliffs provide habitats for a wide range of other animals, including Great Crested Newts, Bats, Kingfishers and Sand Martins.

Members Photos

We would like to encourage our members to sort out their best wildlife photographs and submit them, ideally in digital 'jpg' format, for display in a new 'Members Gallery'.

Other members and visitors to our website will then be able to see where our passion lies. It does not matter what size or resolution the photographs are and they can either be on a disk, memory stick, media card or even emailed to Richard Kirton if they are small enough.

Our website is restricted to a maximum storage capacity of 15mb, therefore I resize the images to a maximum resolution of 600 pixels by 400 pixels for landscape format and 400 pixels by 600 pixels for portrait format at 72 pixels per inch (screen resolution). I find that, at this resolution, the photographs end up less than 50KB each and display on screen without any noticeable loss of quality.

We have a Members Gallery page for some of our committee members and I would respectfully ask, if you have some spare time, to take a look:

Intersociety Quiz

In December each year our society members meet at our usual venue, the Old School Community Centre in the High Street for a 'Quiz and Fizz' evening.

The 'Fizz' is soft drinks, tea and coffee accompanied by a buffet. The 'Quiz' is very informal and friendly and normally arranged by one of our own members, George Bailey who seems to have a particular flair for knowing the type of questions that might catch us out. To be fair, George has done an admirable job throughout the years in preparing us for the Intersociety Quiz in the following Spring since the result of this quiz usually determines which of our members will represent us. 

The 25th Intersociety Quiz is to be held on Monday 23rd March 2009 at 7.30 p.m. in the Old School Community Centre, High Street, Great Wakering, Essex. All members are more than welcome to come along and support the quiz teams.

About Us

Early in 1980 John Threadgold was approached by Councillor Ernie Adcock to see if he would be willing to start up a Natural History group in the village. The answer being 'Yes', John then had to liaise with the Parish Clerk to fix up a meeting place and then get some helpers. The obvious choice for help was George Bailey who was a keen photographer and a fellow member of the South Essex Natural History Society.

Committee - Chairman: John Threadgold, Secretary: Gill Threadgold, Treasurer: Richard Rae, Vice Chairman: Richard Kirton, other Committee Members: Barry Hale, George Bailey, Joyce Belton, Mavis Sanders.

Membership - Our adult membership annual fee is still only £1.50. Family membership is £4.00 and Child membership is £1.50. The committee have managed to maintain these prices through the years through various money making schemes including fetes, plant sales, projects etc. We would particularly like to encourage younger people to join our society.

Program of Events - We alternate between indoor meetings in the summer months to outdoor meetings in winter. We have a comprehensive list of speakers and try to vary the program with interesting and different topics each month.