Dr Judith Webb BEM
  • ABOUT JUDY WEBB
    • More about Judy Webb
  • Oxon Fens
    • Lye Valley >
      • Lye Valley - some past events
      • Lye Valley - planning applications
      • Lye Valley - Tweets
  • Oxford's Floodplain Meadows
    • Judy Webb Oxford Floodplain meadows
    • Oxford Meadows SAC
    • Port Meadow & Wolvercote Common
    • New Marston Meadows
    • Almonds Farm Bank
    • Burnt Mill meadow
    • Hinksey Meadow
    • Oxford Botanic Garden - 2015 Biodiversity Lecture
  • Rare species monitored
    • Creeping Marshwort
    • Greater water parsnip
    • Narrow-leaved water dropwort
  • Flies
  • Pollinators
    • Pollinators - News Items
  • Talks. Involvement with other wildlife sites.
  • Cothill Pitt
  • Submissions to Oxford City Council re Consultations and Planning Applications
  • Northern Gateway Area Action Plan (Oxford)
  • Northern Gateway Area Action Plan Proposed Submission Consultation
Oxford Meadows Special Area of Conservation (SAC)​
Picture
 Above - Pixey Mead, May 2017 - photo by Judy Webb

More photos taken in Pixey Mead by Judy in May 2017
​
During one of her visits there Judy counted 225 early marsh orchids,
Dactylorhiza incarnata, the highest number ever. These orchids vary in colour.


Floodplain Meadows: Beauty and Utility - a Technical Handbook
Brand new handbook FREE to download from the Floodplain Meadows Partnership - 104 pages.
(Judy contributed to this)  Beautifully produced with lots of fascinating historical information
and lovely photos.   'Technical' here does not mean hard to read - it's entertaining!


Oxford Meadows SAC (Special Area of Conservation)
is indicated by purple diagonal lines on this Defra map
​

Oxford Meadows SAC has been given this designation because of its European Importance.  Quoting from a Defra website:

‘The site includes vegetation communities that are perhaps unique in the world in reflecting the influence of long-term grazing and hay-cutting on lowland hay meadows. The site has benefited from the survival of traditional management, which has been undertaken for several centuries, and so exhibits good conservation of structure and function’.

There are less than 1,500 ha in total of this diverse floodplain meadow flora association left in the UK, and it survives at scattered and mostly small sites.

All of the haymeadows in the Oxford Meadows SAC fall into the valuable and severely-declined NVC (National Vegetation Classification) Lowland Meadow MG4 (Meadow Foxtail Alopecurus pratensis–Great Burnet Sanguisorba officinalis association) and, more specifically, contain the most species-rich types, known as MG4a and MG4b.  Only between 1200 and 1350ha of all subtypes of MG4 are left in England and Wales and there is even less of the most species-rich MG4a and MG4b types. A significant proportion of all MG4* type vegetation is to be found in Oxford Meadows SAC  Alopecurus pratensis – Sanguisorba officinalis grassland. This community is characterised by species-rich swards containing frequent red fescue Festuca rubra, crested dog’s-tail Cynosurus cristatus, meadow foxtail Alopecurus pratensis, great burnet Sanguisorba officinalis, meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria and meadow buttercup Ranunculus acris. It provides the main habitat in the UK for the fritillary Fritillaria meleagris


*Why are these very specific classifications of flower communities important?  A report funded by the Floodplain Meadows Partnership explains: "Understanding the community assemblages enables improved understanding of soil-water levels and soil fertility at a site. Understanding the subtle differences in plant community at a site will help to alert site managers to potential changes in soil water, fertility and management, enabling action to be taken to reverse any negative changes".  From A revision of the Alopecurus pratensis - Sanguisorba officinalis (MG4) grassland community of the NVC  2014​
How Judy's interest in the floodplain meadows began

​The areas that make up the Oxford Meadows SAC 
are indicated on a 
Defra map.by purple diagonal lines.  
​
They include meadows used for grazing: 

       Port Meadow with Wolvercote Common SSSI
       (but not Wolvercote Green, although it is part of the
       same SSSI)

​       Cassington Meadows SSSI

and also the following, which are the haymeadows:           
       
Pixey Mead and Yarnton Mead* SSSI 
       
*also known as West Mead

         ​Photos taken by Judy Webb in Yarnton Mead
       
       Oxey Mead
 SSSI
       owned by BBOWT and managed by FAI Farms        
 
 

The following are NOT part of the SAC:
       
Hinksey Meadow LWS (Local Wildlife Site)
       owned by Oxford Preservation Trust
       
       New Marston Meadows
 SSSI
​
       Wolvercote Green SSSI


Oxford Meadows Important Plant Area - mapped by Plantlife

Dr Alison McDonald, a local expert on floodplain meadows, talks about her long-term study of the Oxford Meadow SAC in an article on pages 3 to 4 of the

Floodplain Meadows Partnership Newsletter, Jan 2011

The Resources page of the FMP website lists her short history of Oxford Meads. 

'A brief history of Port Meadow and Wolvercote Common and Picksey Mead, and why their plant communities changed over the last 90 years' 
This article by Dr McDonald appeared in the 5th edition of Fritillary, the journal of the Ashmolean Natural History Society of Oxfordshire.  Go to the ANHSO website and click on Fritillary in the left hand margin.




​All photos below by Judy Webb
Picture
Saw Wort
Picture
Snake's Head Fritillary
Picture
Quaking Grass

Natural England's Site Improvement Plan for Oxford Meadows (SIP163)  10 December 2014

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