1st Wildlife Trust Reserve: Upper Waterhay – Wiltshire

It was very exciting to be visiting our first Wildlife Trust reserve, Upper Waterhay, which became a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve in 1970.

It was obvious from looking at maps prior to the trip that we were dealing with a small rectangular meadow which was supposed to hold a kind of superpower.

Getting there involved us scrambling over a couple of gates, with a slightly concerned feeling that we may have been trespassing in the wrong place. We weren’t, but we’re British and it’s probably a national trait to feel you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, even when you’re not. We soon saw the sign for the reserve in the distance, however, confirming that all was well.

The reserve’s superpower soon revealed itself to be genuine, in that it’s a stronghold for the snakes-head fritillary. A really beautiful spring flower, that used to be so common, people would pick handfuls of them. Mind you, upon reading this in the trusts leaflet, it did cross my mind that maybe that’s why they’re so rare now. I was completely wrong however, and it’s the usual suspect of habitat destruction that is the culprit yet again. They need damp, wetland soil, which is a rare habitat these days.

The first thing we noticed as we approached was a very generous sprinkling of white on the ground. Those in the know, when they think of snakes-head fritillaries, will think of beautiful purple/pink flowers with a check pattern. It was this check pattern that gave the flower its name, from the Latin fritillus, which was the name given to a chessboard or dice box. However, the vast majority of Upper Waterhay’s fritillaries are white. Although as we gingerly stepped through this miniature forest of beautiful flowers, we noticed that some of the white flowers had the barest hint of the check patterning on them.

We must have been blessed, because the sun shone through the clouds about 5 minutes after we arrived and I decided to quickly take photographs before doing any sketching.

If the sun arrives, make the most of it, as it’ll probably be gone soon enough.

In my photographs I played around with compositional ideas, coming up with 2 main ones. One, taking a picture from an extremely low angle, very close to a group of flowers, making them very dominant, as if towering above the viewer. The other placed a few flowers in the foreground, so they were much smaller in the picture. It was the former idea that I favoured at the time and this was still the case, even after plonking myself on the ground (being very careful not to squash anything!) and doing some sketching, It wasn’t until I was back in the studio thinking seriously about the first piece of art that I decided on the later composition. These are stunningly beautiful, small flowers that covered the meadow and any artwork needs to capture the feeling of being there, rather than creating a false drama that misses the point.