Village & Community Magazine
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VILLAGE & COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Part January & Full February 2020 Keeping Connected the Villages of ALSTONEFIELD ~ BUTTERTON ~ ELKSTONES ..... ILAMSee Inside ~ WARSLOW for August’s Specials~ WETTON..... ……Some of January’s & February’s Events…… January 18th… February 2nd … Live Music at Alstonefield Village Hall Live Music at Alstonefield Village Hall Live Music at the Black Lion Butterton February 7th … Film Night at Wetton Village Hall Bingo at Butterton Village Hall February 15th … January 23rd … ‘Valentine’s Ceilidh’ at Alstonefield Village ‘Afternoon Social’ at Warslow Village Hall Hall January 26th … ‘Chinese Night’ at Warslow Village Hall Alstonefield ‘Village Hall Open Day’ th Film Night at Wetton Village Hall January 30 … th Quiz Night at the Black Lion Butterton February 19 … Bingo at Warslow Village Hall February 29th … Cheese & Wine Evening at The Elms, Wetton “WHAT’S ON” 2nd HALF JANUARY 2020 14th 7.30pm Butterton W.I. with Kate Haigh from ‘Becalmed’ Butterton Village Hall 14th 7.00pm Butterton Parish Council Meeting Butterton Village Hall 14th A.M. Cross Country (and every Tuesday) From Ilam 14th 8.00pm Ilam Parish Council Meeting Ilam School 15th 10.00am Free Nordic Walking Taster Session Barn, Green Farm, Thorpe 15th 7.30pm Warslow Bingo Warslow Village Hall 16th 3.30pm Pilates (and every Thursday) Beechenhill Haybarn, Ilam 16th 1.15pm Free Nordic Walking Low Impact Taster Session Old Dog Car Park, Thorpe 18th 7 for 7.30pm Film Night Wetton Village Hall 18th 7.30 for 8pm Live Event ‘John Tams & Barry Coope’ Alstonefield Village Hall 18th 8.00pm Live Music with ‘Jimmy Elderflower’ Black Lion Inn, Butterton 20th 7.30pm Butterton Reading Group Various around Village 23rd 2 – 4pm Warslow Action Group - Afternoon Social Warslow Village Hall 26th 11am – 4pm Alstonefield Village Hall Open Day Alstonefield Village Hall 30th 8.00pm Quiz Night Black Lion Inn, Butterton “WHAT’S ON” FEBRUARY 2020 2nd 12 – 4.00pm Community Singing Workshop. St. Peter’s. Alstonefield 2nd 7 for 7.30pm Live Event ‘Stephen Fearing’ Alstonefield Village Hall 3rd 9.30 – 11am Yoga Warslow Village Hall 4th A.M. Cross Country (and every Tuesday) From Ilam 6th 3.30pm Pilates (and every Thursday) Beechenhill Haybarn, Ilam 7th 7.30pm Butterton Bingo Butterton Village Hall 11th 7.30pm Butterton W.I. Butterton Village Hall 15th 7 for 7.30pm Film Night Wetton Village Hall 15th 7 for 7.30pm Valentine’s Ceilidh Alstonefield Village Hall 15th T.B.C. ‘Chinese Night’ Warslow Village Hall 17th 7.30pm Butterton Reading Group Various around Village 19th 7.30pm Warslow Bingo Warslow Village Hall 25th 7.00pm Butterton Parish Council Meeting Butterton Village Hall 29th 6.30pm Cheese and Wine Evening The Elms, Wetton “WHAT’S ON” EARLY MARCH 2020 rd 3 A.M. Cross Country (and every Tuesday) From Ilam th 5 3.30pm Pilates (and every Thursday) Beechenhill Hay Barn, Ilam Deadline Date for March 2020 All are invited to submit material for the next newsletter but ask that all items submitted in long hand include all names written in BLOCK CAPITALS. Please note that I do not take dictation over the telephone. Costs applicable to some items, i.e. business/private or charities not within our cluster villages, (please telephone if you are not sure & require further information). All hard copy for the Newsletter to be delivered to: The Newsletter, Trees Cottage, Butterton, Leek, Staffs. ST13 7SP. Tel: 01538 304560 ALL DOCUMENTS TO BE IN WORD ONLY. NO PDF’s or SCANNED ITEMS & ANY GRAPHICS TO BE IN BLACK AND WHITE. PLEASE DO NOT PUT TEXT INTO A TEXT BOX OR USE ANY BORDERS AS IT COMPLICATES THE EDITING. Cheques made payable to Community Mag should be sent to: The Treasurer, C/o Trees Cottage, Butterton, Leek, Staffs. ST13 7SP. Note: Editors Decision on Placement/Location/Acceptance of Adverts is Final. Send any items Anytime & the Earlier the Better Please up until: 6am on Friday 21st February DO NOT ASK after this time and date as refusal often offends so Please put a note in your diary or on your calendar to save your & my embarrassment at refusal 2 Have a laugh on us deer populations, which became confined to the Scottish Highlands, south-west England and a few other small, I just got off the phone with a friend who lives in scattered populations Edinburgh. He said that since early this morning the snow While preferring woodland and forest habitats in England and has been nearly waist high and is still falling. southern Scotland, red deer can adapt to open moor and The temperature is minus 8 degrees and the north wind is hills. They graze on grasses and dwarf shrubs e.g. heather increasing to near gale force. and bilberry. Woody browse, e.g. tree shoots, is taken when The wind chill is minus 12 degrees and his wife has done other food is limited during winter. However, grazing of tree shoots and agricultural crops puts red deer in conflict with nothing but look through the kitchen window and just stare. farmers and foresters due to economic damage. Conversely, He told me that if it gets much worse, he may have to let her many country and forest estates can gain substantial revenue in! from recreational stalking and / or venison production. As well ******** as being farmed for their venison red deer are also kept as Wife texts husband at work on a cold winter ornamental park species in the UK. Whether in conflict or morning...'Windows frozen; won't open' used as a resource, red deer populations require careful management to maintain health and quality and ensure a Husband texts back....'Pour warm water over it and gently tap sustainable balance with their environment. edges with hammer'. Breeding, Behaviour & Lifecycle Five minutes later wife texts back....'Computer really messed The breeding season, or the rut, occurs from the end of up now.' September to November. Stags return to the hind's home ******** range and compete for them by engaging in elaborate I’ve got myself a really cute dog and called him “Threemiles”. displays of dominance including roaring, parallel walks, and It sounds great to tell everyone I walk Threemiles every day. fighting. Serious injury and death can result from fighting but this only occurs between stags of similar size that cannot Countryside Matters – Red Deer assess dominance by any of the other means. The dominant stag then ensures exclusive mating with the hinds. There are six species of deer living freely in the Despite being sexually mature before their second birthday in British countryside but productive woodland populations, only stags over five years only red deer and roe old tend to mate. In woodland populations, hinds over one deer are truly indigenous. year old give birth to a single calf after an eight-month Fallow deer were almost gestation, between mid-May to mid-July. Puberty may be certainly introduced by delayed until three years old in hill hinds, which may give birth the Normans while three only once every two or three years. Asiatic species, Reeves’ Some Scottish hill populations suffer heavy infant mortality at muntjac, Chinese water and shortly after birth and during their first winter. Lifespan deer and sika deer arrived in the late 19th and early 20th can be, exceptionally, up to 18 years. centuries. Our local deer are Red Deer In woodland red deer are largely solitary or occur as mother Red deer are Britain’s largest land mammal. When fully and calf groups. On open ground, larger single sex groups grown males (stags) weigh between 90 to 190kg and stand at assemble, only mixing during the rut and in the Highlands of around 1.07 to 1.37m tall at the shoulder. Females (hinds) Scotland, large groups may persist for most of the year. Red weigh 63 to 120kg and stand up to 1.07 – 1.22m at the deer are active throughout the 24-hour period but make more shoulder. By comparison, an average adult man in Britain use of open spaces during the hours of darkness in stands at 1.77m high and weighs 79kg. Deer living in open populations experiencing frequent disturbance. Peak times of upland habitats tend to be smaller than those living in more activity are at dawn and dusk. In the Highlands of Scotland wooded lowland areas red deer use the open hills during the day and descend to Red deer are a distinctive rusty red colour in summer turning lower ground during the night. to a brown winter coat. Adults are not spotted. They have a Stags roar and grunt during the rut. Hinds bark when alarmed short tail and a pale rump patch with no particular and moo when searching for their young. Calves emit a high- distinguishing features. Red deer have a large head with wide pitched squeal when alarmed and may bleat to their mother. spaced brown eyes. The stags’ antlers are the species most distinguishing feature. They are highly branched and the Local Red Deer branches increase with age with multiple points on each Seen regularly around Elkstones, they seem to follow a antler. The angle of the forward point from the main antler routine where they appear in the same place at the same beam is about 90° (unlike the Sika). Antlers are cast during time each day for a week or two, then move on. Quite often March / April and begin to regrow to be fully formed and clear seen at twilight, crossing roads (they seem to float across the of velvet in August / September. walls), or in fields usually close to trees. Sometimes on moorland near the Mermaid or Revidge.