Local Wildlife News Magazine – Produced by the Greenways Project to Help Local Conservation Groups Promote Their Activities and Events
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Local January - April 2016 A news and events diary from wildlife and conservation groups in Wildlife the Ipswich area News House sparrows in trouble - see page 14 © Thorsten Denhard Produced by the Spring Wood Celebration Day A free event for all the family to enjoy the wildlife and nature of Spring Wood and Kiln Meadow Fun activities and storytelling for kids Folk music and dancing Have a go at ancient woodcraft Guided walks in the woods Make your own bird box Refreshments or bring a picnic Bank Holiday Monday 2nd May 11am to 4pm Parking at Bourne Park off Stoke Park Drive with free minibus to the event. Please come on foot, by bike or bus if you can. Pedestrian entrance to Kiln Meadow off Marbled White Drive, Pinewood. For further details call 01473 726082 (on the day 07736 826076). Email [email protected] or www.greenlivingcentre.org.uk/greenways 2 Welcome Welcome to the winter/spring edition of Local Wildlife News magazine – produced by the Greenways Project to help local conservation groups promote their activities and events. In this edition you can catch up with what at least 12 local conservation groups have been up to, and the events section has dozens of varied activities for you to join in with should you wish. 8 Our heathland ‘megabash’ events – Saturday 23rd January at Purdis Heath and Saturday 27th February at Martlesham Heath – are a great opportunity to get involved, with large numbers of welcoming volunteers and a lovely big bonfire! See the events diary for details. Once the weather starts to warm a little again in February or March, the annual exodus of common toads (and frogs and newts!) will start to cross Bobbits Lane in Belstead Brook Park again. For the last 10 or so years, the toads have been ‘helped across the road’ by a fabulous group of volunteers who patrol the Lane. Each year, we run a short training session to provide information about 9 amphibians and specifically about the operation of the Toad Patrol. If you would like to be involved in this great, ‘hands-on’ wildlife experience, please contact the Greenways Project. The Green Living Centre website, that hosts pages for many local conservation and environmental groups, is looking for a new webmaster. We have been extremely lucky to have had Steve Pritchard running the site for several years, but he is now moving away. If you have relevant skills and would like to help, please see the advert on the site at: www.greenlivingcentre.org.uk/webmaster-ad.htm Photographs When producing LWN, we always like to use plenty of pictures to help illustrate the news and articles 10 – sometimes these are supplied by those contributing the articles, but sometimes we need more. If you have high quality wildlife pictures that you would be happy for us to use in the magazine, we’d be delighted if you could get in touch. If you can help please either contact the Greenways Project or the Production Editor, Colin Hullis (contact details below left). Contributions We are always happy to receive articles of anything up to 650 words, or wildlife ‘snippets’ – so please do send in anything which may be of interest to: Greenways Project, Scout Headquarters, Stoke Park Drive, Ipswich, IP2 9TH. 01473 433995. [email protected] 12 Mailing lists – Please note We are aware that some who are members of several conservation organisations may well receive more than one copy of the newsletter. If this is the case we would be very grateful if you could pass on the spare copy. If on the other hand you don’t currently receive LWN regularly, but would like to, please consider joining one of the groups that distributes LWN to its members (i.e. Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Ipswich Wildlife Group, RSPB etc). 17 16 LWN is available online at www.greenlivingcentre.org.uk/greenways/ James Baker Contents Page Suffolk Wildlife Trust 4 © Colin Hullis 17 Ipswich Wildlife Group 8 Local Wildlife News is published by Friends of the Dales 9 Greenways Countryside Project. Greenways Countryside Project 10 Editor: James Baker [email protected] Portal Woodlands Conservation Group 12 Tel 01473 433995 Production Editor: Colin Hullis Ipswich Borough Council Wildlife Rangers 13 [email protected] Tel 01473 728674 RSPB Ipswich Local Group 14 Artwork production: Chris Saunders Friends of Christchurch Park 16 [email protected] Tel 01473 721550 Butterfly Conservation 17 Printed by PJ Print [email protected] Suffolk Ornithologists’ Group 18 Tel 01473 276010 Friends of Holywells Park 19 Printed on recycled paper Friends of Belstead Brook Park 20 The opinions expressed in Local Wildlife News are not necessarily Local Wildlife News Snippets 21 those of the Greenways Project. Events Diary 22 3 Ipswich Group Newsletter Chairman: David Munday 01473 217310 [email protected] Secretary: Wendy Brown 01473 259674 [email protected] Treasurer: Tony Clarke 01473 741083 [email protected] Newsletter Editor: John Ireland 01473 723179 [email protected] Group contact: [email protected] We are the Ipswich Group of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. We offer an interesting range of monthly meetings with guest speakers which take place usually on the third Wednesday of the month at 7.30 p.m. in the hall of St Margaret’s Primary School, Bolton Lane, Ipswich. Trust members and non-members are equally welcome. During the summer months we offer a variety of trips, some local, others by coach. Details of these and our monthly meetings can be found in our ‘Diary’ section which follows, or on the SWT website, www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org. Chairman’s Letter It’s Goodbye and Hello Time Owl Sanctuary Your Committee has been very lucky to have Steve Pritchard In October we had a great evening being informed and on board for the last few years where he has brought his entertained by Matt Lotte, manager of the Owl Sanctuary, youthful enthusiasm to the table (well he is youthful compared together with “Cobweb” the Barn Owl and “Rio” the to several members of the committee!) and importantly his Kestrel. This has inspired Leigh Wlliamson, our summer IT skills. He has introduced and maintained our system of activities organiser, to investigate an outing based at and programme cards. Moreover, he is an accomplished naturalist around the Owl Sanctuary at Stonham Barns, provisionally who has shared his expertise with us on a number of site arranged for 10.30 on Saturday 9th July 2016. Look out for visits. Steve has moved to pastures new and is now with the further details in the next newsletter in May. BTO at Thetford. Good luck Steve and thanks for all you have done for us. Dave Munday (Chairman) Not wishing to let the grass grow, we rushed into action and © Dave Fincham have co-opted member John Biglin to the committee to act in a similar role. John came to talk to us about Life in Ponds in September. Welcome John. Two guests at our October meeting 4 Ipswich Group Newsletter Visit to Orford Ness We had a full house, or should it be a full trailer, for our tour of which consisted of a concrete base with absolutely no walls Orford Ness in July. We were lucky to have head ranger, David and a white glazed toilet sitting on top! Some way further on Mason as our guide who had an excellent knowledge of the and through another barrier we came to one of the pagodas dual aspects of Orford Ness, its secret history and its special which we were allowed to enter. These iconic building which status as a nature reserve. Even though at first sight we saw a seem so mysterious as you view them from a distance, were lonely desolate place, just shingle and the remnants of an odd even more fascinating at close quarters. These were the selection of buildings, we were to discover that it is also full of testing sites for elements of the atomic bomb. One myth wildlife. about the pagoda design was laid to rest by our guide. I believed that the heavy, shingle-covered roof supported by David had a set of keys which gave access to places not pillars would collapse inwards and smother an unplanned normally open to the public. We went through the gates explosion. However, it seems that originally there were into Kings Marshes to see conservation work that has been Perspex panels between the pillars and in the event of an done to restore grazing marshes and to provide areas for explosion the panels would be blown outwards to relieve the breeding and migrating birds. Bird spotters had a very good pressure. Any concerns about release of radioactive material day because along with a good selection including swallows, were unfounded as apparently no radioactive material was lapwings, little egret, kestrels, and marsh harrier were some used on the site. rarer sightings. Green sandpiper, wheatear (seen migrating south), and stonechat were identified. The sound of the stonechat like two stones being knocked together is quite distinctive. We had a bird’s eye view of the site from the top of the bomb ballistics building. This tower was used along with powerful cameras and telescopes to calculate bomb ranges in the 1930’s. We looked down on mysterious concrete circles in the shingle whose use is as yet unexplained. Volunteers are trying to make contact with people who used to work on the site during the ‘secret years’ to try to answer this and many other questions before the knowledge dies with them. From the tower there was a clear view of one of the features which makes this a special natural landscape.