CHAIRMAN'S POSITIVE UPDATE AT OCTOBER AGM OF COUNTY WILDLIFE TRUST
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| Far Ings nature reserve where this year at least one pair bitterns nested successfully |
BITTERNS have again nested successfully in North
Lincolnshire.
This was confirmed at Saturday’s annual meeting of the Lincolnshire
Wildlife Trust where members were provided with the graphic proof - a photo of
two young birds making what was their first flight over a reedbed at the Far
Ings reserve at Barton-on-Humber.
This 2017 achievement is a welcome pay-off for the Trust which
made enhancing reedbed habitat one of its recent priorities following this
iconic species’ breeding absence in recent years.
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Sadly access to this hide had to be closed temporarily
following vandalism - a recurring problem at the Far Ings reserve | |
It also came against a backdrop of increasing disturbance
from vandals, plus dogs and their owners, which continues to prove challenging for
reserve staff and volunteers.
Elsewhere in the Trust’s reserves portfolio, there was a slight dip in
nightingale numbers at the Whisby nature park, near Lincoln,
while high tides and adverse weather had a devastating impact on breeding
little terns at Gibraltar Point.
The 90 or so members and staff who attended the meeting,
held at the Whisby education centre, heard an upbeat presentation from chairman
David Cohen on the year’s activities.
The new visitor centre and cafe at Gib is proving highly
successful as is the new reserve created on the site of the former airfield at
Woodhall Spa.
Hobby, osprey and peregrine have been sighted overhead at
the latter and whimbrel are occurring on passage.
The reserve is also proving an important habitat for
wintering snipe and curlew, and there are high hopes that, before long, it
might boast breeding ringed and little ringed plovers.
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| Breeding hope for ringed plovers at new reserve |
Since last year’s AGM, the Trust has acquired, thanks to a
legacy from former president Ted Smith, of the 50-acre Swinn Wood, near Alford,
reckoned to be “one of the finest woodlands in the county”.
The chairman praised the quality of recruitment initiatives
which has seen membership rise to 27,000-plus.
Another ongoing success story is that of the grey seals
which continue to breed in record numbers at Donna Nook.
When the arrival, earlier this month, of the first 2017 pup
was posted on Twitter, the Tweet quickly achieved some 150,000 “hits”.
Before fielding questions, Mr Cohen reminded members of the risks
created by Brexit, especially if directives designed to safeguard wildlife are
forfeited. However, he noted that departure from the EU could also provide an opportunity
for Parliament to draft new, hopefully more effective legislation
It is up to members to lobby their MPs to seek the best
possible outcome.
The meeting also heard important contributions from treasurer
Peter Stapleton who provided a succinct update on the Trust’s finances and from
chief executive Paul Learoyd who provided further insights on the positive work
being done by staff and volunteers.
In reply to a question about the sperm whale strandings of early last year at Skegness, Wainfleet and
elsewhere in northern Europe, the latter noted that research was ongoing.
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| The whale washed up early last year on the Ministry of Defence site at Wainfleet which is managed by the Trust |
He further observed that noise and windfarms were not, at this stage,
thought to have been contributory factors in the disorientation of the animals
which caused them to swim into the North Sea
which is too shallow a habitat for them to survive in.
Another important part of the meeting was a tribute to the
later David Robinson, president and long-term stalwart of the Trust, who died on
July 24 this year after a short illness.
It was delivered by vice president Geoff Trinder who offered
not just an appraisal of the serious academic work, as an author and lecturer,
of Mr Robinson, but also a medley of a amusing anecdotes - for instance, when
he once drove his car into a dyke at Epworth Turbary.
Rather than observe a minute’s silence, he asked the
membership to provide a round of applause.
To conclude the formal part of the meeting, members
re-elected Roy Harris and John Redshaw as trustees and elected Matthew Capper,
Robert Oates and Amy Rose.
Later in the afternoon, there was an informative - and
entertaining - illustrated presentation from the Trust’s newly-appointed conservation
officer Tammy Smalley, of Skegness, whose previous career included a spell as
an ecological consultant and seven years apiece as a marine specialist with Natural
England (formerly English Nature) and as The Wash estuary project officer.
In her new role, she will be helping to spearhead the Love
Lincolnshire Plants project (which is being financed to the tune of £499,000 by
the Heritage Lottery Fund).
This will help not only to safeguard some 9,000 plant specimens (held
in storage) but also to promote a greater interest in flora within the county
The ambitious initiative will be supported by a team which will
include project manager Aidan Neary and two yet-to-be appointed community and
education officers.
The Trust’s partners in this ambitious venture are the Lincolnshire
Naturalists’ Union,
the Natural
History
Museum,
the Sir Joseph Banks Society with the University
of Lincolnshire
as an associate partner.
Tammy provided a lively whistlestop tour through the history
of plant research and literature in the county, highlighting in particular Joan
Gibbons whose Flora of Lincolnshire was published in 1975 and updated 10 years
later.
Alarmingly, she noted that some two thirds of the county’s
plant species had declined or become extinct between 1970 and 1991.
Notable casualties have included common club moss, matted sea lavender and cranberry, the last of which was once abundant in
Wainfleet and Friskney but is now confined to just one or two sites in the
county.
On the plus side, greater water parsnip appears to have come
back from the brink and meadow saffron has been discovered for the first time
since 1836 at a site in South Lincolnshire.
It was an inspiring talk in which Tammy pledged her commitment to “strategic engagement” in order
to persuade the county’s developers and planning authorities of the value of
conservation.
She ended by vowing to do all that she could to inspire
young people “so that we can find the young botanists of the future”.
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| Project partners (left to right): Richard Jefferson (Lincolnshire
Naturalists’ Union), Fred Rumsey (senior curator at the Natural History
Museum), Aidan Neary (project officer, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust),
Tammy Smalley (head of conservation, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust) and
Liberty Gray (University of Lincoln MSc research student) |
