LINCOLNSHIRE BIRD OBSERVATORY ONCE HOSTED VISIT FROM MISS WORLD BEAUTY CONTESTANT!

Present all year in Lincolnshire - but no longer breeding

COULD the curlew resume breeding in Lincolnshire? What about the crane? Or even the beaver?

The chief executive of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Paul Learoyd, offered these enticing thoughts at the December meeting of the Grimsby and Cleethorpes group. 

His informative and entertaining presentation was a whistlestop tour of how the Trust has gone from strength to strength over the course of its 70 years.

Paul Learoyd - Trust supremo

He described the red squirrel as “one that got away”. Up until the 1970s, it was still breeding at Lynwood, near Market Rasen, but, as in most of the rest of the UK, it failed to survive disease and the onset of the larger and hardier grey squirrel.

Paul cited the red squirrel as example of a species where choices about nature conservation are on the horns of a dilemma.

There is a colony in pines on the Lancashire coast. But pines are not native to this part of England. If they were to be removed, the red squirrels would also be lost but  it would open up the dunes, offering prospects of a return for an even scarcer species, the nattterjack toad.

Paul lamented the loss, through disease, of almost all of Lincolnshire’s elm trees. He feared, too, that a similar fate beckoned for 75 per cent of the county’s ash trees.

However, he hoped that prospects might be  better for species such as oak, beech, silver birch and some varieties of cherry.

In response to a question from the audience, the chief noted there was a lot of talk from politicians, about planting millions of trees, but not so much about the species or the location. “Important grassland could be at risk,” he warned.

He acknowledged there were concerns, too, about the proliferation of wind farms after an audience member, who had visited an offshore site, expressed concerns after having witnessed the mangled remains of guillemots, gannets and Manx shearwaters.

Mr Learoyd’s own misgivings were more focused on the impact on carbon-capturing peak bogs in Scotland if they were to be given over to wind power developments.

Earlier in his presentation, he showed an illustration of a radar unit temporarily located at Gibraltar Point bird observatory, the Trust’s flagship reserve, in order to track flocks of migrating birds.

Asked if the information gathered had been published, he said it revealed the presence of flocks of common scoter, but the findings belonged to the researchers. The Government was pressing for such data to be made available.

Many of the photographs from the Gibraltar Point of yesteryear were fascinating - for instance, the first bird-ringing station, scenes from shooting of The Dambusters film and even a visit in 1974 from 19-year-old Patricia Orfila, Gibraltar’s entry in the Miss World contest.

Miss Gibraltar - visited observatory

Over the years, David Attenborough seems to have been a regular visitor to Gib, not least because he had a friendship with the late Ted Smith, a great pioneer of the nature conservation movement in Lincolnshire and beyond.

There have been  many battles along the way. For instance, Malcolm Campbell wanted the sands given over not to providing nesting habitat for little terns, but to a track for setting on-land speed records.

Paul  described the Trust's longstanding initiatives with little terns, with safeguarding breeding grey  seals at Donna Nook and in protecting wildflower-rich roadside verges.

Seals at Donna Nook - as many as 7,000 animals (adults and pups) currently in residence

He also expressed concerns about current river management practices and the loss of important flood plains to housing and other development.

Although there is a widespread clamour for intensified river dredging, this only hastens the flow, worsening downstream flood risk.

An example was the episode in June this year when 50 homes flooded in Wainfleet and Thorpe St Peter in Lincolnshire.

As a result, five members of the  Trust's staff had to leave their homes for two weeks.

The talk, held at Grimsby Town Hall, included, during the interval, festive refreshments supplied by members.

It concluded with a presentation of a £1000 cheque from the Grimsby branch to the Trust to further its important work.

***

* Available now as a Kindle ebook:

A Fault to Nature: Birds, Migration and The Problem  with Windfarms