Countryman Diary - March 2011
An ambitious programme to return the world’s heaviest flying bird to the UK has been given a considerable lift from the European Union. The Great Bustard Project (GBP), based on Salisbury Plain, has been awarded a € 2.2 million grant to cover the next five years.
The scheme is run by a partnership of the RSPB, Great Bustard Group, University of Bath and Natural England, and the grant, which will provide seventy-five per cent of the project’s costs, will transform the reintroduction trial.
During 2009 great bustards were reared from eggs rescued in southern Russia. After the oldest males became sexually mature and mated successfully, the first great bustard chicks were hatched in the wild in the UK for 177 years.
“Despite our great successes over the last six years we would sometimes struggle to find £10 or £20 to put diesel in the old Land Rover; now we have the chance to give this project real wings,” explains David Waters, GBP director.
An early impact of the project has been the way in which monitoring has been conducted on this year’s release of great bustards. Sixteen of them are carrying GPS satellite transmitters.
The great bustard is one of a number of species that the RSPB is working on. The society’s species recovery officer, Leigh Lock, says:
“Great bustards last bred in the UK in 1832. We also hope that the project will help promote the restoration of a lost landscape in southern England that will support some of our other rare and threatened wildlife.”
Importance of wetland habitats
Despite poor weather, I enjoyed my visit to a local wetland nature reserve early in February.
There’s no doubt that our wildlife is benefiting from the £1.78 million National Wetland Restoration and Flood Alleviation Project, funded by Biffaward.
Project organisers the Wildlife Trusts tell me the work to restore ponds, peat bogs, chalk streams and floodplain grassland is benefiting more than forty species, including wading birds like curlew, snipe and ringed plover, the rare great-crested newt, nightjar and twelve nationally important species of moth.
Over the past year, more than 5,000 yards of watercourses have been surveyed for signs of water vole and otter, restoration work carried out on 1,200 yards of chalk stream, and 6,000 yards of ditches have been identified for blocking to prevent wetlands from drying out. This represents only a snapshot of the total work carried out by local wildlife trusts as part of the scheme.
Paul Wilkinson, head of living landscape for the Wildlife Trusts, says:
“Schemes like this are helping to reverse the damage done to our wetlands, which have been in serious decline for several decades, and are under major pressure from intensive agriculture and encroaching development.
“There’s no question that wetlands are one of our most important habitats. They help protect us against flooding, encourage long-term water storage underground, help with reducing soil erosion, clean up pollution and store carbon dioxide.”
Some of the Wildlife Trusts’ best wetland reserves can be found by visiting the website www.wildlifetrusts.org.
Volunteers are a vital part of wetland restoration work — contact your local wildlife trust to find out about opportunities.
Time for Pooh Sticks
Come on, admit it. You’ve played Pooh Sticks, haven’t you? Even if it was just a little private game when you threw a couple of twigs over one side of the bridge and dashed to the other to see which came through first. I’m not the only ‘adult’ to do this, am I?
There is actually a grown-up version — in fact, a world championship, which takes place this year on the Thames at Little Wittenham on 27nd March.
The World Pooh Sticks Championships started when the lock-keeper noticed walkers recreating Pooh’s pastime. He thought this would be an excellent way of raising money for his favourite charity, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
The event soon took off and, following the lock-keeper’s retirement, the Rotary Club of Sinodun took over the running of the event until its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2008. It then passed the baton on to the Rotary Club of Oxford Spires in 2009 but unfortunately last year’s competition was cancelled due to flooding.
Money raised this time will go to the RNLI, Little Wittenham Church, and charities supported by the Rotary Clubs of Oxford Spires and Sinodun.
Visit the website www.pooh-sticks.com or contact the Rotary Club for further details.
Country sense and nonsense
Talking to some youngsters recently I dredged up the old joke ‘Why do some cows wear bells?’, followed by ‘Because their horns don’t work’. It raised a smile from those in the know but I feel (and fear) some took it in as a fact.
Later, the conversation amongst the adults in our group got round to the question of whether rural children were better educated — not in a schooling sense — than their counterparts in the city.
I wonder what The Countryman readers think? Drop me a line at our usual address or an email to editorial@thecountryman.co.uk.
Competition Winners
David Driscoll, Fleet, Hants
Miss S Jacobs, Orpington, Kent
Martin Richards, Coldharbour, Dorking, Surrey
Thank you to everyone who entered.
Paul Jackson
Editor
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