Waddeton Park Ltd have applied for outline planning permission for the building of “approximately 180 residential dwellings” on the green fields at Southwick Court, between Southwick village and the southern edge of Trowbridge.
Continue reading “Planning Application 20/00379/OUT”
Unlike the dormice of yesterday’s post, grey squirrels can’t hibernate; their metabolism won’t let them put on enough weight to sleep through the winter.
Continue reading “A squirrel factoid”
We have seen signs that there are dormice somewhere in the park. At this time of year they will be deep in hibernation.
Continue reading “Dormouse hibernation”
A gallery of photographs by DKG, taken in the park last winter.
Birds of Conservation Concern Red List
According to the RSPB, there are 67 species of British birds now on the Birds of Conservation Concern Red List, more than ever before. The Red List are those birds that need urgent conservation action if their falling populations are to survive our environmental emergency.
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Diane Wheeler has sent us beautiful pictures of the park in yesterday’s early morning frost.
Thank you, Diane.
We know that a walk in the countryside is good for us. Physical activity in the fresh air, be it walking, running or conservation work, has been shown to improve our well-being; it can even be an aid in the treatment of mental illness. Some analysis suggests that such physical activity outdoors can reduce the physiological symptoms of stress.
Read onMessage from Alison – January 17, 2020 at 6:36pm
“Just to say what a great website! Bang up to date even though it is the middle of winter – with bullfinch sightings and sounds one might hear in January etc. My Mum is in a home in Trowbridge and I’ll be visiting her from Yorkshire soon so I’ve been looking around local websites for places we might go. So many give the message that yes you might like to visit but not now, wait until spring! – but not yours. Well done somebody!”
As always, the first flowers of the year are the hazel catkins: a familiar and friendly sign that spring is on its way.
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There is a male bullfinch in the hawthorn hedge between Sleepers and Cornfield. He has been spotted on a couple of occasions this week.
Continue reading “Bullfinch”
We are too inclined to view floods negatively. We assess them in terms of the disruption they cause or the financial cost of repairing the damage they do to our property. But in natural ecosystems, such as our park, floods play an important role in maintaining biodiversity.
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We usually write about the park but today we are branching out a good half-mile, as far away as the junction between Frome Road and Manor Road on the A361.
Continue reading “Blackbird singing in the dead of night”
Our quest to identify some of the many lichens that grow in the park continues with common orange lichen, Xanthoria parietina, also known as yellow scale or maritime sunburst lichen.
Continue reading “Common orange lichen”
Grass is very hard to digest and most of the animals that eat it have evolved complicated digestive systems to deal with it.
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Foxes have scent glands on their feet to mark well-used trails so they can follow them easily at night.
Picture by Peter Trimming (CC BY 2.0) commons.wikimedia.org
