The Government has decided to allow the emergency use of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on sugar beet in England in 2021, despite objections from conservationists. The decision, in response to pressure from England’s farmers, will permit the treatment of sugar beet seed to combat beet yellows virus, which is spread by multiple species of aphids.
Continue reading “Neonicotinoids”
The Met Office has forecast that during 2021, atmospheric carbon dioxide will reach levels 50% higher than before the industrial revolution.
Continue reading “Carbon dioxide landmark.”
We can’t find nine ladies dancing. Come spring, we will have daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze, as per Wordsworth, but feel that the link is tenuous; we will also have ladies’ smocks flowering in the meadows but we used them up yesterday by calling them eight milkmaids.
Continue reading “On the ninth day”
The following programme of actions was taken as an outcome of the review of the park on 27th January 2013 by the Wiltshire Countryside Team and Friends of Southwick Country Park. It is intended that this is a living document: a record of previous projects, tasks undertaken, an update of works carried out during 2020, and a review of the park in general.
Continue reading “PROJECTS PROGRAMME”
A lot of people buy artificial Christmas trees in the belief that it benefits the environment, but environmentalists and energy analysts disagree. We need only look at a single element of the hundreds of thousands of artificial trees that will be put up and decorated this Christmas: they are all made of plastic.
Continue reading “Real or fake?”
Here’s a terrifying fact culled from Scientific American this week: human-made stuff now outweighs all the Earth’s biomass. This is a new and significant milestone in humanity’s dominance of the planet.
Continue reading “Anthropocene”
Newland Homes have applied to build 50 houses on WHSAP site H2.5 at Upper Studley.
Continue reading “Planning application 20/09659/FUL”
Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is trying to buy habitat for the critically endangered marsh fritillary butterfly. Please, read their appeal and consider donating.
Continue reading “Marsh fritillary”
by Barbara Johnson
After reading how chemicals used in flea treatment can damage and pollute our waterways, I asked a vet for information and asked if he could suggest an alternative flea treatment.
Continue reading “Flea circus part 3”
The Winter moth (Operophtera brumata) is one of the few moth species that can cope with winter’s freezing temperatures in its adult stage. They are endothermic which means that they can produce heat internally by biochemical processes, just as warm-blooded creatures do.
Continue reading “Winter moths”
Data published in September by the Environment Agency revealed that all English rivers have failed to meet the new chemical pollution standards set in 2017. The levels of sewerage discharge, and agricultural and industrial chemicals entering our water system is still too high. Lambrok Stream is classed as a main river by the EA and must be included in these findings.
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Last year the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published a report called Wild Bird Populations in the UK, 1970 to 2018. We published this post at the time but feel it bears repeating: the coronavirus crisis may be at the top of our list of concerns but the environmental crisis has not gone away.
Continue reading “Bird populations in crisis”
An important message from Sir David Attenborough.
Header picture by DKG
This is a water flea (Daphnia magna), not even a distant cousin to the fleas on your dog, but very close to the bottom of the freshwater food chain that is being disrupted by your dog’s flea treatment.
Continue reading “Flea circus part 2”
Research has recently found that the highly toxic insecticides used on cats and dogs to kill fleas are poisoning England’s rivers. Scientists believe that significant environmental damage is being done to important water insect populations, down at the bottom of the freshwater food chain.
Continue reading “Flea circus”
Simon Tesler’s video of an otter hunting in the moat at Southwick Court is powerful evidence not only of Lambrok Stream’s biodiversity, but its importance as a wildlife corridor that runs from the River Biss right up through and beyond Southwick village.
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We have been sent video of an otter hunting in Southwick Court moat yesterday.
Continue reading “Otter in Lambrok Stream”
At the end of 2020, the protection afforded to the UK’s wildlife by the UK Post 2010 Biodiversity Framework will end. The Environment Bill 2020 does not make clear exactly what will replace it.
Continue reading “Protecting the park”
Build a hibernaculum to help the amphibians and reptiles in your garden through the winter.
The Wildlife Trusts has stepped into the controversy surrounding the government’s proposed changes to planning regulations; they have concluded that the changes will damage nature, increase air pollution and leave local people with no say on protecting urban wildlife corridors.
Continue reading “Wild belt land”
Wiltshire Council must not miss this opportunity to lead the way in developing a local Nature Recovery Network around Trowbridge.
Continue reading “A missed opportunity?”
Above is the Parameter Plan submitted by RPS with planning application 18/10035/OUT. If you look carefully, there are two grey dotted lines that run from the red site boundary, over the Lambrok Stream, and into the park. Right at the bottom of the key, they are labelled potential foot/cycle links and we assume that a foot/cycle link that crosses the Lambrok will do so on a bridge.
Continue reading “No bridges, please.”
We have been struggling to make sense of planning application 18/10035/OUT, RPS’s proposal to build 55 houses on the fields between the park and Church Lane, and therefore we have not yet submitted our response. This is the problem.
Continue reading “Planning Application 18/10035/OUT”
Here’s a thing worth thinking about over your coffee of a Sunday morning.
The header picture is of the path through the copse between Sleeper Field and Sheep Field.
The shaggy bracket fungus on the ash tree at Fiveways, first reported by Clive Knight and identified for us by our Tree Officer Rich Murphy, has grown HUGE.
Continue reading “Inonotus hispidus”
