It is now two years since the Friends of Southwick Country Park took issue with Wiltshire’s Housing Site Allocation Plan. Despite our best efforts the sites surrounding the park and Lambrok Stream, at Church Lane (H2.4), Upper Studley (H2.5) and Southwick Court (H2.6) were selected, last year, for future development.
Continue reading “Newt-counting”
The honeysuckle is in flower.
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Mon 22/06/2020 13:05
Mail to Mike Fuller, County Butterfly Recorder, from Ian Bushell
Mike,
Attached is the latest transect at Southwick Country Park – the Meadow Brown numbers are if anything an underestimate. The warm May, lower footfall in the park, plus the fact that the hay/silage crop had not been taken could well have contributed to the general increased numbers.
Cheers
Ian
HOW TO RESCUE A BUMBLEBEE
by Jonah Powers (aged 9½)
When you come across a discouraged exhausted Bombus terrestris (buff tailed bumblebee) here is what you should do.
(1 Mix water and sugar together.
(2 Place some on a flat surface with the bee.
(3 You will notice your bee unfurling her proboscis to consume the liquid
(4 After some time you will discover your bee is becoming more energetic
(5 Now your bee is ready to say “toodle -oo!”
Thank you for contributing to National Insect Week, Jonah.
A question from a reader:
If I want large white butterfly caterpillars in my garden AND I want my kale, is that like trying to have my cake and eat it? I suppose they don’t eat anything else, do they? I have sent you a photograph.
Liz
According to the Meteorological Office, spring begins every year on March 1st and ends on May 31st. Let’s look back at 2020’s meteorological spring.
Continue reading “Sunniest May on record”
Email from friendsofscp@outlook.com to Rich Murphy, Tree and Woodland Officer.
Hello Rich,
Is it vandals or deer that have damaged this tree so badly? We suspect deer but it would be unusual at this time of year when there is so much new grass around. We defer to your expertise.
FoSCP
It’s June and we are nearly half way through 2020. Here is the round dozen of species that have been identified in the park for the first time this year.
Continue reading “Half time score”
Common frog tadpoles (Rana temporaria) in the little pond under the Decorated Bridge.
Continue reading “Tadpoles”
iRecord Butterflies is a free app for your smartphone that will help you identify and record any butterfly that you see in your garden while you are in lockdown. Your sighting will be logged by Butterfly Conservation and added to their records.
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The Covid-19 lockdown has interrupted our plans for the five disease resistant elms donated to the park by Butterfly Conservation as part of their rescue plan for the white letter hairstreak butterfly.
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Last year’s record breaking summer was an excellent year for butterflies, with more than half of Britain’s species increasing their numbers.
Continue reading “Butterfly numbers”
If you are planting your flower beds and hanging baskets, keep our dwindling population of pollinators in mind and please don’t plant double flowers.
Continue reading “Double flowers”
This winter has been the hottest ever recorded in Europe.
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Somebody has stripped bark from the whole length of the trunk of tree number 5477. Why would anybody do that?
Continue reading “What happened here?”
This is a screenshot taken from the Environment Agency’s Flood Map; it shows the risk of Lambrok Stream flooding. We have dropped a yellow marker at the place where the access road to the planned development of 180 houses (planning application 20/00379/OUT) is intended to cross the Lambrok.
Continue reading “Flood Map”
The otters that come to Southwick Court moat are probably a female and maybe her last year’s cubs; they will have come to feed, via the Lambrok, from the Biss or even from the Avon. Planning application 20/00379/OUT does not show how the Lambrok is to be bridged without interrupting the otters’ route.
Continue reading “Bridging the Lambrok”
The public consultation on planning application 20/00379/OUT has been extended.
Continue reading “20/00379/OUT public consultation extended”
The Ecological Survey and Report that was submitted with Planning Application 20/00379/OUT says this:
Continue reading “More about 20/00379/OUT”
Most of the Friends of Southwick Country Park are retirees, all of us inclined to begin sentences with: When I was a child….
Continue reading “Splatometer”
Here’s an interesting data set from the British Trust for Ornithology.
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Planning application 20/00379/OUT’s Ecology Survey and Assessment Report has been arbitrarily divided into six separate documents. This makes it very difficult to read, particularly as the contents page is in the first document and thereafter there are no page numbers. Stick at it, though; we have found it as interesting for its omissions as it is for its findings
Continue reading “More on Application 20/00379/OUT”
Changing temperatures are initiating plant growth earlier and earlier every year. In the park, there are already primroses in flower.
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Simon Tesler writes:
I’m the owner of the historic II* listed property of Southwick Court itself.
He continues:
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 