We have just endured a spell of exceptionally wet weather that has been hard work for both people and wildlife.
Continue reading “Surviving the floodwaters”Surviving the floodwaters
Community priorities 2019
Wiltshire Council is conducting a survey. They want to make it easy for everyone in Wiltshire to influence decisions that will affect their local areas. They are asking you to choose your five priorities from a long list of local issues. Wildlife and biodiversity is half way down the list.
Continue reading “Community priorities 2019”Planning for our bats
WHSAP has allocated six housing sites in Trowbridge.
Continue reading “Planning for our bats”Death by acronym!
As required by NPPF 2019, WC has made FMMs to WHSAP to include policy statements for the sites at H2.4, H2.5 and H2.6 which take full account of the TBMS and the BoA SAC.
What does any of this mean? Click here:Percentages
96% of the mammals on Earth are either humans or their livestock.
Willow warbler migration
All our willow warblers will have left by now; they are on their way to sub-Saharan Africa where they will spend their winter. Theirs is the longest journey undertaken by any of the park’s migratory birds. Why do such tiny birds fly so far and take such risks to do it?
Continue reading “Willow warbler migration”Local Amenity Feature
More about WHSAP’s Further Main Modifications
On page 20 of the Schedule of Further Main Modifications (which you can find on the WHSAP Examination page, under Consultation Documents), FMM 25 proposes that at the Church Lane site, H2.4:
[t]he Lambrok Stream should be enhanced as a local amenity feature of the site in conjunction with development proposed at Southwick Court and Upper Studley
Continue reading “Local Amenity Feature”Planning for our water voles
At last! Wiltshire Council has added the requirement that the WHSAP sites bordering Lambrok Stream at Church Lane (H2.4), Upper Studley (H2.5) and Southwick Court (H2.6), should be treated as a single ecological unit.
Continue reading “Planning for our water voles”Thank you
Our thanks to the kind lady who brought aluminium cans for us on Wednesday.
help Sarah and Alan collect aluminium cansMain Modifications to WHSAP
Yesterday, Wiltshire Council published A Schedule of Further Main Modifications to its Housing Site Allocation Plan (WHSAP).
Continue reading “Main Modifications to WHSAP”Cats
Usually we would welcome predators into the park; they are a sign of a healthy ecology. We have resident stoats and weasels, foxes and badgers and are happy to know that the park can support them. Domestic cats, like this one that DKG photographed early in the morning in the woods in Village Green, are very different.
Continue reading “Cats”
Thought for the day!
River Day
Under the heading of A Better Biss Approach (ABBA), Wiltshire Wildlife’s Water Team have been conducting a series of events designed to bring the waterways of the Biss Valley to public attention. Yesterday Alice and Nick from the Water Team came to Southwick Country Park for a River Day, to take a group of children and adults dipping in the Lambrok Stream.
Ian Bushell joined them and has sent in this report:
Continue reading “River Day”
Big Butterfly Count
The Big Butterfly Count 2019 ended last weekend on August 11th. Citizen scientists made an amazing 104,294 counts and logged their finding on Butterfly Conservation’s website. Here is a link to the RESULTS MAP.
Continue readingWorking in the rain
The tools for Wednesday’s work party were handed out in the rain and FoSCP, wellied and waterproofed, splashed off to their morning’s tasks in company with Countryside Officer Alison Rasey and Tree Officer Richard Murphy .
Continue reading “Working in the rain”
Drop in through the afternoon to help to look after your local river and learn about the secret world below the surface of the Lambrok Stream!
We will be clearly visible from the Frome Road car park entrance. Please wear suitable outdoors clothing. Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult.
For further information contact Abigail Leach on 01380 736066 or AbigailL@wiltshirewildlife.org
For updates on the event please check Twitter @WiltsRivers
What is the Country Park worth?
by David Feather
As a reader of this website, you value the Country Park but can you put a financial value on it? I would have thought that it was almost impossible, but the Government’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) believes it can.
Continue reading “What is the Country Park worth?”Ash dieback
Ash dieback is a disease that is especially deadly to Britain’s native ash trees, Fraxinus excelsior.
Continue reading “Ash dieback”Big Butterfly Count
Yesterday was the first day of the Big Butterfly Count. Here are some of the park’s butterflies to encourage you to sign up.
Southwick Country Park’s BUTTERFLIES 2019 list
big butterfly count
Every year since 2010, Butterfly Conservation has conducted a survey of the country’s butterflies using thousands of volunteer citizen scientists. Last year over 100,000 volunteers took part.
Continue reading “big butterfly count”Growing trees
The climate scientists are finally persuaded that Southwick Country Park’s solution to global warming is the right way to go. They should have asked us sooner.
Continue reading “Growing trees”National Meadows Day
It’s National Meadows Day today, an annual celebration of wildflower meadows across the UK. The event takes place on the first Saturday of July each year.
Continue reading “National Meadows Day”Fantastic Mrs Fox
No, we haven’t seen an arctic fox in the park; that would be silly. Instead, here is the irresistible story of a record-breaking journey undertaken by an arctic fox, which demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of all the vulpine species, our common red fox included. It also raises questions, pertinent to everybody, about the effects of the frighteningly rapid loss of arctic ice.
Citizen science
Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s hedgehog citizen science campaign begins today. They are asking volunteer citizen scientists to record and report hedgehog sightings and to monitor their behaviour and activity.
Continue reading “Citizen science”
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 