by Ian Bushell
I had a quick wander round the park this afternoon to see what needs doing, to assess the ragwort situation in the fields, and look at the tree damage done by the wind. There were three Roe Deer under the Owl Oak in the Church Lane field across the Lambrok, where they are planning to build houses..
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Newspapers, online and off, have been bombarding us with headlines like this one from the Guardian:
Littering epidemic in England
We would just like to say: Not in our park, there isn’t; our park is pristine. Our park goers pick up their litter (and often other people’s litter as well) and put it in the bins.
Thank you.
Pictures by DKG
Ragwort is extraordinarily successful; all the “injurious weeds” named in the 1959 Weed Act are.
Continue reading “Ragwort”
Wasps have stripped wood from the fence in the picnic area, leaving light-coloured lines on the weathered grey boards. All British social wasps make their nests out of paper and they make the paper out of wood fibres and saliva.
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You may have noticed the enormous heap of road-planings that spent a while in the far corner of the car park taking up several parking spaces.
Last week they were used to resurface the main car park, to establish a paved track through the bottom of the Arboretum where the rubbish lorry turns, and to fill some of our muddiest patches.
The car park had to be closed for a few days because the weather was too hot for the planings to harden properly. Thank you for your patience.
Hopefully, the new surface will see us safely through the coming winter.
Contractor Terry Shepherd mending the fence around the Lone Oak.
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We keep constant watch in the park for the invasive alien, Impatiens glandulifera, or Himalayan balsam. It might be very beautiful to look at but it is an environmental horror story
Continue reading “Himalayan balsam”
A dozen new rubbish bins have been installed in the park.
Continue reading “New bins!”Wiltshire Council policy on metal detecting
Wiltshire Council does not allow metal detecting by the public on land it owns for the following reasons:
Somewhere between fifty and sixty teenagers gathered in the park, under the Lone Oak, yesterday evening, to celebrate somebody’s fifteenth birthday. It’s hard to imagine how such an event could not have ended badly.
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We have been sent pictures this afternoon of newly damaged goat willow trees in Sleepers Field. Who is doing this?
Who is it spending their lockdown time climbing into our trees with a sharp blade? If you know anything about this, please report it.
UPDATE: On closer inspection this looks as if it may be squirrel damage. We apologise to the Village Green Vandals for jumping to conclusions. We have sent the photographs to our Tree Officer.
Our email address is friedsofscp@outlook.com
PCSO Mat Till’s email address is Matthew.Till@wiltshire.pnn.police.uk.
Mat is a member of Community Policing Team 1, which can be contacted on 101 ext 36337 or on 07471029309.
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
The teenagers who burned the ash poles in the western corner of Village Green have taken to snapping off trees.
Continue reading “Vandalism in Village Green”
Countryside Officer Vicky Roscoe has been negotiating on our behalf and has wrung from the county’s coffers the means for a whole list of repairs and replacements.
Continue reading “Repairs and replacements”
With the loan of Hope Nature Centre’s mobile water tank (thank you Caroline) and armed with as many watering cans and buckets as we could muster, FoSCP set about watering the new hedge in Simpson’s Field. Not quite a work party, more a socially distanced rescue mission.
Please don’t light fires in the park; our woodland is tinder dry.
Continue reading “Woodland fire”
By Sunday morning, after people had anticipated the easing of lockdown and celebrated it with picnics and Saturday night parties in the copses, the park was strewn with rubbish. Ian and Pat, on their regular Sunday morning stroll, picked up dozens of empty drinks cans and enough general trash to fill a big black bin bag.
Continue reading “Weekend littering”
I took the chance this afternoon to drive to the park and park on that bit of verge by the entrance. There were three cones across the entrance at 1pm but only two when I left at 2:30! Somebody is still breaking the rules.
Continue reading “Checking the park”
Up to the park early this morning with Pat. Glorious blue skies, dew on the cobwebs and birds singing.
Continue reading “Walk in the park”
By Ian Bushell
For the last couple of Sundays, I have been looking for Spanish squill among the bluebells. I have gone early and used the allotment entrance to the park.
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Our native species of bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) is threatened by the spread of Spanish squill (Hyacinthoides hispanica), a similar species imported into our gardens from southern Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.
By Ian Bushell
Southwick Country Park has a number of veteran oaks and ten ancient oaks. There are no hard and fast rules about when and why an oak tree becomes classified as veteran or ancient; in different environments and soils oaks grow at different rates and girth is only an indicator. Here the underlying Oxford clay provides an excellent medium and the trees are large and shapely.
Continue reading “The Park’s Veteran Oaks”
