After sending yesterday’s pictures of the wetland scrapes in Lambrok Meadow, our in-house photographer Simon Knight went back to the reserve to find all its water features, scrapes, ponds, ditches and streams, full to overflowing. Go carefully out there.
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The Lambrok is full to overflowing – nice to see after all those weeks of drought but go carefully.
All images taken in the reserve 20.12.2022 by Clive Knight
Kingfishers usually come to the reserve in the autumn when breeding pairs split up and the year’s fledglings spread out to look for their own territories. This year, after such a long period of drought, things might be different.
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David Feather’s post yesterday highlighted the problems that planning application 20/00379/OUT will create for Lambrok Stream. The access road for the planned development will have to cross the stream and, no matter how many changes are made to the design of the bridge, we do not see how that can be done without damage to the Lambrok’s biodiversity.
Here are some relevant numbers:
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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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There are three species of vole in Britain: the short-tailed or field vole, the bank vole and the water vole, which is the largest of the three and by far the rarest. Water voles (Arvicola amphibius) have experienced one of the most rapid and serious declines of any British wild mammal ever…
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…we are foregoing the five gold rings and sending you, instead, five of Clive Knight’s pictures of the park’s Christmas floodwaters.
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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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”
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.
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Chris Seymour sent in pictures of the flooded Lambrok tributary, yesterday,
Thanks, Chris.
Common frog tadpoles (Rana temporaria) in the little pond under the Decorated Bridge.
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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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Clive Knight has sent in his pictures of Lambrok Stream in flood. Take care, particularly if you have children with you; the water is deep and fast-flowing when the stream is this full.
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:
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Mail from Ian Bushell:
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All sorts of water fly spend the very large majority of their lives living on a stream bed as larvae called nymphs. These are the species we are worried about at the moment as a burst water main upstream pours sediment-laden water into the Lambrok for the third day.
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Common frog tadpoles (Rana temporaria) in the little pond under the Decorated Bridge.
Continue reading “Tadpoles”
There are three species of vole in Britain: the short-tailed or field vole, the bank vole and the water vole, which is the largest of the three and by far the rarest. Water voles (Arvicola amphibius) have experienced one of the most rapid and serious declines of any British wild mammal ever…
Continue reading “Water Voles”
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 