Conservation: challenge and opportunity

Norfolk Wildlife Trust's Head of People and Wildlife, David North gives a personal view of what the challenges ahead might be for our wildlife and natural environment post Brexit and how we can take action.

Few people would disagree that today is a time of great changes. For both agriculture and nature conservation the future is less certain today than for a generation. Though no one knows for sure what the impact of Brexit will be on agriculture and nature conservation undoubtedly, there will be new challenges and opportunities.

Many of us will have come across the term SWOT analysis which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Now perhaps is a good time to apply this tool to wildlife conservation. Though what follows is purely my personal take on some of the challenges and opportunities facing wildlife conservation -  if this in any way stimulates further thinking about how we can best protect wildlife in changing times then it will have served a useful purpose.

Some of the 1,400 NWT volunteers Elizabeth Dack

Strengths:  The biggest strength we have as a movement is surely a groundswell of public support.  It’s said that more than 7 million people in the UK belong to conservation organisations and both the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts have more members than any political party in the UK. 

Weaknesses:  The continuing loss of habitats and wildlife so clearly demonstrated in many studies, including the recent State of Nature reports, shows clearly that despite many conservation success stories in protecting special sites as nature reserves, and some notable species success stories, such as otters and red kites, that the loss of wildlife in the wider countryside has continued in every decade since the 1940s. Our biggest weakness has been our lack of success in protecting formerly widespread and common species in the wider countryside.

Photo: David Tipling

Opportunities:  In recent times each year £3 billion pounds of funding has gone to support agriculture in the UK through the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy.  Some of these funded schemes, such as Higher Level Stewardship (HLS), have brought about environmental and wildlife benefits and also provided vital financial support to conservation bodies including Norfolk Wildlife Trust, RSPB and National Trust. However, they have largely failed to prevent continuing degradation of our countryside for wildlife. As we take back national control of agricultural support payments there is a huge opportunity to see some of these funds targeted more effectively at helping farmers and conservation organisations to restore wildlife habitats on a landscape scale.  Given that more than 70% of our countryside is farmed if we are to stand any chance of reversing the destruction of vital wildlife habitats and the declines we see across so many formerly common species then the future structure of agricultural subsidies will be crucial. The government has promised a 25 year vision for nature and this needs to clearly identify how in new ways agricultural support funding will better enable farmers and nature conservation bodies to work together to create a more diverse, more wildlife-friendly, richer and more beautiful countryside for both people and wildlife.

Kingfisher by David North

Threats:  It seems to me that the biggest threat is the low priority given to wildlife and the countryside in political discussions about our future.  This was clear during the last election when environmental issues were barely mentioned by politicians or the media.  The threat is that a healthy and wildlife rich ecology, rather than being seen as the bedrock on which our future health and wealth depends is seen as a minority interest of a few awkward activists and naturalists.  We (and in this ‘we’ I include readers of this Blog and NWT members!) know that healthy, properly functioning ecosystems provide us with clean air, clean water, natural  pollution control, help mitigate climate change, provide free natural flood controls, keep our soils healthy, enable  pollinators to ensure our crops thrive and contribute massively to human happiness, health and wellbeing.  But do our politicians and decision makers really understand and act on this?

So if any of this rings true what can we do?  The Government is promising, for the first time in a generation, an Agriculture Bill (the last major Agriculture Bill was in 1947).  We can make sure our elected MPs know that we want to ensure that any Bill that determines how agriculture support will be provided in future absolutely ensures that the health and beauty of the countryside, and the value of restoring healthy functioning ecosystems rich in wildlife delivering the ‘ecosystem services’ such as pollination, healthy soils, and clean water is high on the priority list. The Wildlife Trusts nationally are working with other major environmental bodies to ensure that conservation organisations speak with one voice to ensure that the environmental protections currently provided through the EU Habitats Directive, EU Birds directive and other European environment laws are not lost when we leave the EU.  You can find out more at www.greeneruk.org 

NWT Foxley Wood by Richard Osbourne

However, as was shown when the plans to sell off public forests were reversed, public opinion is a powerful voice when it comes to politics.  I believe that decisions made in the next few years will be crucial to the kind of future environment our children will inherit.  We can all play a part in ensuring that new opportunities for reversing the declines in nature are taken and threats of weakened laws to protect wildlife averted. But we can only ensure this if we make sure as individuals that our voices are heard. And heard loud and clear by the people who will be taking decisions which will affect our countryside and wildlife for a generation.  If you care about the future of our countryside and wildlife please make sure your voice is heard. Wildlife doesn’t have a voice in the decisions which will determine its future. We need to be its voice.

Exploring layers of history in the Norfolk Claylands

January may not be abundant with wildflowers but there is plenty to discover on a winter's walk as Helen Baczkowska, Conservation Officer with Norfolk Wildlife Trust records in her Claylands Diary for January.
 
Although I am an enthusiast of wild flowers, January walks are strangely a joy; for once I am not distracted by the delights of stitchwort or speedwell, by trying to sort greater from lesser bird’s foot trefoil.  Instead, I can look out on landscapes, study bare trees and cold winter ponds with a different eye.

On a walk through the heart of the Claylands Living Landscape, my brother, an archaeologist, slowed us down by lightly kicking at molehills. One revealed the treasure he sought – a thin, curved blade of flint I would not have looked twice at.  The chipped edge he showed me was human made, one of the thousand upon thousand Mesolithic flint tools discarded across these lands.  Most, he explained, were found on dry sandy soils, the reasons uncertain, yet how, he asked, had they recognised these places?  For an ecologist, this one question begs many more about how the vegetation of Britain developed as the last glaciers retreated to the north and as herds of large herbivores, from prehistoric bison, to deer and ponies, spread out across the cold steppe grasslands and scrub.

Gorse by David North

   

One thing I could certainly say is that even today, the patches of sandy soils left on the edge of the ice sheets can be easily distinguished amongst the ground up chalky clay of South Norfolk; earlier walking over the County Wildlife Site at Wood Green, we had crossed an area of gorse and fine grasses, visible even in winter.  In summer, heath bedstraw and heath speedwell grow here, although most of the common is clay, with meadow vetchling, meadow buttercup, cowslip and black knapweed.

Nearby Fritton Common is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, with orchids and ponds were great crested newts breed, but in the bleakness of January, my attention was drawn to the almost straight rows of oak trees, most noticeable on the western boundary.  Some of these are huge old trees, the largest in the south-west corner showing signs of pollarding – a way that small wood was once produced by cutting and re-cutting above the height of grazing stock. Collecting small wood from pollards was often the right of the commoners, whereas the timber trees themselves were the property of the lord of the manor. 

Old oak tree by Brian Beckett

In the centuries when barns and houses and especially warships were built on oak frames, these trees were valuable, their management and planting central to a farm’s income and survival; it is likely that the amount of oak across many English counties is not a virtue of ecology, so much a legacy of old economies and the insatiable need for timber for ships.  Today, being winter bare, these trees make curious shapes, with a large, gnarled trunks and many holes; invertebrates inhabit the crevices and barbestelle bats, which are have been recorded hunting over the common, no doubt find a roost in the cracks and fissured bark.

The lines of pollards continue south of Fritton Common, along a sinuous path, known locally as Snake Lane.  Hedges in the Claylands are often tall, with mature trees and a flora suggesting these are old fragments of woodland. The wide hedges of Snake Lane indicate long generations of woodland management, with pollards of oak and field maple; between them the pale slender trunks of hazel show signs of past coppicing.  Like pollarding, this produced small wood for hurdles and tool handles by cutting and re-cutting, but this time at ground level; the re-grown trees have many stems and a distinctive stump or “stool”.  A few hornbeam grow here too, their bark smooth and twisted into long creases, their timber once famed for its hardness.

Returning home, across Morningthorpe Common, a whisper makes me look up.  With a sound like the lightest of summer breezes in tall trees, a flock of fieldfares is heading to roost.  I have spotted a lot of these large, grey-backed thrushes over the past week, no doubt forced briefly south by cold weather. 

Fieldfare by Elizabeth Dack

 
By the end of our walk, dusk is wintry, grey and damp; warmth and hot tea beckon, but so do more days of walking the quiet, hidden tracks of the Claylands, exploring the endless, inseparable layering of human and natural history.

Your voice matters

Why now is a good time to take positive action for the future of Norfolk's wildlife by David North, Head of People and Wildlife.  

Swallowtail by Tim Melling

If you are reading this then the chances are that you, like me, care about Norfolk’s wildlife.  Fortunately huge numbers of people in our county do value nature and now is an important time to make our voices heard.
 
Norfolk Wildlife Trust is making its voice heard by writing to our MPs asking them to sign a ‘Pledge for the Environment’.  The Wildlife Trusts, along with many other conservation organisations, including RSPB, WWF, and CPRE, are all asking MPs to support measures to ensure protection for the environment and wildlife. The full text of the pledge can be read here:http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/GreenerUK
 
There are real concerns that the protection of our environment may suffer when we leave the EU and it’s not just environmentalists that are raising this concern.

You may have heard on the news that in a recent report,  The Future of the Environment after the EU Referendum (4 January 2017),cross-party MPs from  the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) have warned  the Government of the very real risk that vital protections for our environment, countryside and wildlife could be weakened  through the process of leaving the EU. This Committee of MPs is therefore calling on Government to introduce a new Environmental Protection Act before we leave the EU.

Currently around 80% of our environmental laws are tied in with the EU so ensuring these protections for our wildlife and countryside are not weakened during Brexit is absolutely vital if we want a positive future for our wildlife. Currently more than 170 MPs nationally have signed up to the ‘Pledge for the Environment’ but only three of our Norfolk MPs are on this list.

Water vole by Kevin Anderson

If you care about wildlife then now is the time to write to your MP raising your concern that protection for wildlife must not be lost when we leave the European Union.  Let’s show our leaders that protection of the environment is not a side-issue to be thought about only after other concerns, like the economy and immigration, have been addressed but is an issue that is fundamental.
 
 
We all know and understand that a healthy environment rich in wildlife is actually essential to human well-being and the bedrock on which a sustainable economy can be built.  Let’s make sure our MPs understand this too and that they know we want Britain to set a world standard in environmental protection ensuring that our wildlife recovers from current declines.

To see a list of MPs that have signed the Pledge for the Environment and to check if your MP is on the list visit: http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/GreenerUK http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/GreenerUK http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/GreenerUK 

Please add your voice now by writing to your MP asking them to sign this pledge if they have not already done so.   For the Wildlife Trust’s top tips on how to contact your MP visit www.wildlifetrusts.org/Greener-UK/Take-Action www.wildlifetrusts.org/Greener-UK/Take-Action   Decisions made in the next two years are likely to determine the fate of our wildlife and countryside for decades to come.


Help us protect Hickling Broad – the heart of the Norfolk Broads

Please donate today:

•  Call: 01603 625540 

• Visit our website: www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/support-us/hickling-broad-land-purchase-appeal.aspx www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/support-us/hickling-broad-land-purchase-appeal.aspx

• Or, Just Giving: www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/norfolkwildlifetrust/hickling  

Local Wildlife Sites: a day in the life

Helen Baczkowska, Conservation Officer

After 17 years of working with County Wildlife Sites (CWS) in Norfolk, I can truly say that no two days have ever been the same. Monday this week started with a visit to a patchwork of grassy fields registered as a Local Wildlife Site in 1985 and unvisited by Norfolk Wildlife Trust since. A few of these old sites that have not been re-visited still exist here, usually where contacts for owner have been lost and often where original survey data is a bit scant; since these distant days, more rigorous standards of survey and strict criteria for assessing sites have been put in place, allowing us to have a more robust system that is easier to defend in planning cases or situations like this. 

The owner here is a young dairy farmer, keen to improve his grazing by re-seeding and hence triggering an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) from Natural England, one of the few bits of statutory protection that can help County Wildlife Sites when changes to management are being considered. The grassland turned out to have been improved long ago and, typical of floodplain grazing land in Norfolk, was largely species-poor fields with wild flowers restricted to the ditches; here marsh bedstraw, great bird’s foot trefoil and St John’s wort all flourished. The farmer had a good feel for this old and lovely landscape, with its small fields and tall thick hedges, enjoying the wildlife there and putting in place several measures to protect the river and its banks. Fortunately, in this case, the species-rich areas can be retained and the rest of the grassland managed for cattle, creating a pleasing compromise for all concerned.

Local Wildlife Sites provide stepping stones for species

The rest of the day included setting up a meeting with a contractor to install “invisible” fencing on common land (this involves cattle wearing a collar that gives them a slight shock when they stray too close to an underground cable) and discussing a couple of planning applications with a colleague. On one site, we have opposed proposed development on a mosaic of ancient wood and heath, whilst on the other the re-location of an isolated pond seems the best option in the face of new housing. I also prepared a talk for a Norfolk Wildlife Trust local group, looking at the Claylands Living Landscape area, which is characterised by a high number of woodland and meadow Local Wildlife Sites, with significant populations of great crested newt, water vole and barbestelle bat. 

A phone conversation with a smallholder, who raises beef cattle on her LWS, focused on her application for Countryside Stewardship Grants; since the early 1990s, these have been a cornerstone of support for the owners of LWS across England. Budget cuts and uncertainty over agricultural support from Europe has given rise to a worries over the future of these schemes, which can run for either 5 or 10 years and provide financial help with the unprofitable side of caring for wildlife areas. Helping landowners through the labyrinthine paperwork needed to get into these schemes has long been a feature of my work, but the reward is being able to get the best out of the grant and a few years’ security for wildlife.

Many Local Wildlife Sites are species rich

Now it is late summer, survey season is over and in the coming couple of months, I will be typing up the heaps of scribbled notes from this year’s round of re-surveying existing CWS and surveying new ones that have come to light; this year my new sites include an old parish flint quarry, now covered in scrub and a little meadow with common spotted orchids.  

After 17 years, I still feel passionately about these sites, about the wildlife they support and the stepping-stones they provide for species moving through the landscape. LWS are often hidden gems, tucked out of sight and without public access, but they are richly deserving of the help and support they get from the Wildlife Trusts and their many partners.

Threat to wildlife from carpark and sports area at UEA in Norwich

Brendan Joyce, CEO Norfolk Wildlife Trust

The article by Mark Cocker in Saturday's EDP reinforces our own strong concern regarding the proposal of the Norwich Rugby Club and the UEA Sportspark to construct pitches and car parking spaces along with a two storey function building, in the Yare Valley between UEA and Colney Lane.

Male Migrant Hawker at UEA, photo by Michael Sankey

We are concerned that the scale of this development will lead to further degradation of local wildlife habitats along the Yare Valley, whilst at the same time lessening its value as a quiet haven for local walkers. This area of the valley is already well used by local people and any further loss of semi-natural green space should be avoided, particularly as there will be even more recreational pressure once new housing is built at Cringleford.

Whilst the proposers state that it will be possible to mitigate for the majority of impacts on protected species, they downplay the impact the development will have on the broader value of the valley as a wildlife corridor. The Yare Valley in Norwich is recognised as a key green corridor in the Greater Norwich Green Infrastructure Strategy and the proposed development will further weaken the integrity of this corridor. The area on the UEA side of the river is protected by County Wildlife Site designations and managed for the benefit of wildlife whilst at the same time allowing access to the general public. However, the south side of the river has suffered from piecemeal loss over the last 20 years, as the area between the river and Colney Lane has increasingly been developed for sports facilities.

The current proposals will be a further step in destroying the naturalness of this area and should not go ahead in their present form.

Useful links:

• Blog post by Professor Tim O'Riordan on Mark Avery's blog
• Planning application on South Norfolk Council website
• Link to the petition website

A place in the heart

David North, Head of People and Wildlife

I’ve fallen in love with a new place and the blame lies with a kingfisher. Home Meadow is part of the Mannington Hall estate and is a place I have occasionally visited in the past as it’s just a couple of miles from where I live.
 

Home Meadow, photo by David North

About a month ago I was out walking and decided to pay Home Meadow a visit. There’s a small hide that overlooks a beautiful quiet pond surrounded by trees and on entering the hide a kingfisher shot away from its fishing post just a few metres in front of the hide.  Well always nice to see a kingfisher and even a view of one flying arrow like, low over the water but away into the distance was of course a real treat.

Kingfisher, photo by David North

But five minutes later it’s back. Perched so close I felt I could have reached out and touched it.  An exaggeration of course, but you get the idea. What a joy. Twenty minutes of watching this jewel of a bird perched close enough for me to marvel at each iridescent feather. What a privilege. As it turns in the sunlight its back colours change from vivid turquoise blue to sea-green, though its vivid orange breast remains unchanged. A sighting like this is special and has encouraged me to make Home Meadow a regular haunt over the past few weeks.

These visits have changed my feelings about this place. Though I have seen the kingfisher on several more occasions all have been fleeting and distant views but these more regular visits, and my time spent quietly waiting for kingfishers, have given me many timeless moments, and opened my eyes and my heart to this place’s extraordinary beauty. Never mind a kingfisher but  have you ever watched a heron having a wash and brush up. Another extraordinary 20 minute wildlife show never to be forgotten.

The walk to the hide is along a boardwalk which circles through a very wet meadow. Home Meadow is after all the main player at around 10 acres not the much smaller pond. Though I have walked here before several times over recent years either my eyes have been shut, or perhaps it was not in at this time of year when late summer mistily and mysteriously drifts into early autumn. 

Rose-bay willowherb, photo by David North

Just a few weeks ago, or was it longer, as time moves in strange ways when you are falling in love, Home Meadow was all creamy drifts of meadowsweet and the blousy pinks of rose-bay and hairy willowherb. Then in a blink, or so it seems, it became sculpted with the towering, architectural umbels of angelica standing tall and proud over a sea of red knapweed flowers. Blink again and where knapweeds were dancing red in the wind now a great sea of dark seed heads has appeared and by some strange alchemy the fiery willowherb has turned to silky, silver feather heads. But amongst them, and the show which completed the capture of my heart, sway a thousand mauve-blue blooms of devil’s bit scabious to a background music of soft buzzing  carder bees over which migrant hawker and ruddy darter dragonflies dance  patrolling the flower flyways.

Devil's bit scabious, photo by David North

Home Meadow for the past few weeks has shown me a whole set of wonders – a different mood and new discoveries at every visit. This special place is one of more than 1,300 County Wildlife Sites found in almost every area of Norfolk. They cover a whole gamut of habitats, from woodland to wetland and everything in between. Nearly all have only survived because landowners, Parish Councils, or commoners’ groups have cared and put time and effort into managing them.  In the case of Home Meadow this protection has come from Lord and Lady Walpole of Mannington Estate, who ensure the meadow is cut each year  and have made it possible for visitors to enjoy its quiet and peace without damaging its fragile wetland by installing boardwalks and a small hide.

Home Meadow became a County Wildlife Site in 1991 and the Walpoles created the pond in 1986 adding the boardwalk and hide in 1993. I salute them, and all the other owners and managers of County Wildlife Sites, who play such an important role in preserving and protecting these special places. Special for wildlife of course, but many are also special places for people; full of wonders, of quiet, of beauty and of extraordinary joy.

T

A bad hair day for this heron? Photo by David North

here are many places I have fallen in love with. Does that make me fickle? But from now on Home Meadow has a place in my heart. A relationship that started in a moment of brilliant blue in a hide, has deepened through chance encounters with herons and is now a place I care for deeply. Perhaps a life long passion.

I hope you too have special encounters with wildlife that deepen into a life-time’s love of place. We are fortunate in Norfolk still to have so many places worth falling in love with, worth caring about, worth sometimes fighting for. In return they, like all good relationships, bring great joy, and if you are lucky and explore with an open hear then you may be rewarded when they touch you with their wildness and bring their mystery and magic to your life. 

DIscover more of Norfolk's best places for wildlife

'Green Oscars' to recognise outstanding efforts for wildlife

Mark Webster, Living Landscape Community Officer

I have recently started work with Norfolk Wildlife Trust on an exciting project, ‘Delivering Living Landscapes’.  My work involves me in helping local communities develop and look after community green spaces and help make them even better for wildlife.

Work party of volunteers at Tolls Meadow, Wymondham

In over 20 years of conservation work, I have never ceased to be amazed what a big difference individuals and small groups can make to wildlife in their local area. Norfolk Wildlife Trust is of course supported by many volunteers who work on nature reserves and also in our visitor centres. but perhaps less recognised is the work and support that NWT can give to individuals and groups who want to help wildlife. Our NWT conservation officers provide free advice across the County to many landowners who look after sites which are special for wildlife. These County Wildlife Sites play a vital part in our vision for Living Landscapes which seeks to bring wildlife back to the wider countryside. My own work in the Gaywood and Bure Valley Living Landscapes means in these areas we are helping support people to come together and set up new practical conservation groups helping wildlife.

Perhaps you are reading this and already involved as an individual or in a group looking after a site for wildlife or running a wildlife project. Well your efforts deserve to be recognised which is where an awards scheme run by NBP comes in.

The Norfolk Biodiversity Partnership (NBP) is seeking to celebrate the efforts of local groups and individuals who are making a difference for wildlife and people in their communities - do you know of a group, individual, business or project that deserves an award?  

The search is on for people involved with voluntary activities that help improve their local environment for nature.  If you know of someone or some group who you feel fits the bill, please nominate them via the form on the NBP website

There are five award categories:

1. Group Award, which recognises the achievements of a parish council, community or conservation group which has worked to improve its local area for biodiversity and to encourage people to access and enjoy their local nature sites.
2. Site Award, where efforts have been made to improve a site for biodiversity also resulting in a more accessible and well-regarded amenity.
3. Inspiring Others Award, which recognises those who have gone the ‘extra mile’ to bring about a wider appreciation of biodiversity. Examples could include: a school which is sharing a wildlife area with the local community; a walks leader; a business that provides a nature trail in their grounds.
4. Individual Award, which recognises the outstanding contribution of a particular person to nature conservation or biodiversity-related education at a local or Norfolk-wide level.
5. Themed Award. For 2014, the theme is “Commons, Greens and Churchyards”. This will recognise action taken by local communities to improve biodiversity in these key areas which occur in almost every parish across Norfolk.

I will certainly be encouraging the groups and individuals I am working with to apply. But if you know of someone who has been beavering tirelessly away to help wildlife then do nominate them for an award.  The magnificent efforts of both groups and individuals who do so much to help Norfolk’s wildlife often go unrecognised – but not in Norfolk, where nominations for the 2014 Community Biodiversity Awards are now open.

If you need more information about the awards please contact Paul Holley for more information: paulholley@norwich.gov.uk

NWT’s Living Landscape approach will provide a wide range of opportunities for people to get more involved in helping wildlife locally.

A murmuration of starlings

Helen Baczkowska, Conservation Officer

This winter, the County Wildlife Site (CWS) nearest my home has seen a roost of starlings wheeling and flowing across the sky each evening, like smoke in caught in the wind. An hour or so before sunset, small groups of starlings wing their way across the winter tree tops, the numbers slowly growing to several hundred, as more and more groups arrive from the fields and gardens where they have been feeding. Sometimes small groups break away, dart off on a circuit of their own, then return to a flock that one moment spreads out like a streamer, then clusters tightly, constantly twisting and flowing in forms that never quite resemble any nameable shape. As I watch, the birds shoot over my head chattering, with a whisper of wings like soft rain.

Starling roost, photo by Brian Macfarlane

One reason for these circling flypasts, before settling roost in the reeds of the pond, may be the local sparrow hawk. Scientists studying the phenomena of starling murmurations think that the flocking and ever-shifting shapes are largely a response to predation, as targeting one bird out of the mass becomes impossible. Certainly, the sparrow hawk has tried to fly up out of the reeds into the flock, or to fly at them from above, but always seems doomed to failure.

The science of murmurations is incomplete, but researchers have employed sophisticated video analysis and computer modelling to study how the birds achieve the spectacular moving sky patterns. To date, the thinking is that the flock is like a liquid turning to gas, or snow before an avalanche. It is a system poised to tip, with the movement of every part affecting the whole. This is a science closer to physics than biology and the evidence seems to be that each bird reacts to even the smallest movement of the birds closest to them, this movement rippling rapidly through the flock in groups of seven – each bird affecting the seven closest to them. Research continues, for the exact science of how the changes ripple through the flock without accident or confusion remains a mystery.

Flocks of thousands of starlings are known from large reed beds around Britain, with notable winter roosts on the East Anglian coast. Many of the birds will be winter migrants, boosting the numbers of a species that has suffered a dramatic decline in recent decades; long-term monitoring by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) shows that starling numbers have fallen by 66 per cent in Britain since the mid-1970s. The roost on the CWS is tiny compared to some, but it demonstrates the value of even small areas of habitat and is a reminder that observing the natural world is vital in informing the management of sites. It would be easy to look at the reed-covered pond as overgrown, but it is the only local pond suitable for a starling roost. If clearance of the ponds is considered in the future, retaining some of the reed will mean there is always a winter roost for the starlings.

Starling in flight, photo by Elizabeth Dack

As evening grows darker, the starlings circle ever closer to the reeds, swooping down close, then rising again, until at last, as if on some unseen signal, they pour into their roost in a single black flow, like dark liquid through a funnel. At first, they are easily unsettled, fluttering and chattering amongst themselves, rising uneasily if I walk too close. In the morning they fill my garden hedge with the fizz and buzz of their song, reminding me that spring is around the corner and that the flock will soon disperse - at least until next winter.