SUTTON CONSERVATON SOCIETY Newsletter December 2015 A HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR MEMBERS STAY WARM Feed the birds Feeding the birds throughout the year is now recommended but with a reduced amount in the summer. Doing a bit of research into feeders (bird table, plastic tubular type) I came across a warning not to use nylon mesh bags the kind that have fat balls or peanuts in. These can trap bird s feet and even cause broken or torn off feet or legs. Birds with barbed tongues e.g. Woodpeckers, can become trapped by their beaks. Please buy them by all means but put them into another feeder e.g. feeders made from steel mesh, this is the method I use for all peanuts and fat balls and it gives the Starlings a chance to feed off these. Don t dismiss the Starlings they are having a hard time of it at the moment with numbers declining every year since 1980. No one seems to have an answer as to why this is, one reason put forward is that in the summer they feed on soil invertebrates such has earthworms and leatherjackets and that these have either declined or become less available. RECOMENDED USE- Bird seed, Black Sunflower seeds, Nyjer seed, Peanuts, Bird cake and food bars, Mealworms live or dried, Lard and Beef suet, Dog and Cat food, Apples, Bananas and Grapes. NOT RECOMENDED TO USE- Fat from the Sunday joint, this will have blood in it and can breed a lot of bacteria.white bread. HYGIENE. Keeping things clean is a must for all hanging bird feeder and tables and ground feeding, left out food not eaten can soon attract rats and mice. AGM report The AGM was well attended, and the business part of the meeting swiftly completed. Alan Newnum has stepped down from the Committee and Gae Matthews has been welcomed as a new committee member. Alan will continue as a member of the Society but has other demands on his time at present. Kim Osborne gave an interesting talk about the landscape and wildlife of Southern California, but saved the most impressive visuals until the end of the talk when photos from space satellites demonstrated the diminishing snowfield in the Sierra Nevada Mountains leading to severe problems of water supply in California. MAKE SUTTON SPECIAL
Forth-Coming Events Thursday 17 th December Annual Non Christmas Quiz at 8.00 at the Pavilion. Saturday 9 th January 2016 Working Party at the Old Play Copse at the Recreation Ground Thursday 21 st January 2016- Mike Rose from the British Antarctic Survey to give an illustrated talk on Climate Change., 8.00 at the Pavilion, Brooklands Centre Liz is busy working on a very interesting range of speakers for 2016. So watch this space for future details and look out for poster around the village. Committee Members Peter Saunders President Tel: 778533 Sally White 778963 sallywhite21@hotmail.com Vera Wesbroom 777968 Joy Owen 777904 Alan Revill 777115 Gae Matthews 776278 Kim Osborne 776278 k.osborne@btinternet.com Liz Hawkins 777696 LizH101@yahoo.com Editor. Colin Williams 07531279732 colin.williams01@btinternet.com Working parties take place on the second Sat of every month from 10am to 12noon. All welcome, including children, other family and friends. We usually meet at St Andrews Churchyard at 10am, please bring basic tools such as secateurs, loppers, rakes etc if you have them, the society has some hand tools and a mower. We stop for a tea/coffee and biscuit break half way through Meeting on 15 th October Report There was a marvellous turnout of 35 members of the Society and 6 members of the public to attend our meeting on 15 th October an illustrated talk by Mike Petty on The Ouse Washes people and places: an exploration of the people and communities who live alongside the Old and New Bedford Rivers. As always Mike Petty gave a fascinating talk which was very well received by the audience. We were very fortunate in that the Ouse Washes Landscape Partnership had provided funding for the talk and it was one of a series Mike has been giving to various organisations in the area. After 20 years of finding speakers for the Society at their regular meetings, I am taking a break from this part of my involvement with the Society and Liz Hawkins has very kindly agreed to take on this role. I know she has some great ideas and it will be lovely for me to come along to the meetings as a spectator! Although I have missed so many meetings this year due to being away on so many holidays but I thought that was what retirement was for! Sally White
Village Stroll Saturday 10 th October saw 13 members and friends of the Society meeting at St Andrew s Churchyard for a gentle guided walk around areas of the village where the Society has undertaken management/improvement works over the past 20 years. Whilst some people have made comments that the area of the churchyard maintained by the Society is a right mess (and I do quote!), the intention is to maintain this area as a wildlife haven, for insects, plants, birds etc... We would recommend that everybody spends 10 minutes at some point sitting quietly on the bench in the churchyard and just watch the wildlife, particularly in the summer months when the butterflies are beautiful. Local cats have great hunting forays in there, and the spring flowering bulbs are truly lovely. We have done a lot of work in this area to maintain the status quo, but unfortunately the unevenness of the ground and the fact that the graves are not in orderly rows makes it difficult to do the grass cutting, but we would re-iterate it is not the objective to have flat mown lawn areas. The village is fortunate in that the three burial ground areas, i.e. immediately around the Church, the new burial ground at the rear of The Glebe, and the area we look after are all different, but complementary to each other. We then moved on to Stankers Pond where new bridges have been installed to enable everybody to circumnavigate the pond. We are hoping to hold another pond dipping session in 2016 with the Brownies, Scouts and other children in the village. This will enable us to update our records and to see if the wildlife is increasing or decreasing over the years. Then down Station Road to the Recreation Ground to check out the Plantation Wood, planted as our first project some 20 years ago. We feel this has been a huge success and seems to be well used children should be encouraged to make dens and play there, all we ask is that they don t damage the trees! There is enough waste wood for them to build dens, think along the lines of the National Trust properties which actively encourage children to do this. We are looking forward to seeing the hosts of daffodils again in Spring 2016. The trees planted at the back of the recreation ground bordering onto farmland as part of the Society s 10 th anniversary are struggling to survive as competition from the long grass and the prevailing wind is severe! Sally
Joy Owen and I went along to the Brownies meeting the following Monday, 9 th November, to present those who had attended with a certificate to thank them for their help. Our thanks go to all those who helped prior to the day and on the Saturday as well, and of course to Edwin Frear who once again provided the trailer to take away all the waste material. 2016 Sutton Conservation Society 20 th Anniversary Calendar Get yours now they are going fast 6.00 each or buy one for a friend and get them at 11.00 for two, what a bargain!! Available from: Committee members, Sutton Deli Squirrel Farm Shop, The America
Working party report for 7 th November As usual the Society,were hoping to clear the area of St Andrew s Churchyard behind the wall running along the High Street so that the 5 War Graves could be cleared and each marked with a Remembrance Cross in time for Remembrance Day service at the Church, this year on the 8 th November. Well, the weather for once was against us and in week leading prior to 7 th November it was so wet and dank, the forecast for the weekend so wet, that we began to wonder what we could achieve. We needn t have worried! Our thanks go to Tony Tillett who strimmed about half of this area on the Wednesday (in case it rained on Saturday), and then to Haydn Gray who, along with other members of the Society, spent time there on Thursday morning and managed to cut back the remaining grass and cut back saplings etc.. We had invited the 1 st Sutton Brownies to come along on the Saturday to help us and 8 of them turned up in the rain and wind to do just that! We had decided that in view of the inclement weather we would arrange for the girls to do some bulb planting as we didn t think we would be grass cutting, but they worked very hard in helping us rake up the cut grass, clearing saplings that had been cut down, and then tidying up the relevant gravestones and then placing the commemorative crosses in place. In fact a 6 th war grave was found whilst clearing the area. 180 crocus bulbs and 20 dwarf red tulips were also planted.
Botswana November 2015 Just to cheer you up on these cold windy nights, I have a little tale to tell of my visit with my wife May to Botswana but a longer report will follow in 2016. It has been four years since our last visit to the same area of Botswana namely the Okavango delta in the north. This is one of the largest Lagoon, Lake and Swamp areas in the world. The source of the Okavango River lies far to the north some 1000 kilometres or nearly 700 miles in Angola so that when the rains fall in Angola it take a long time to reach the delta, it continues to travel south and spills onto the sands of the Kalahari Desert Basin and creates an oasis in the desert. What happens to the water after that I have no idea? On our last visit the Swamps and Lagoons were full to bursting, this time it was the lowest it has been for some years and they were all praying for rain. Just to add to this it was a record temperature for November it stayed at 46 Centigrade that s 115 Fahrenheit in the shade for most our visit. This has had a big impact on the wildlife. Most of the Cape buffalo had moved out and lots of the grazing animals like Antelopes had moved on. We still saw large herds but nothing like last time, the Elephants still sticking it out by striping the bark from the trees, small herds of the Blue Wildebeest and lots of Giraffe, and surprisingly large herds of Burcell s Zebra. We left camp at about 5am to do the Safari bit, came back at 10am had a bucket shower (no cold water) at the back of the tent. This did bring some relief but with no air con, lying on the bed was like being on a heated blanket. Our clothes getting dressed in the morning were like putting on something that had been on a hot radiator all night. The drives out in the bush were fantastic, our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner were like being in a 5 star hotel and the South African wine was amazing but we could not drink to much because of the time we had to rise in the morning but we made up for that on our visit to South Africa. My visit to the Heronry turned into quite an adventure; this is a large lake with nearly all the different species of Storks breeding on this one site with several thousand birds throughout the breeding season. The two large male Leopards we had a close encounter with, plus all the Lions we met on our journey through the bush. More details about this adventure to follow in 2016. CW