Bourne Area Group Newsletter June 2024

Bourne Area Group Newsletter June 2024

Welcome to our summer newsletter with updates on recent events, Committee news, what is happening on some of our local reserves and more. If you want to contribute to the newsletter please let us know – see the section at the back. We’ll also produce occasional blogs.

RECENT EVENTS

AGM & talk by Nick WIlliams (10th April)

We had a well-attended AGM aided, of course, by the draw of Nick Williams entertaining and informing us afterwards with fabulous photos and music about his adventures as a wildlife photographer at home and abroad, followed by a session on rare breeding birds locally in south Lincolnshire

Dole Wood open day (21st April)

Despite the distinctly cool but thankfully dry weather, we still attracted 176 visitors (146 adults, 30 children) to see the bluebells and enjoy the various walks, activities and refreshments. In all, we raised over £370 for the Trust and Area group

Twyford Wood walk (11th May)

A repeat of the (butterfly-free) walk we did in heavy rain the previous year –this year we were fortunate with both the weather and the wildlife for the few who attended. We saw lots of dingy skipper butterflies and a few grizzled skippers but not, unfortunately, any green hairstreaks. We did, however, have more than ample compensation in a singing nightingale, a range of other spring warblers and some basking common lizards The wood is a great site to visit, and a local stronghold for willow warblers, with the added bonus of its WWII and D-day history.

Listening for nightingales (left) and a grizzled skipper (right)

Deeping Lakes open day (2nd June)

Our open day took place on a beautiful sunny warm day – amazingly after cold, grey windy weather of much of late May. We had almost 140 adults & 40 children visiting the Deeping Lakes reserve. On the day we raised over £250 for the Lincs Wildlife Trust, sold out of cakes and other refreshments & saw almost 50 bird species (plus bee and other orchids, dragonflies & butterflies). One fortunate guided walk saw an otter and fox on their excursion and the long-staying glossy ibis remained around.

Open day volunteer input

The open days require a great effort by volunteers both before, on and after the day. They require planning and advertising (printing and distributing posters etc); need people to voluntarily provide home-baked cakes and savouries; garden plants have to be propagated, raised, tended and brought for sale; tents, chairs and tables all need to be loaded on to trailers, erected on site (and then taken down again and returned to storage); beforehand, paths needs to be mown on the reserves and/or muddy patches filled in, the sites made ready and safe, and checks to make sure no sensitive species will be affected; on the day, volunteers man tents, stalls, serves refreshments, take guided walks, create and supervise activities for children, put up signs and manage car parking and much more besides. Then everything has to be taken down again. For some, it is a long 10+ hour day. And then the money has to be accounted for and costs paid before we know how much we have raised for the Trust

So as always, a big thank you to all who donate their time generously. They can’t happen without the input of a lot of people.

COMMITTEE NEWS

AGM

At the AGM we re-elected the Committee (but see below) but we remain without AG secretary and meetings secretary – both these tasks are being undertaken by Dave Vandome and Vin Fleming respectively in addition to their other tasks. So, if anyone is keen, there is always scope to welcome additional members onto the Committee. For those not at the AGM, the Chair’s and Treasurer’s reports are appended.

A

very

big thank you to Chris Bladon

Chris Bladon stepped down from the Committee at the AGM, on which she has served since 1992. Chris has provided us and the Trust with many years of devoted service; for example, she helped run the former Trust shop at Grimsthorpe Castle (from 1984-2002), which used to raise c£10k annually, was active on the Committee in charge of publicity, helped deliver newsletters and was our long-standing representative on the former Trust Council (from 2003). In 2016, she was awarded the President’s Award from the Trust (the Silver Lapwing award) in recognition of her long service.

I’m sure we would like thank her for her contribution to the Bourne Area Group and all her years of dedication to the Trust.

Winter programme

We now have a complete winter programme for 24-25 planned. This will be posted on our events pages in the very near-future.

Keeping in touch

A reminder to members that we have created a WhatsApp group to alert members to when an event is due or when there is something new to see on the website. This allows us to send messages to anyone who has decided to join the group but still protects people’s personal data (your telephone number) from being seen by others. So, it is a one-way form of communication, but you will be able to ask questions to the administrators (but which won’t be seen by the entire group). If you want to be part of this group, please let one of the Committee know, either at an indoor event or by sending a message to Amanda Jenkins (07903 028607) or me (Vin Fleming 07968-729169).

Of course, we also have our Facebook page (which is here) and where we will continue to post information about events etc. And don’t forget to look on ‘events’ pages on the Bourne Area Group section on the Trust website – where you’re reading this presumably!

Around the Reserves

Since the previous newsletter appeared back in September 2023, it is probably time for an update. And, having just written the reserves annual reports, I can take a look at the whole of the previous (reporting) year. So, the following table is probably a good place to start.

Hours worked 1 April 2023 - 31 March 2024 (with 22/23 and 21/22 in brackets)

(2022 – 2023) (2021 – 2022)

Dole Wood 269 (48) (62)

Toft Tunnel 175 (72) (120)

Robert's Field 386 (52) (68)

Horbling Line 44 (39) (65) 874 (211) (315)

Deeping Lakes 6,051 (5,588) (6.236)

Grand total:- 6,925 hours (or 989 volunteer days)

Analysis in brief:-

Deeping Lakes – roughly similar figures to previous two years.

Dole Wood – massive increase, due largely to removing hundreds of plastic tree guards. (we have also removed the guards at Deeping Lakes).

Toft Tunnel – increase largely due to clearing fallen trees from the visitors’ route. Robert’s Field – massive increase, due to laying part of the roadside hedge. Horbling Line – steady as she goes!

There is always something that needs doing on the reserves, so a thank you from me to the 40+ volunteers who have contributed their time/effort this past year. Some details:-

At DEEPING LAKES we usually lay 100 metres of hedge each year. For the past three years we have been working on the hedge at the toe of the riverbank. The stakes and binding are cut from trees on the reserve.

This is the finished hedge section. With the record amount of rainfall, the bottom of the hedge was often under water, which slowed things down considerably. Luckily, we had cleared out all of the ditches on the reserve, so at least we could get water off the land. The soggy grassland did bring in some interesting birds. A Glossy Ibis hung around for most of the winter, usually close to a Great-White Egret.

Unfortunately, the visitors’ route was very muddy for most of the winter, and we also were constantly having to fill pot holes in the access track. Thanks to a generous donation of 15 tonne of limestone and lots of wheel-barrowing we managed to keep it in reasonable condition.

Unsurprisingly, the visitors’ route around DOLE WOOD was also very muddy for most of the winter. We think we have found/removed most of the plastic tree guards, but there are bound to be some we have missed.

The former railway land at TOFT TUNNEL is well drained, so although water can occasionally flood, it quickly dries up. We had to clear fallen trees from the visitors’ path, this was one of the trees we had to sort out.

This is by the roadside entrance to the east cutting. A dead ash tree had fallen on top of a mature hawthorn tree, and both of them were blocking the path. On a (rare) sunny winter’s day, and not sliding about on a sea of mud we cut up and cleared the trees.

The eastern part of the reserve lies next to the former South Kesteven District Council Lound Depot. The ‘neighbours’ who now own the depot have been doing a lot of work to create hard standings for static caravans and erecting new fencing. They clearly have done a lot of work – but have used the cutting as a dump site.

a mess, and no-one seemingly prepared to ‘sort it out’.

More hedge laying – this time at Robert’s Field. We first laid this hedge section in 1998, and again in December 2010

Whereas most of the hedges at Deeping Lakes are of recent origin (albeit historically where they once were), this hedge is probably hundreds of years old. The road here runs up-hill towards the County boundary (and Lincolnshire Gate). A lot of the trees in the hedge are large multi-stemmed hazel trees, so the laid hedge looks rather thin – worth looking at in summer to see how it looks in full leaf?

What

Also worth looking at is a photo of ‘us’ laying the hedge, photo taken on 5 December 2010.

Walking on the road was in its self a challenge, and the roads were iced over for weeks. But, we had some bright sunny days, and some happy memories.

Finally, a few words about HORBLING LINE, which being quite small, is very easy to manage. Both cuttings are prone to flooding, but like at Toft Tunnel, dries out quickly – usually!

Well, perhaps not this winter, when back in November we had a new wetland reserve!

This photo was taken in the south cutting. The northern cutting was not as bad, and visitors could still walk along the path.

The main concern on this reserve was the brickwork on the 150-year-old railway bridge. The crack had gradually been getting worse, and although cordoned off with a fence it really needed a bit of tlc so it wouldl still be there in another 150 years.

Well, now you see it . . . and then it was gone!

Some brickwork is still there – but a bit of a transformation, and certainly was one way to sort it out.

Contributing to the newsletter

We used to produce three newsletters a year, to be distributed with the ‘Lapwings’ mailing. We can now produce them as often or as infrequently as we want. But the newsletter is dependent upon a couple of us putting it together. Ideally, we need to be more than just the current ‘editorial team.’ If you wish to contribute content for the newsletters then get in touch - our Facebook page is probably the best way (but VF’s phone number is above)

(DV)

1 – AGM 2024 Chair’s report

We had over 2023 a reasonably well-attended series of outdoor events including the two regular open days (Dole Wood & Deeping Lakes) and three field visits – one to Twyford Wood to look for spring butterflies (unsuccessfully in heavy rain), to Woodhall Spa Airfield and the third to see the re-wilding at Boothby Wildlands (courtesy of Nattergal).

We reinstated a winter programme of talks with a shift to the second Wednesday of the month, rather than on the Friday we traditionally used, with talks on the New Forest (Geof Lee), Wildlife Trade (Vin Fleming), Boothby Wildlands (Lorienne Whittle) and, for our AGM today, on the Adventures of a Wildlife Photographer at Home & Abroad (Nick Williams).

We have a nearly complete programme organised for winter 24-25. However, we remain without a meeting / programme secretary, so I am standing in and doing that task also.

We also have a vacancy for a (membership) secretary for the committee which, in the meantime is being covered by Dave Vandome in his capacity as vice-Chair and reserves manager. Volunteers for both these vacant posts would be very welcome.

Members should now be aware that there is no longer a paper copy of a local newsletter. So, to increase the options to communicate details of events etc to members, we have set up a WhatsApp group which will provide alerts for upcoming events (contact Amanda Jenkins to be included). You will not be bombarded with messages - it is a ‘broadcast’ group so there is no ‘chat’ between participants – you will receive meeting and/or event alerts only. Otherwise, members should check the Bourne Area Group pages of Lincs Trust website (https://www.lincstrust.org.uk/get-involved/area-groups/bourne) for details of events and/or check our Facebook page (here or search on Facebook for Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust - Bourne Area Group) on which we also post details of events.

Our newsletter is also posted on the Lincs Trust webpages above – we produced one over the period (September 2023) but we might shift to providing shorter, more frequent, blogs. We will alert members through the WhatsApp group and Facebook when a new blog or newsletter is posted.

We do have a summer programme coming up again beginning next Sunday 21st April with the regular and popular Dole Wood open day. Support in providing or serving refreshments (cakes / savouries etc) would be gratefully appreciated.

Thereafter, we’ve planning a trip to Twyford Wood (11th May) to look for spring butterflies and hoping for better weather this time, and the Deeping Lakes open day on 2nd June. I hope many of you will be able to attend.

Whilst most of our activities are educational and/or social, and we have an active volunteer network on our local reserves, we are also looking at becoming more actively engaged in conservation policy affecting the wider environment around Bourne area. We have contributed comments, for example, to the Bourne Neighbourhood Plan with respect to wildlife conservation in the parish. Ideas for other forms of engagement are welcome also.

Finally, before I conclude, Chris Bladon is stepping down from the Committee, on which she has served since 1992. Chris has provided us and the Trust with many years of devoted service; for example, she helped run the former Trust shop at Grimsthorpe Castle (from 1984-2002), which used to raise c£10k annually, was active on the Committee and in charge of publicity, and helped deliver newsletters and was our long-standing representative on the Trust Council (from 2003). In 2016, she was awarded the President’s Award from the Trust (the Silver Lapwing award) in recognition of her long service. I would like to put on record my thanks, and that of the committee and members also, for her contribution to the Bourne Area Group and all her years of dedication to the Trust. With that, I conclude and we can move to officers’ reports unless there are any questions or comments first? Report from John Oliver – SE Lincs Warden

Additional information on the contributions from volunteers (not all necessarily from Bourne Area Group of course):

• Crane watch at Willow Tree Fen – c1,900 hours volunteer time

• South Lincs volunteers – c3000 hours per year on local reserves

• Nine voluntary reserve managers doing 2+ hours per week

[Chair’s addition – note if volunteer time were valued at the minimum wage for over-21s (£11.44 per hour), this is equivalent to over £66,350 pa in time donated to the Trust for work which wouldn’t otherwise be affordable.] NB these figures were corrected after the AGM to account for a zero accidentally added to the number of crane watch volunteer hours.

Two well attended open days at Dole Wood and Deeping Lakes and funds accumulated over the last couple of years have enabled us to give a donation to Trust appeal this financial year of £2000.00. A massive effort by volunteers at both open days meant that refreshments raised over £600.

Special mention must also be made to Hazel Williams who continues to contribute significantly with plant sales at the open days and her Braceborough home (and elsewhere) also amounting to over £600.

There have been 3 indoor meetings this year and speakers have generously waived any fees. We do however need to increase the numbers of people attending to ensure they remain viable.

The year has been fraught with the problems of changing banks from Barclays to the Co-op but after many hours of phone calls, letters and online frustrations, I’m hopeful this has been resolved enabling us to fully enter the 21st century. Discussions continue within the committee as to how best to spend the income locally in support of wildlife, Trust reserves and volunteers.

The accounts for 23-24 are provided below.

Banovallum House

Manor House Street

Horncastle, LN9 5HF

Info@lincstrust.o.uk

The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is a registered charity. Charity number:- 218895