THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Main: Harriet Safe and Chris O'Connor.
Of bats and biodiversity
Winter is a time for maintenance for Jersey Heritage properties - but it is also very much a time for managing biodiversity. By Caroline Spencer
M
any of Jersey Heritage’s visitor attractions might close for the winter but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t work to do. There are properties to maintain and refurbish, and all the while keeping one eye on each site’s unique biodiversity. The Island’s historic buildings are great for wildlife. Walking around Hamptonne Country Life Museum, head of property for Jersey Heritage Chris O’Connor explains that when they carry out any maintenance or refurbishment, they take into account the biodiversity of the site:
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‘For example, before the roof of the 16th Century Hamptonne House was re-thatched, surveys checked for roosting bats and nesting birds. ‘There were common pipistrelle bats, and nesting barn swallows in the adjacent buildings, and we didn’t want to disturb them. We don’t want to do something where we have a negative impact on the environment. And in fact, if we can, we try to get a net gain on that biodiversity.’ Mont Orgueil is a stronghold for protected wall lizards in Jersey.
‘When repointing walls, we leave dwelling holes to make sure the lizards can find space within the wall structure to hibernate,’ Chris said. ‘With all our properties, like some of the forts and towers we look after, we make sure we survey the biodiversity first, and take into account what is there, so that newts, lizards and all the other good things in life still inhabit it. ‘When we built a new ticket office at La Hougue Bie we asked ourselves how we could increase the biodiversity and we have introduced a bat-roosting habitat.’
