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Dean Natural Alliance who with Forest of Dean Friends of the Earth and others have been continuing the legal fight against the development of the Cinderford Northern Quarter today (Tuesday 12^th July) sent out a press release after their latest appearance at the High Court.

GNS agrees wholeheartedly with the sentiments that the CNQ development is ill advised, misplaced and seriously detrimental to the mosaic of habitats and plethora of wildlife on and around the site. The regeneration of Cinderford would have been far better carried out much closer to the town, community and infrastructure that already exists for many reasons over and above the damage that will be caused to a wildlife rich area.

It seems perverse that across the Forest, many groups and individuals are working hard to enhance the wildlife, culture, heritage, history and other facets of the area in pursuit of the Heritage Lottery Fund bid under the banner of The Forester’s Forest whilst on the CNQ site, the local authority and Homes and Communities Agency are bent on continuing with a development that will so adversely affect all of these things.

The text of the DNA press release is given below:

“Dean Natural Alliance greatly regrets the decision last week in the High Court not to allow an Appeal to go forward challenging the Planning Consent for the Hybrid Planning Application at Cinderford Northern Quarter.

We continue to believe that the selection of this site by the Forest of Dean District Council and the Homes and Communities Agency was ill-informed and deeply flawed. DNA feel the CNQ is unsuitable both because of its great environmental richness and because the mining legacy and contamination mean this development can never be economically viable; it will continue to be a great drain on the Public Purse and to damage wildlife.

As the Gloucestershire College still does not seem to be in a position to proceed with their proposed move from Five Acres, we believe there is no justification for yet commencing a section of a Spine Road which will lead nowhere, will increase traffic through Steam Mills and will require Public Forest Estate land.

Dean Natural Alliance feel that because the Cinderford Northern Quarter is such poor value for money with the speculative spending of some £18 Million and is so damaging to our heritage that we will continue to oppose it.”

Further information is available at http://www.deannaturalalliance.org/

Following the success of previous year’s Nightjar evening walks in the Forest of Dean, I plan to do more this year, proposed dates are:

Thursday 30^th June

Thursday 7^th July

Thursday 14^th July

If anyone is interested, please contact me by e-mail and let me know your preferred date.

As previously, the evening meetings will begin with a 9.30pm start and will be weather dependent. The chance of seeing Nightjars on cold, wet or windy evenings is poor, we will therefore be hoping for reasonably clear and still evenings and if necessary, will revise the dates.

I will send out full instructions ahead of the proposed dates to all who wish to attend.

Andrew Bluett, Membership Secretary – gnsmembership@btinternet.com

The next GNS Field Meeting is due to take place on Saturday 11^th June – A Walk on Edge Common – to be led by Linda Moore (01452 389950). Edge Common is an area of unimproved limestone grassland with woodland and scrub, good for limestone vascular plants and other botanical gems. 11.00 am to 14.00 pm.

Meet at SO 846 095 on the road from Edge to Haresfield Beacon, parking is available in a number of places along the road but please take care, the road can be busy and traffic does not always travel at an appropriate speed.

A real movement to study and protect breeding Curlews in lowland Britain seems to be developing.  Apart from our efforts in the Severn and Avon Vales in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, Phil Sheldrake is busy on Salisbury Plain and has contacts with Curlew observers in the New Forest; surveys are being carried out in two areas of the Upper Thames Catchment (through RSPB Otmoor and Jenny Phelps of  Gloucestershire FWAG) and there’s a demonstration on one of the farms near Faringdon tomorrow); Phil and I are planning to visit the Somerset Levels next week, to see how their Curlews are doing.  Furthermore Mary Colwell is now in the middle of her 500 mile walk from Ireland to East Anglia to highlight the plight of the Curlew: she came to the Severn and Avon Vales in early April before beginning her walk; you can see notes on her visit to our area, plus details of how her walk is going, on her website www.curlewmedia.com  The latest edition of RSPB’s magazine “Nature’s Home” carries a note about the lowland Curlew surveys on page 39.

We hope at the end of the breeding season to arrange some kind of get together for all those interested in Curlews and who have taken part in the surveys.

Now for some updates on the situation in the Severn and Avon Vales in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire:

• In the Gloucestershire section we had April flooding for the first time since 2012 (thanks to Storm Katie coinciding with high elver tides); this meant that many of the traditional breeding sites were under water until mid-April, and still remain very wet; so 2016 is definitely a late season.
• Whether because of the wet conditions, or because of the continuing decline in Curlew numbers, I have the impression that there are fewer Curlews than usual in the traditional breeding haunts this year: that’s only an impression, and I hope I shall be proved wrong as the season advances.  Several people have sent NIL returns for sites usually occupied.
• Many pairs at traditional sites have spent the month of April holding territory, just standing round (often in pairs), showing other pairs that this field is occupied.  I haven’t seen much chasing or courtship behaviour: this is in fact quite hard to see, because they stand still, apparently doing nothing, for a very long time, and you need patience, waiting at the edge of a field behind your telescope to see them actually indulging in courtship chases.
• The grass has now grown belly high to a Curlew, and I think they are just now in the process of laying.  Typically, a pair will stand feeding in a field, then one (the female which can be distinguished by its longer de-curved bill and larger size) walks away, often with a particular gait, looking alert and keeping close to the ground to avoid attention, and disappears out of sight.  Meanwhile the male stands round, on guard.  Phil Sheldrake tells me that he has observed this kind of behaviour on Salisbury Plain, and has pinpointed several nests in this way.
• I have been to the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust reserve at Coombe Hill a couple of time in the evenings, to look at numbers coming to roost.  Numbers were small because of the flooding in early April, but the last two visits have produced only five and four roosting birds, another reason for thinking numbers are low.
• Two of the birds colour ringed in autumn from 2010 to 2013 on the Severn estuary have been re-sighted on their traditional fields, one at the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust reserve at Ashleworth, one near Twyning.  No one has as yet found the colour-ringed bird seen in previous breeding seasons in the Queenshill Rough/ Ripple Lake area.
• I have been to see John Belsey at the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust reserve of Upton Warren, where there is a tradition  of Curlew roosts; interestingly, these turn out to be mainly in winter, with numbers dropping off in summer; so the situation there is clearly different, with wintering rather than breeding birds coming to roost.
• Carrion Crow and Magpie control is practised by many farmers in the area around Haw Bridge.  They are convinced that excessive numbers of predators is one of the reasons for the decline of breeding Curlews (which is  what the British Birds article in November 2015 said).  Foxes at Coombe Hill cause panic among the waders present.
• It is hoped that mowing on the Severn Ham at Tewkesbury will be flexible (like last year), to allow any chicks produced there to fledge before the hay is cut.

I’d welcome any comments on the above remarks, and – even more so! – any additional observations that any of you may have made.

This event  arranged through the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust will be held at RSPB Highnam Woods reserve on:

Thursday 5^th May from 7pm to 9.30pm. 

This will be led by RSPB warden Hannah Moreton who will also look at habitat management for the species.

It’s completely free to attend but spaces are limited; so if you’d like to come you need you to book your place in advance from this link:

http://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/events/2016/05/05/habitat-management-nightingales