The Chop was Stopped

 So, after the protests I wrote about last week carried on throughout the night and into the next morning, supported by people passing in food, warm clothing and blankets to the final four who spent the night on deckchairs, a dramatic conclusion was reached the following afternoon.

The council and the landowner came to some sort of agreement, the precise detail of which has yet to be revealed, that will save the trees and the land as a public space as long as it is voted through council on November 24th. The council leader made some rather churlish comments about some of the protesters being rather abusive, which no-one else has reported. 

So I really hope that a deal has actually been reached to save the space, and the deal is voted through. Then I hope they do more with the space, perhaps put some wildflower meadows in.

Then it will have been worth it.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.11.21

Escalation at Stop the Chop

 Well, the protests down at the trees by the library have intensified over the last ten days or so, with the council clearly getting more and more annoyed with the intransigence of the protestors. 

It started when the council moved in, ostensibly to carry out an ecological survey on the trees, and look for bats despite the fact that disturbing roosting bats - and I haven't detected any down there while others have - is illegal.

The protestors decided that this was an attempt to start work on removing the trees and after being warned turned up en-masse to obstruct. The "ecologist" refused to give any credentials, and an attempt to remove a section of hedge to get a cherry picker in so the bat boxes could be inspected was taken as an attempt to create access for building work to begin.

Supposedly things turned quite ugly according to the local politicians, other observers say not.

After that, the protesters installed a gazebo and a tent so they were on site 24/7, and the situation stabilised apart from some verbal sabre rattling from the council. 

However, at 7am this morning, council workers turned up with the police, announced that anyone staying on site would be charged with aggravated tresspass, and erected a 6 foot fence around the site claiming that as it was private land there was no right of access, a fact they've rather ignored over the last, ooh I don't know, twenty years. 

Immediately more protesters were summoned to the stand off, although most left after being threatened with arrest. A hard core of five, including a woman in her 80s, stayed on although she was encouraged to leave as night fell and the weather began to cool.

As I type, four people remain, sleeping on deckchairs and supplied with food, blankets and other necessities over the fence, including a luxurious toilet bucket each. 

The town has made the news...

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.11.21

"Stop the Chop"

 Our local library lies adjacent to the old registery office, which was been bought, leased, resold, leased again and god only knows what else; it's a complex process.

The issue is not with the building itself, it lies with the little green space between the two buildings. Part of the leasehold agreement, indeed a contract, is that this area should be turned into a car park, a car park that the current owners of the building do not want, but if it isn't built the council face a 600K bill for breach of contract with a previous owner. 

I think that's the story; I'm probably miles wrong. It's very confusing. The upshot is that three old trees, a lime and two sycamores, are going to have to be cut down, and local people have gotten very upset. Indeed, they have already organised two daytime protests during the last couple of weekends, and tonight, they organised a third, a candlelit vigil by night. 

They say that the car park isn't needed, there is already plenty of parking space in the town, and it sends out a bad message in an age where we shouldn't be encouraging more cars onto the roads, into a town that is already gridlocked at weekends. 

I went down not long before sunset to take photographs, and told the organisers that I would return later with my bat detector; they have put a couple of bat boxes in the trees, and St George's Bat trust say the recorded 108 calls in 40 minutes a few days ago.

If there are bats roosting in the trees, then that automatically ends the threat for at least until spring. I have to say I'd been twice before and picked up nothing, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

I did return after sunset to see that a crowd of around 200 had gathered, holding lanterns and the like. I walked around with my detector, picking up no bats again while the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol was played while the crowd waved their lights in the air. 

I hope the bats like bands that make Coldplay sound like Motorhead. 

There was also some chanting of slogans, which was passionate although slightly...something. 

I do wish them well, and I really hope there are bats in there. I've not picked up a sausage. 

Yet.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.10.21

Our Unmowed Lawn at Work

While progress with the wildflower pictorial meadows has been slow, just leaving what was supposed to be a 90m, but has ended up nearer double that, stretch of grass verge unmowed has proved rather quicker in giving up bounty.

We've got thick beds of clover, bee orchids, wild sedam, little pink flowers, self heal,  perhaps another orchid species, corncockle, thistle and heaven only knows what else. I'm not a botanist.

Basically it would appear than rather than risk mowing the wrong bit, they've just decided to leave the lot of it, and by golly gee it has worked!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 16.06.17

In Praise of Swifts

It's a subject I keep coming back to, I make no apologies if I have written on this subject before.

I feel so lucky that we have a fair population of swifts here; as they disappear from many towns, our population seems to have at least stabilised, although there perhaps aren't the numbers I remember from my childhood.

By comparison, house martins have been reduced to one active nest site I've encountered - in a row of houses with suitable eaves on Earp Avenue opposite the Magnus field - and swallows aren't nesting along Millgate as they once did.

The first spring sighting of a swift, virtually always as I've been cycling home after an arduous day at work, always brings joy to a stony heart, and every day I feel grateful I share my urban space with them. Every time one screams down low and parts the hairs on my head, leaving me in their fluttering slipstream, gives me such a sense of excitement. "Whooah!" I will often exclaim, as they make a formation strafing run along Balderton gate, no doubt to the puzzlement of the sadly unaware passers-by, ignorant of the aerobatics above their heads.

I've identified plenty of nest sites this year - Aroma Chinese takeaway and the old church on Baldertongate, the London Road Congregational Church; several sites on Victoria Street, the Forge on Millgate. They need an older style of building, with a very particular type of roof and eaves they can get under to nest. Like Lucy Worsely, they have a fondness for heritage.

They like old fashioned pantiles, I think! Modern bland styles of construction are anathema to them.

We probably have no more than three weeks of our glorious rulers of the air before they head south; their dogfights and joy of flight a memory for another year. The seasons move on.

We don't know how lucky we are.

Swiftly Come the Swifts

They arrived last week, the familiar sickles high in the sky, the most fleeting of summer visitors. I await their appearance more than just about any other bird, and always feel saddened when they head south in August.

The swifts have arrived.

The swift first appears above the townscapes, relying as it does upon urban areas for nest sites. It stays with us for a scant 3-4 months over the summer, the time it spends on the nest being the only time it is ever off the wing. It's feet and legs are feeble, it can barely stand.

But in the air, it has no master.

(picture Nigel Blake from RSPB website)

It can fly at up to 70mph, but it doesn't keep its aerial prowess for high altitudes. Usually in the evenings as I cycle home from work, they will suddenly drop down from the heights like Y-Wings entering a Death Star trench, and hurtle along the streets emitting a screeching cry. Their wings hardly seem to flap, they just lightly brush the air with the tips as the birds hunt the insects they and their young rely on. As I cycle along, I watch them use their long wings to execute impossibly tight turns before flying over me again, taunting the earthbound commuter with their effortless skills.

They have started nesting under the eaves along Balderton Gate, somehow flying straight into the nest holes at speed without cracking their little skulls. But even avoiding this splattery fate, their numbers are in decline, possibly due to demolition of urban nest sites. 

To me, they are an iconic vision of summer, and hopefully developers will incorporate swift boxes in their new builds. It would be sad to lie back in my garden, and not see them playing in the sky way above me, flying seemingly for the joy of it.

(Photo Graham Catley RSPB website)