The Forum contains representatives from the 4Bs Parish and neighbourhood Councils, Mole Valley District Council, Surrey County Council, Surrey Wildlife Trust, National Trust Surrey Hills Society, major Landowners and Buglife. It is an important group for offering perspectives on the value, pros and cons, opportunities, concerns and challenges of establishing a Community Biodiversity Park. The first meeting of the Forum was held on May 8th at Surrey Wildlife Trust Education Centre Nower Wood. The meeting was conducted in a positive spirit with participants recognising opportunities and offering many ideas which help to give meaning to the idea of a Community Biodiversity Park. The group also identified concerns and challenges that would need to be addressed. Defining the entity that is provisionally called a Community Biodiversity Park (CBP), is a key challenge, requiring the consideration of many perspectives and considerations. The use of ‘park’ to describe the area of interest was considered problematic by some participants. Other terms considered were Biodiversity Forum, Biodiversity Network and Biodiversity Landscape but no consensus emerged. It was agreed that decisions about the name would be deferred until the meaning of the entity had been defined. The working aims are broadly accepted as being appropriate but they will be kept under review and modified as, and when, the definition of the entity is more clearly established. It was felt that people need a vision in which they can see that what they do in their gardens or when they volunteer, is contributing to something bigger. A link to key biodiversity policies was suggested. The question of what resources are needed was a constant theme throughout the discussion. But there is recognition that much can be achieved with relatively little financial resource by people who are motivated and resourceful. Finding the advocates and enthusiasts who are willing to invest time and energy is often the biggest challenge, rather than funding. The opportunity for new forms of collaboration that benefit nature, between the residents of local communities, landowners, Parish Councils and ENGO’s is a major benefit from this initiative, together with the campaigning power of whole community action aimed at protecting the environment. . Education and learning are essential to developing a culture in which people are more aware of the needs of nature and how they might help nature. Alongside a programme of activities to enable people to develop their understanding and skills, their needs to be the structures that enable people to share their learning and experiences of nature. In addition to using existing channels of communication like Parish Magazines more immediate forms of communication like dedicated Whatsapp Nature Groups provide one solution. It was suggested that an Inventory of existing activities and projects relating to biodiversity across the 4Bs area would be a useful asset. It would inform and educate the 4Bs community and also provide important information when new projects are being planned. It would help mitigate concerns for interference of one project with another and also enable opportunities for understanding the potential for connectivity. The Forum demonstrated the value in bringing people together to enable participants to learn from each other, stimulate ideas and create new working relationshps. Within days of the meeting two Parish Councils began discussing the possibility of a collaborative biodiversity garden project. In the interests of public transparency here is the report of the meeting.
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The first Sunday in May is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Dawn Chorus Day. This year it was on May 5th so I went for an early walk to try out Cornell University’s Merlin app which identifies birds through the sounds they make. I walked around the garden and up into the Coombe to the Lime Kilns and listened to the wonderful symphony of bird song and the occasional fluttering of wings as wood pigeons flew close by.
The app records, identifies and lists all the birds and highlights the name of the bird with the dominant sound at any moment, so it coaches you to recognise which bird is making which sound. On my 30min walk the app identified – Robin, Wren, Wood pigeon, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Marsh Tit, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Jackdaw, Magpie, Blackcap, Carrion Crow, Chiffchaff and Pheasant. So at least fifteen species of bird contributed to my experience of the Dawn Chorus. It would be interesting to stitch together a patchwork of recordings and identifications from our area. Visit https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ to find out about Merlin app. We launched our programme of nature awareness and educational events with a wildflower wander on Fraser Down, Nature Reserve in the Betchworth Hills. This is a private chalk grassland reserve managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust. This is a highly sensitive site and it is only open to the public on occasional guided tours by the reserve warden. Our guide was the wonderfully knowledgeable and entertaining Simon Humphreys who has been the voluntary reserve warden since it was started in 2008. Over nearly three hours Simon introduced us to his management practices on the chalk grassland which seek to create diverse habits for wildlife and encourage the greatest diversity of plant and animal species. For example, there are now 15 different species of orchid which will be flowering in late May to July. But at this time of the year we were treated to the wonderful sight of thousands of yellow cow slips covering the hillside. We required great agility to avoid stepping on them. As we walked and paused, Simon shared his knowledge about the grasses, sedges, herbs and wild flowers in the grassland, the scrub that has to be kept under control, the fungi in the soil. He taked about the invertebrates that inhabit this space along with mamals, birds (we spotted a red kite and buzzard along with many small birds) and reptiles - a friendly slow worm. All in all we were informed, educated, entertained and enthused by a man who has a passion for nature. Simon is offering a second wildflower wander on Fraser Down in June-see below Sat 8th June, 2pm - 4.30pm Wildflower Wander 2
Simon Humphreys, Voluntary Reserve Manager, will provide a second guided walk at Surrey Wildlife Trust's stunning Fraser Down Nature Reserve on Pebble Hill. Orchids and lots of other wild flowers should be in full bloom. Please note the ground is steep and uneven in places. Places are limited due to the sensitivity of the site so booking is essential by emailing simonhinsurrey@gmail.com (details of where to meet/park will be sent once booked). Ron Barnet once said that the primary reason for learning is learning how to live on this tiny planet. It's quite profound because all organisms that have ever lived on this tiny planet have had to learn to do this. The idea of a Biodiversity Park is to help us learn how to live on this tiny part of our tiny planet in ways that will help all life to flourish and benefit ourselves in the process. Awareness, Learning, Education and Self-Education are essential to the culture and practice of a Community Biodiversity Park, and activities that support these are important to demonstrating the educational and social value of the park. To this end we have put together our first programme of activities for the period April to July 2024. They comprise a mix of face to face talks, on the theme of gardening for biodiversity, given by Brockham-based wildlife gardening activist Paul Ritchie; informal wanders across the landscape to appreciate the biodiversity around us; and surveys and map making to reveal the distributions of different plants, animals and habitats. We are also supporting and encouraging our residents to interact with nature through our Whatsapp Nature Group. During the year our hope is that the group expands to embrace residents from across the 4B area. For programme updates please visit our Events page.
Editor: Numerous roads criss-cross the area covered by the 4B’s Biodiversity Park, many have grass rich verges some several metres wide and in April they are suddenly festooned with wild flowers. Many of the flowers mentioned by Peter in the excellent article below can be found in road verges in the 4B parishes. Our short video film records some of them. How many can you spot? April wildflowers on path, road and field verges
Peter Conway There are plenty of flowers on path, road and field verges in April: indeed, country lanes can be at their most cheerful this month. Yellow celandines are still at their height at the start of the month, blooming happily almost everywhere one looks. They tend to fade away or get smothered by other vegetation in the second or third week, but they can be found in places right up to the end of the month. Their leaves shrivel away once they have finished flowering, to leave no trace that they have ever been there, though this does not usually happen until May. Other survivors from March that can still be found on verges are daffodils, violets (mainly dog violets at this stage) and primroses. Daffodils are past their best in city parks by the start of the month but can survive till the second or third week in rural spots. As with celandines, violets and primroses get smothered by other vegetation as much as anything, but can be seen in places right up to the end of April. Of the verge flowers that appear in April, it is cuckoo flower, garlic mustard and stitchwort that make the best displays. Cuckoo flower (otherwise known as lady’s smock) can be seen in force right from the start of the month if March has been mild, and remains prominent all month. At its best it can create dreamy drifts of pink, particularly in roadside ditches. In the east Weald and Chilterns from mid month onward you can also find coralroot, a rare cuckoo flower relative: really a plant of woodland but found also on shady verges. Stitchwort – a delicate white flower identifiable by its double petals – appears in places in early in April, but it really comes out in force in the second or third week - sometimes even the fourth - and by the end of the month seems to be everywhere. Garlic mustard (which is neither a garlic nor a mustard but whose leaves are supposed to smell a bit of both when crushed) comes out in the second or third week and lasts into May. Honesty, its more flashy mauve-flowered relative, can sometimes be seen a bit earlier - often, though not always, near houses. It gets its name from its large flat seed pods which go transparent later in the year. Another common flower of verges and any spare bit of grass in April is the humble dandelion. So familiar it tends to get overlooked, it nevertheless steadily increases in number as the month goes on, forming dense yellow patches, until in the third or fourth week the sheer quantity can be almost overwhelming. By this time some of the flowers are starting to go over, forming their famous spherical fluffy seedheads. (Early in the month, and occasionally as late as the third week, the superficially similiar coltsfoot is also possible, but this is quite a rare flower in the south east.) Ground ivy appears early in the month, if it has not already done so at the end of March, and though its little purple flowers are not dramatic on their own, it can form great mats as April progresses. The same goes for germander speedwell, a tiny blue flower that appears in the second half of the month, becoming very common by its end. Some field speedwell may also be seen, especially early in the month, on barer verges and disturbed ground, and in the same habitat you find mats of the very inconspicuous ivy-leaved speedwell, which has very tiny lilac flowers. It is often hard to tell if these are bloom: even when they seem to have gone over, there are often still some surviving, and these can last till the end of the month. You can see white strawberry flowers all through April: in the first half these tend to be barren strawberry (a notch in its petals, which also have a bit of a gap between them, and a blunter end to the leaves) but towards the end of the month the true wild strawberry starts to take over. From about the third week (not till the very end of the month in colder years) you start to see the pretty blue spikes of bugle, which in the early stages of its flowering is possible to confuse with ground ivy, though its flowers are bluer. Occasionally from quite early in the month but more generally towards its end, herb robert dots shadier verges its with small pink flowers. Flowers normally associated with woodland such as bluebells, wood anemones, ramsons (aka wild garlic), early purple orchids, goldilocks buttercup and (later in the month) yellow archangel can also sometimes be found on verges, usually either escapees from woodland populations nearby or relicts of former ones. Dog's mercury is a fairly common verge plant too: it is flowering in April but its flowers are green and very inconspicuous. Some cowslips also crop up on verges. and occasionally they interbreed with nearby primroses to produce false oxlips, a delightfully silly mix of the genes of the two plants (usually primrose-sized flowers in cowslip shapes). In addition you get the occasional oilseed rape flowers, escapees from nearby agricultural fields (see Arable below). You continue to see red and white deadnettles – both of which have usually already appeared in March. The white ones can make quite large displays on verges later in the month; the red are out in force on broken or bare ground right from the start of the month and usually fading away as it ends. Ordinary stinging nettles rapidly grow taller during the month – only 10 centimetres or so high at the start of the month and up to half a metre by its end. Cleavers (also known as goosegrass) - the plant that sticks to your clothes - attain a similar height. Along with new blades of grass growing straight and tall, all these contribute to the growing lushness of verges. For now, however, this does not looks straggly or unkempt but instead fresh and optimistic. Other wayside flowers in April include forget-me-not and its large-leaved relative alkanet, both of which are usually found near to houses, and both of which can form large patches. It is the garden forget-me-not, a version of wood forget-me-not, that you are seeing here. There are also smaller-flowered wild species such as field forget-me-not and early forget-me-not, which may appear later in April but are more usually seen in May. In the second half of April the occasional red campion may just be seen, as well as bush vetch and, right at the end of the month, possibly common vetch. A much rarer member of this family is bitter vetchling which occasionally makes good displays on roadside banks in April. Towards the end of the month you start to see some bulbous buttercups on verges. Now and then you also spot the yellow-flowered greater celandine - nothing to do with the lesser celandine mentioned above but in fact a relative of the poppy. The curious flowers of cuckoo pint are found in shady places in the second half (its name has a sexual connotation, as does the alternative lords and ladies), though they seem nothing like as common as the leaves were earlier in the year. It is also quite hard to find the spikes open, revealing the spadix, the central cylinder to which the plant's names refer. This produces a rotten smell to attract insects, which then get trapped overnight in a lower chamber, inadvertently fertilising the plant. While we are on odd plants, spikes of horsetail appear in April, sometimes early in the month but sometimes not till the second half, their bulbous tips looking a bit like asparagus. These emit pollen (horsetail having evolved before there was such a thing as a flowering plant) and then later in the month produce green rings which will open up into the familiar fly-whisk leaves in May. Also distinctly strange is the parasitic toothwort, a pale pink plant that grows on the roots of hazel. Meanwhile, spring beauty, a rarity found on sandy soils, has tiny white flowers in the middle of large round leaves. Among the smaller (and less noticed) flowers is tiny white chickweed - found on verges, on odd bits of wasteground and also in grassy fields. It is also common in urban settings, as is bittercress. There are two species here - hairy bittercress which has been around since February or March and is generally gone by mid April, and the more luxuriant wavy bittercress, which appears this month and is at its best in the second half: it is technically found on damper verges, though often seems to be in dry places too. Other urban verge weeds include shepherd's purse (distinctive due to its heart-shaped seed pods, the purse of its name), groundsel (an unromantic weed that can go from seed to flower to seed again in as little as six weeks and which some botanists reckon is the commonest British flower), and thale cress; also sometimes the very tiny white flowers of common whitlowgrass. Yellow wintercress can also appear on wasteground (sometimes even in urban corners) later in the month, and Oxford ragwort, originally a railway line plant (see below), may pop up in other urban corners. You may come across shining cranesbill, hedgerow cranesbill and cornsalad (aka lamb's lettuce) too. A few straggly flowers of cow parsley may be seen right from the start of the month, and in the second half it can start to come out in force in places, producing lovely drifts of white. Looking like a yellowy-green cow parsley is alexanders, a plant more common in coastal areas but sometimes found inland, which is in flower all month. Towards the end of the month you may just see some hedge mustard. In addition, the practised eye can pick out the growing leaves of rosebay willowherb and great willowherb, as well as the large leaves of hogweed and giant hogweed, the latter an irritant to the skin and looking a bit like rhubarb. Also rhubarb-sized are the enormous leaves of burdock. If you see a frizzy-looking version of cow parsley leaves, then that is hemlock. Greater plantain leaves increase in size on bare muddy paths and tracks, and silverweed foliage is very noticeable on short grass verges. In urban corners sow thistle plants (which look prickly but are in fact soft to the touch) are seen widely and by the end of the month some may be flowering. Acknowledgement The article was originally published on the Saturday Walkers Club webpage Parish Councils have an open meeting once a year and when they publically account for their activities and actions during the year. This week Betchworth PC had its annual meeting. It was well attended by over 70 people. Norman Jackson was invited to give a short talk on nature and he used the opportunity to present the idea of the Biodiversity Park and distribute a printed leaflet explaining the idea and inviting participation. He wove together the idea that Parish Councils have a mandated duty for the biodiversity in their area and this biodiversity duty should also be accepted by all citizens if we are to act responsibily for the people who will live in the parish in 50 or 100 years time. He argued that a Biodiversity Park and what would be required to sustain it, would enable Parish Council’s and members of the community to give meaning and substance to their biodiversity duty. Parish Councils (PC) are the lowest tier of local government but, in our initiative to create a Biodiversity Park they are the foundation of Governance for the four parishes within which the park is located. They are elected corporate bodies and carry out beneficial public activities in their parishes, with concerns for the health and wellbeing of their citizens and the environment. Parish Councils have an open public meeting once a year when they account for their activities and actions during the past year and draw attention to particular issues and to new policies that will affect residents. This week Buckland PC had its annual meeting and biodiversity, and the Local Nature Recovery Strategy were discussed by Councillor Debbie Jones. She highlighted the new responsibilities of the PC stemming from the Environmental Act (2021) and what was required as a result of the strengthened Biodiversity Duty namely: Public authorities who operate in England must consider what they can do to conserve and enhance biodiversity in England. ….This means that, as a public authority, you must: Consider what you can do to conserve and enhance biodiversity. Agree policies and specific objectives based on your consideration. Act to deliver your policies and achieve your objectives. Report on their actions and their effects Councillor Jones provided examples of how the PC had met this requirement during the last year and explained the PC's strategy for moving forward in the future. From a biodiversity perspective, it is good to see the positive effects that Government legislation is having on decision making authorities in communities to become more aware of what biodiversity means and how they can conserve, protect and enhance biodiversity through their decisions and actions. Buckland PC is positively engaging with the idea of a Biodiversity Park which has the potential to provide a public demonstration of grassroots commitment to the biodiversity duty. Evidence of this commitment is seen in the beautiful village pond which has been maintained by residents and conservations groups for many decades. Thanks to the efforts of volunteers and the careful management of this habitat, Cllr Jones was able to report that a small breeding colony of Great Crested Newts is now established in the pond. The 2024 Biodiversity & Planning Conference, organised by Surrey Nature Partnerships was held at Dorking Halls on March 12th. Aimed primarily at planning and ecology professionals, developers and landowners, it focused on such topics as Surrey’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS), Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)/ onsite and offsite, Biodiversity Units and Credits and BNG & Habitat Banking.
Inspite of the huge efforts of environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs), nature-based charities and communities, there was recognition that, nature has taken a battering in recent decades, there was considerable optimism that at legislative, planning and development, and community action levels – things are now together, and support for nature will improve. Underpinning all the new developments is the ethical principle of biodiversity duty: while Government has placed this duty on public authorities there is a sense that it is a responsibility that relates to all of us and therefore unites public authorities, ENGO’s, nature-based charities and communities in their efforts to help nature. The Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) is the key strategic framework within which biodiversity priorities will be recognised. This clearly has important implications for the biodiversity park proposal. The construction of the map is controlled by well defined ecological/habitat criteria – National Designations (SAC, SPA,SSSI, NNR), Local Nature Reserves, Local Wildlife Sites (SNCI’s in Surrey) and Irreplaceable Habitats like ancient woodland, andcient and veteran trees, blanket bog, limestone pavements, coastal san dunes, spartina saltmarsh swards, meditareanean saltmarsh scrub, lowland fens. But new sites can included outside these priority areas. 27 If the responsible authority believes that additional areas require protection due to their particular importance, they should discuss making those areas local wildlife sites with the local planning authority (if this is not the responsible authority). This perhaps defines the opportunity we have in creating a Biodiversity Park that would be recognised in a Surrey LNRS, assuming that an important dimension of importance might be communities and public authorities working together to help nature enhance biodiversity. WATCH THE CONFERENCE ON YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyixbCsrzh4 We had our first team meeting on March 6th. We reviewed and approved our logo, website and introductory movie and our draft work plan, knowing that more detail would need to be added. We acknowledged the challenges ahead but felt optimistic that if we could cultivate a good level of interest and involvement we would have a productive exploration of the idea. The team felt we needed to include representatives from Brockham Parish and the Box Hill community in our planning group.
Our project is all about IMAGINING so we posed the obvious question, what would success look like in March 2025 if we achieved our goals? These are our aspirations for March 2025 After many weeks of uncertainty we finally heard that our bid for £5000 seed funding from Transition Together has been successful. Now the hard work begins and the ideas we have for what we might do, now have to be turned into actions. We have set an ambitious plan and we are under no illusions of the challenges we will face in breathing life into the words of our bid. Our official launch date is March 5th and our first step is for our small team of volunteers to meet to agree a work plan. We are very grateful to the National Lottery Community Fund for providing seed funding and we thank National Lottery players for making all this possible.
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