The Lincolnshire Bird Club

"...I had also heard that LWT's involvement at this site in meeting and greeting joe public and selling stuffed seals. No disrespect to the Linc's Wildlife Trust as I don't know much about them."

Derick, may I respectfully suggest that you get to know a little about the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and its work before passing judgement. At Donna Nook, work goes on throughout the year managing and maintaining the habitat. For a little over two month of the year around 2000 seals reach the dunes to breed and over 1400 pups are born. The Trust tries not to encourage media attention, yet last winter 69000 visitors descended on the site. This all requires management – protecting the vulnerable seals and visitors from each other.
50 volunteers gave of their time to support the warden each winter. They answer questions about the seals, birdlife and other flora and fauna. And yes, they sell cuddly stuffed seals, much as the RSPB sell cuddly stuffed birds (though strangely no stuffed ruddy ducks) at their shops.
Abandoned pups are taken into care, injured adults are helped where possible, the beach is cleared of litter, stock on the grazing marshes are fed and cared for etc.
In Lincolnshire, the Trust maintains reserves from the mundane protected roadside verges, to Gibraltar Point (heard of that Derick?).
Why not become a volunteer at Donna Nook this winter? Turn up on a cold, wet December morning before dawn and support the warden who tries to deter photographers and other visitors from walking to the outer beach, disturbing the geese and breeding seal colony there.
Regarding inclusivity, the RSPB are experts at it. They constantly try to gain more members to give more money for their cause. They employ agencies working on commission to phone members with the ‘hard sell’ in their attempts to boots their income. I know, I’ve had the endless phone calls!

Geoff

I.

I'll take that as a no then.

_________________
Regards.
Del.

To err is human. To really louse things up takes a computer

Thanks Geoff, nice to get a positive comment now and again. Without the support of over 1,000 active volunteers such as yourself the work of the 70 LWT staff would be much harder and the protection afforded to the county's wildlife much poorer.

Although LWT own or manage less than 1% of the county (98 sites, 8,500 acres) we have recorded over 8,000 species of flora and fauna on the nature reserves, including 405 species of birds (Lincolnshire Biological Records Centre database). I think we could probably improve on that with a bit of research and some up-dates. Not bad for an anti-bird organisation who don't know how to manage nature reserves.

As for dogs on reserves - 18 dead sheep and several non-fatal attacks might give you an idea of my opinion of dogs on reserves, before we start on disturbance to ground-nesting birds, disturbance to wader roosts, staff being ill because of the stench of dog c**p on mowers etc etc.

Sorry - not often I get rattled enough to respond to some comments on this forum, but sometimes you just have to let off a bit of steam.

Dave Bromwich
Head of Nature Reserves
Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust

Someone said the Linc's Trust owns those very 'tasty' ponds at the south end of Rosper road, Immingham. If they do, would be nice if they opened em up and put a hide or two up, preferably not facing south!!

Frampton is mainly a freshwater site with a large storage resevoir and c 50 % of the site owned by the Environment Agency
The majority of Donna Nook is an intertidal site, so considerbly different, (much more like Freiston).
There is much more to wildlife conservation than birds, hides, and rarities, although some comments do not seem to recognise this fact.
regards John

Keep getting an error message so sending this TEST.

_________________
Regards.
Del.

To err is human. To really louse things up takes a computer

Hi Geoff, Dave et al.
My sincere apologies if I offended you Geoff and or any other volunteers with my comments, it was never my intention.
I will endeavour to read my mails again in future and remove any crass remarks like "joe public and selling stuffed seals".
The dictionary definition of crass is [stupidity] crasse - [insensitivity].
That about covers it I think. Again my apologies.

I would never criticise the work done for birds and wildlife by unpaid volunteers from any organization and it also wasn't my intention to decry the Linc's Trust role in wildlife protection either Dave.
I just honestly believe that RSPB have both the expertise and experience to manage that site more sympathetically, shall we say. An opinion based on many years of visiting reserves, talking too officers and doing volunteer work with RSPB. Also most unfortunately and in the main, being actively involved for 25 agonizing years with another branch of the wildlife trust and it's efforts at both restoration, reserve and people management.

Do I sound bitter?

PS: Watch Countryfile next Sunday 16th September
Featuring that other branch of the wildlife trust and and probably 'Their vision and the creation of an inland wetland and wildlife paradise, from an industrial wasteland. (old gravel workings). Now a SSSI and renamed 'The Idle Valley Nature Reserve'

I would bet the Trust representatives and a Gravel company take all the plaudits, for both the initial idea and all the hard work. With very little if any mention of the few people who really made it happen back in 1990

Sorry for delay in replying. I kept getting an error message. Probably someone up there telling me not to send this mail eh!

_________________
Regards.
Del.

To err is human. To really louse things up takes a computer

in my experiance of wildlife trusts around the country the lwt rank right up there among the very
best. gib,whisby,far ings, messingham, donna nook etc etc etc. you have to remember the clue is in the title it is a wildlife trust which is about the whole food chain from fauna upwards. get that right and all the rest follows naturally. sometimes a little more consideration could be given to when certain works are undertaken for disturbance but really an excellent trust with dedicated people and volenteers who deserve nothing but praise and thanks and any critcs who are not members and do not contribute should be ashamed off themselves. they have my vote 100%, well done keep at it and thanks, .

terry whalin

Just on a slightly pedantic note and in case anyone is wondering the Lincs List actually does not yet have 400 species on it standing at about 386 depending on recent acceptances and I can think of a good 20 species that have not occurred on reserves so I guess Dave has made a typo here unless he is counting things like black swans and the like

Even though this topic is now on its second page no-one has given a definitive answer to who will be managing Donna Nook after the project is completed. I would like to assume that with a map currently up in Donna Nook (Stonebridge) Car Park showing all the planned bird islands, scrapes, tree and bush planting etc that something is already in place regarding habitat management?
Like I've said previously I do feel that this is a great opportunity to have some quality mixed habitat to benefit a whole range of wildlife and of course those that enjoy to watch wildlife, but there is always a fear that it could end up like other similar projects in the north of the county, for example Chowder Ness, which showed early promise but then soon became just another expanse of mud, and I also hear that the habitat at Alkborough is deteriorating considerably - opportunities lost due to limited or no management.

regards

Chris

Hi Chris.
I only asked the question after speaking to an N.E. employee who was surprisingly reluctant to say anything about future management of the site. Is it a secret?

As for Alkborough Chris. I understand that in the main it's managed by a volunteer group. On the 1st & 3rd Tuesday of each month.
With a site that size it's little wonder veiwing the site through the encroaching scrub and reed i breach.

_________________
Regards.
Del.

To err is human. To really louse things up takes a computer

The Environment Agency are currently agreeing a 6 year monitoring and management plan currently in
progress ,This has to be agreed with Natural England , and the planning authority ( as part of the planning condition remembering there is a flood defence within the site).
No decision for long a term management agent, ( The EA remain the owners of the site) has yet been made, as the breach will not take place untill next summer.
Any observations this winter will be of value ( post on this site) there could be some interesting sightings
but no access will be possible untill the site is completed, (unless a group visit can be arranged?? i will ask)
regards John.

Thanks for that update John. Much appreciated.

Bearing in mind the cost and reason for this planned development. I suspect some thought has gone into future management and possible partners in this project going forward.
Assuming that EA. Although owners of the site, will not really want the day to day management and hassle that will come at such a large and already well visited coastal site.

_________________
Regards.
Del.

To err is human. To really louse things up takes a computer

All
A lot of things to comment on -

Donna Nook - as John said, it is a "managed realignment" project, therefore will be subject to natural processes once the bank is breached and will be largely tidal. The aim is to replenish lost saltmarsh on the Humber. I have seen some of the plans, there will be small scale habitat enhancements - but the site will largely have to look after itself. As LWT are neighbours, of course we have an eye on its future management, but the politics involved in this site are horrendous and it is very much still with the Statutory Agencies and Local Government to thrash out the details.

Rosper Road Pools - Colin, the site was owned by the Environment Agency. We did have a presence for a few years, but as part of the on-going industrial development in the area the Internal Drainage Board have taken it over as a flood storage reservoir. There was no real role for us at the site, so we have withdrawn our interest. There are issues with "cross-compliance" with our Environmental Stewardship Scheme. I won’t bore you with the details. The IDB are aware it is a good bird site and will hopefully treat it with sensitivity.

Graham - the bird list was generated from the Lincolnshire Environmental Record Centre database, which obviously needs quite a bit of work to tidy it up! Is the full county list still available on this Forum? I would like to get a definitive figure for the reserves at some point - good to know where we stand with species on the red and amber lists as well.

Terry - thanks for your kind comments.

Derick - thanks for yours as well. We are all on the same side here after all - and as has been mentioned before on this forum I am always happy to respond to polite questions regarding work/issues carried out on reserves. There are often dark forces at work - local politics, funding arrangements and statutory requirements etc that are not always obvious and may constrain what ideally we would like to do - and have absolutely nothing to do with nature conservation!

Regards
Dave

Dave

This is a link to the list of Lincs birds with designations but it includes some recognised sub species The second link is an update; the numbers in the left column have missing species not recorded in Lincs and hence the high total.

http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/records/LBC_records.html

http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/Articles ... y2012.xlsx


Red and amber listed species are of course available in BOCC http://www.bto.org/sites/default/files/u12/bocc3.pdf