News archive

Tuesday, 27 December 2005

Happy New Year

As we move into the New Year it is worth looking back at what the Group achieved in 2005.

Working with the Regional Team of the RSPB we have been able to offer material, financial and physical support to the Tree Sparrow Recovery project in the Avon valley. The Project officer Mia Misso in her first annual report said "It has been an excellent season for Wessex tree sparrows ... although tree sparrow uptake in boxes has been slow, it has more than tripled in three years and illustrates their importance to the project ... This season we recorded regular use of feeding tables by juvenile birds, which is another good indication of productivity at intervention sites."

At ouy Annual general Meeting in June we awarded our annual donation to our own county's new reserve at Normanton Down on Salisbury Plain. Tracé Williams, the RSPB Wessex Team's Chalk Grassland Project Officer has said "" On behalf of the RSPB I would like to thank the North Wiltshire Members Group for the donation of £800. This will be spent on the delivery of more green hay to the site during the summer.
Surveys of the grassland vegetation show that we have more species of grass and chalk herbs than before."

A recent announcement by the RSPB was the purchase of Manor Farm in Newton Tony, a small village just 8 miles east of Stonehenge. It is intended that the farm will become part of a larger, long-term project to bring back wild-life rich chalk grassland in Wiltshire and to encourage stone-curlew, lapwing and, perhaps even burnt orchid and Adonis blue butterfly.

As a Local Group we look forward to being able to support this Reserve in 2006 and future years.