Flooding around Naunton Beauchamp 9th March 2016

Flooding has been relatively minor this year. Piddle Brook had some flooding on 9th March which extended onto the road at the entrance to the village but fortunately no properties were affected.

The entrance to the proposed chicken farm site for Kinsey Hern (the so-called "Frogmore Farm") opposite the Cowsden Turn was flooded. Vehicles would have struggled to get access in the morning. Moor End Lane was impassable in the morning. By late afternoon when these pictures were taken it was possible to navigate it.

This was not an extreme event and neither was it unusual. Our question for the Environment Agency is what happens if the attenuation ponds at the proposed unit flood and this whole area is contaminated with the output from the swales which includes chicken broiler unit dust.

We look forward to seeing further details of the proposal including levels. We think it will pose some interesting questions of the applicant.

Entrance to Naunton Beauchamp

Field behind Naunton Court

Local Wildlife Reserve Piddle Brook Meadows

Car going into Naunton Beauchamp

Entrance to Frogmore Farm Site - this was about 4 hours after the peak

Entrance to Frogmore Farm Site - this was about 4 hours after the peak

Ditch by Cowsden turn opposite entrance to Frogmore Farm showing the ditch was at capacity

Entrance to Frogmore Farm Site - this was about 4 hours after the peak

Moor End Lane - passable but 4 hours after the peak when it was closed.

Fields behind Naunton Beauchamp close to waste plant

Fields behind Naunton Beauchamp close to waste plant

Fields behind Naunton Beauchamp

Not a good idea to go through the Ford - Seaford Lane

The Picnic area is closed

Picnic Area at Seaford Lane

The Whitsum Brook was very close to the edge of the Solar Farm

Beautiful Sunrise on a Warm Winter's Morning...

Moving on from various shades of grey we finally had a beautiful sunrise this week.

The temperatures both night and day time are unseasonably warm and the result is blossom and daffodils starting to make their way above the grass.  We've only had one frost so far and it's Christmas next week!

Climate Central record and compare temperatures globally - they are "An independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American public." So for Europe this is the graphic up until 2014. 2015 will likely match that trend as a number of records have been broken again, especially in December 2105....their will be impacts on wildlife and shifts in patterns, confusion for plants and trees, etc.

Examples of climate change patterns on record levels of rainfall this year put into question the use of the Environment Agency's 1 in 100 Year events for Planning purposes. 

Isn't it time to review trends and deviation statistics?

Long Tailed Tits Piddle Brook Meadows

Walking in Piddle Brook Meadows last week.  A skylark was singing.  It's song was so sweet and carrying quite a distance. Looking high into the sky it was nowhere to be seen. I realised it was instead hovering low and with wings outstretched. Singing all the time. A beautiful sound.

Soooo many long tailed just fledged tits that I was spoilt for choice when it came to taking photos. It was early morning - around 7:30 in the morning.

A very cute little fella

Even the presence of my labrador, which is usually enough to scare most of the bird population out of camera taking distance, didn't phase them. There were maybe 10-12 of them (I counted 10 in one picture so there were probably more) and most of them looked like they were slightly in shock at being out in the big world beyond the nest.

Blue Tit possibly just fledged too

Cute!

Bad Hair Day

The tree was a recently dead beech so provided a nice contrast to the birds and meant the leaves didn't get in the way. They seemed to like picking at the unfurled leaves or beech nuts on the tree. Some were still very fluffy and a few looked like their feathers would be barely enough for flight. Undeniably cute.

Winter Retrospective and Sloe Gin Production

Some photos I didn't post from back in December include these Redwing pictures. The Redwings are migratory and visit the UK in October. Most will have left the UK by now - we generally see them around the fields around Naunton Beauchamp, particularly in December and January.

These photos were taken on a beautiful winter's day in December.

Here is a bit more about them on the RSPB site.

Red Wing in Flight

Sloes were really good this year - beautifully plump and plenty of them. The Local Nature Reserve at Piddle Brook Meadows and the public footpath along the Piddle is a great place to pick both sloes and bullace. Last year we made Sloe Gin and Bullace and Sloe Vodka. 

After maturing for several months it is now time to bottle the Sloe Gin ready for Christmas 2015!

The job of pricking the sloes was made easier this year by using the felting needle tool from Clover Japan which is ordinarily used for dry felting! Brilliant for pricking sloes although lots of people just pop them in the freezer and apparently this has the same effect.

A friend from Scotland gave us a bottle of Sloe Gin for Christmas last year and it was the finest Sloe Gin I have tasted. I've used her recipe this year so fingers crossed ours will be as good.

Springtime in Worcestershire

As Marcel Proust said "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes."

Apparently there has never been a greater disconnect between the average bod in the street and the countryside as there is right now.

As someone who was fortunate to grow up in the countryside of Warwickshire but who has lived in four of the biggest cities in the UK, I can understand this. The question has to be asked "Does it matter?" 

Living in the countryside and working in Birmingham gives me that transition from countryside to city every day that I work. It is why I felt it more important than most that to develop industrial scale farming here was something that I had to protest about and, if possible, stop.

So far so good. However, the battle will continue because population continues to grow apace, the majority of the population in this country are disconnected and do not value the countryside and more importantly, don't understand it or even really care. Meat is pre-packaged and in fact most people don't want to think about where it comes from.

In the meantime, after many years of travelling and visiting some of the most beautiful places in the world, I see the place I live, here in Worcestershire, with new eyes and say a "thank you" to all those who campaigned against the chicken farms at Upton Snodsbury for being able to do so.



The Spring is well under way and here are some photos from a beautiful Easter weekend in Worcestershire.

Robin singing his heart out

Lesser Celandine

According to Gilbert White, a diarist writing around 1789 in the Hampshire village of Selborne, the plants came out on February 21, but it is more commonly reported to flower from March until May, and is sometimes called the "spring messenger" as a consequence.

Local Nature Reserve Piddle Brook Meadows

Lovely - an early Peacock

Very new!

Reflection of Lesser Celandine in Piddle Brook

 D H Lawrence - "...going down the hedgeside with the girl, he noticed the celandines, scalloped splashes of gold, on the side of the ditch. 'I like them' he said 'when their petals go flat back with the sunshine. They seem to be pressing themselves at the sun.'And then the celandines ever after drew her with a little spell."

Warbler? Not sure what this is.

Plantlife is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. The charity which campaigns on various issues including wildflower meadows such as the ones that we have locally is currently collating votes on the nation's favourite Wildflower - to find out more click here. 

It's a tough one...Bluebell versus Primrose?

 

Enjoying A Beautiful Walk - Without the Threat of Chicken City

Sometimes you don't realise what you've got until it's gone. It wasn't like that with the chicken broiler farm applications from Messrs Davies and Hern. We all knew what we would lose if they were to go ahead. Now we can enjoy the countryside knowing that the Planning Inspector could see the devastating impact that the huge scale of these buildings would have on this landscape and Dismissed the Appeal to build four sheds housing 160,000 chickens. This would have resulted in around 1.2 million chickens per year. 

The weather was beautiful today - cold at -1C but clear and great for birdlife that was enjoying the sunshine as much as I was.

Here amongst the comments on the application and the NPPF are views around Upton Snodsbury, North Piddle and Naunton Beauchamp, showing the beautiful landscape that was under threat.

View towards North Piddle Church

I think many of the members of the Wychavon Parishes Action Group (WPAG) would have felt as I did that we were never going to give up on fighting the application. The bullishness of Mr Pick the agent for Mr Davies served only to make us want to defeat it more. Fortunately we could see that his behaviour was typical of his attitude at many of the application sites and his ability to antagonise wherever he goes seems to be a theme. He has won very few friends in this process and his failure (whilst quoting an almost 100% success rate on his website!) is a landmark result.

Reeds at Piddle Lake

North Piddle Lane with Mistletoe covered trees

View from North Piddle Lane towards Bredon Hill

Most Bluetits are hard to get decent photos of!

So many blue tits along the lanes, with their constant chatter

Fieldfares are quite common grazing around the sheep grazing

 

View towards Upton Snodsbury

The view from North Piddle towards Upton Snodsbury - the chicken farm site is about 1/2 way between these two points.

Bullfinch

Bullfinch

Blossom!

Great Tit

The Old House, Naunton Beauchamp

Naunton Beauchamp

Naunton Beauchamp

The first sign of Spring - Snowdrops

Naunton Beauchamp cottage - The Way dating from late 1600s

Naunton Beauchamp Cottage dating from late 1600s

Where the National Planning and Policy Framework (NPPF) was designed to simplify matters of planning it only served to open up interpretations of the rules enabling inappropriate developments to go through as many in the countryside will agree. 

The Wildlife Trusts' concern was that Local Councils' policies needed to be robust and up to date. Whilst great in theory, in practice where local plans were delayed the floodgates were opened up to these developments.  

We are fortunate that in our case that the local Council - Wychavon for whom I have the utmost respect for the professional way that they dealt with this high profile application, took a stand that the NPPF criteria had not been met. And the Planning Inspector agreed.