Highlights of 2015 In Pictures

2015 was a good year for me with lots of opportunities to get out with my camera but the weather wasn't always obliging.

Here are some of my favourites pictures from this year.

Tree Sparrow

Starling nesting in a timber frame building - at least two babies fledged

Bee on Lavender

A friendly robin

Long Tailed Tit - Just fledged!

Red Darter

Migrant Hawker Dragonfly

Large Male Bullfinch

Gatekeeper

Pair of Bullfinches eating seeds

Painted Lady

Migrant Hawker - normally hangs down like this when resting

Holly Blue on a ....holly.

A beautiful toad

Bees loving our the lavender

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.

Grafton Flyford Gymkhana

It was a beautiful day for a Gymkhana at the crossroads near Libbery on 31st August 2014

The importance of local events like this can't be over-emphasised. They give these villages a sense of place, an opportunity for villagers to meet up and share a cut of tea and a burger whilst watching the children and ponies compete in various competitions. In the afternoon there is a dog show. It is also an important fund-raiser.

The field that this takes place at is about 750m from the F C Jones & Co application site and just over a kilometre from the Edward Davies site. Aside from the issue of odour if there is a cleanout at the site when an event like this takes place, more importantly this lane is the preferred route for routing traffic onto and off the A422.  What are the effects on the amenity of residents if the 3 million chickens per year developments take place?

Here are some pictures from the event.