CWminutes2023

22nd November

At the committee meeting today it was decided to hold the next meeting on Wed 10th January at 3pm , venue to be fixed . If anyone would like to volunteer to host the meeting please let me know.

Bruce H has kindly offered to host up to 12 of us for coffee and to walk his farm in the Spring to see his projects for wildlife enhancement. He is also interested in monitoring the water quality of his stream that runs into Cradley Brook

Tony C informed us that Ian H is trying to check whether the data for Cradley Brook meets with environmental criteria.He has approached the Parish council on a number of occasions.

I was lucky to have a short piece about 16th November event included in December's Cradley newsletter despite it being submitted the day after the closing date. 

A total of £98.50 was raised on 16th November and has been divided equally between HWT and the Village Hall.

Jessie has undertaken to do a piece for the January  newsletter in reply to the article  on hedgehogs by the Bryce family in the November issue.

Clare has bravely volunteered to prepare a board about Cradley Wild to display at the Xmas Fair and future events. Ian P will kindly lend us an easel .Mike may be able to provide a larger display board.

Ideas for the future were discussed :-

Offering Wildlife walks in Spring

Possible short videos of local wildlife on Cradley Wild webpage

Weekend bird watch to co-incide with RSPB bird count in January and a further bird count in the Summer.

Invitation to people to say if they would be interested in an allotment or half of one so the Parish council can consider if the demand merits council land being used for some in Cradley.

Whether welcome packs are still given to new residents and if so ,could contain a note about Cradley Wild in case people wish to join.Linda to contact Jeff W

Clare will develop a general leaflet about Cradley Wild (cost to be considered and met by voluntary contributions) Can be discussed further in January. 

Whether Wild Ross might send someone to lead a wildlife walk. clare to liase with Ross Wild.

Whether to approach the Parish Council re planting a fruit understorey at the orchard at Buryfields and possibly Rosa rugosa.

Jessie will raise with Ellie Chowns the fact there is no food waste collection  in Herefordshire and if this could be addressed by the H. County Council.

Mike H will liase with David A of Malvern Hills AONB .

Look forward to seeing you on January 10th.

Best wishes Linda

16th November 2023 [notes from Linda B]

A meeting in the Village Hall was well attended and raised over £70 towards Herefordshire Wildlife Trust (HWT) and Cradley Village Hall.

Tracy P from HWT led the discussion as to where people in the area are taking action to encourage wildlife and where more could be done.

With the aid of a map and stickers we identified what we are doing in our gardens and in the pubic areas of Cradley and surroundings to encourage  wildlife . These included hedge planting, growing vegetables, having a pond , planting trees, wildflowers, feeding birds, log-piles, not using  pesticides, leaving some grass long, not cutting hedges in the nesting season, making compost and leaf bins, creating corridors for hedgehogs, putting up bird and bat boxes.

We identified with Tracy’s help areas in the village where action is being taken especially in the churchyard creating a bug sanctuary with the help of Cradley Primary school children, wildlife areas, bird boxes and wild daffodil planting. In other areas of the Village the Environment group of the Parish Council have created a wildlife rich mound and sensory garden at the Chapel Lane playground  and planted an orchard at Buryfields. The Primary school has a thriving gardening club and forest gardens and at Brookside there are wildlife verges.

Exciting ideas for future consideration are whether there is a need for allotments in the area, volunteers to help with the playground area, planting an understorey of fruit bushes at the orchard to create a fruit forest. more trees along the brook, monitoring the water quality of Cradley Brook. Also possibly offering help to those new to gardening as to how to grow food or garden in wildlife friendly ways even if the garden is small and surrounded with fences. Arranging  wildlife walks.

Anyone interested is welcome to join Cradley Wild, or to read further  on the Cradley village website including a list of helpful books. With everyone’s ideas and help the meeting ended on a very hopeful note for enriching our beautiful village and surroundings for ourselves and the wildlife that live here.

Thursday 16th November 2023 at 7pm, Cradley Village Hall

Tracy P, Community Organising Officer Herefordshire Wildlife Trust (HWT)

Introduction by Linda B of Cradley Wild

Cradley Wild is a new, fledgling group interested in fostering nature around the village. The basic idea is to improve our local area for wildlife; to make people more aware of the need to create environments for wildlife and to make us all more aware of the ways we are able to allow fauna and flora to flourish. A good example might be how we might change our gardening practice to be more wildlife friendly.

Linda then introduced Tracy P.

Tracy introduced herself and said that she was here to offer help with our ideas and also to speak about The Nature Action Network Team and its work.

Tracy’s new role within the Nature Action Team is to deliver  Nextdoor Nature - a national initiative with the aim of bringing communities together to help nature flourish where they live and work.

One of the aims of this initiative is to have 1 in 4 people engaged with nature in some form or another by 2030.

Each county has different priorities depending on the county and the community within that county.

The initiative aims to work with all groups and in particular with those groups that are often at the periphery of mainstream society.

HWT has a total of 39 employees (4 of whom work on the Nature Action Network Team) and manage 60 reserves. HWT cannot do this on their own and rely on volunteers; the Trust therefore is keen to support and work with volunteers.

The Wildlife Trusts’ Network for Nature will aim to focus on improving, creating and restoring habitat that has been impacted by historic road building activity. Within Herefordshire there will be quarterly meetings with the purpose to enable different groups to learn from each other. A volunteer from each area can attend the meetings and feed back to their area the ideas that arise.

At the first meeting 4 themes emerged:

•       River Wye pollution

•       The need for farmers education on sustainable and wildlife friendly food production

•       To engage with young people particularly from age 14 upwards

•       To connect communities

Examples of networking: a WhatsApp group formed to take part in “balsam bashing”

Nationally there is a project called Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature run in conjunction with the Wildlife Trust, the Women’s Institute , Garden Organic, Incredible Edible. This is a three-year programme, which hopes to enthuse millions of people to grow their own food in wildlife-friendly gardens by providing advice and an opportunity to pledge their garden on a map. 

Map of Cradley displayed

The audience was asked to think of all the ways that they already contributed to nature and then to place post-it notes on the map of Cradley so all could see what was already happening.

Coffee and tea was served

Tracy read through the post-it notes, attached to the map of Cradley; lots of nature happening in Cradley!

IDEAS

A general discussion followed which focussed on the areas that might be developed further for wildlife.

•       A suggestion to focus on the ‘close built’ estates with small gardens

•       The Environment and Recreation group on the Parish Council have had an ecologist write a report on the mound in the playground on Chapel Lane

•       Community orchard has 14 trees in Buryfields; this might be developed further , perhaps by underplanting with fruit bushes to create a fruit forest.

•       Suggestion for planting of trees around the brook; so maybe an idea to map the brook and look for areas which could be developed for wildlife planting

Tracy offered help with various projects depending on what was required.

A discussion followed with regard to allotments - there are no allotments in the village at the moment; a member of the Parish Council spoke about the fact that 12 people need to ask for them; discussion followed about allotments and whether there was a need in Cradley - garden sharing was also mentioned.

Reference was made to www.cradley.org.uk and the location of the Cradley Wild page.

Reference was made to the local Cradley primary school. There is a school gardening club and a Forest School; a group from the school have also helped with wilding of the churchyard.

The meeting closed with thanks to Tracy, those who set up the hall and provided refreshments.

Meeting closed at 8.20pm.

30 August 2023

A small group of us met at Katherine and John's house and had lovely flapjacks and drinks provided. Thank you Katherine and John.

We agreed I'd write to HWT suggesting Tracy would be extremely welcome to come and lead an exercise in 'How we could create wildlife corridors'.

Avoiding half term 27th Oct to 6th November, we suggested an evening in the village hall would be ideal, free to attendees but with the opportunity to make a donation to HWT .

Clare volunteered to organise facebook publicity and Katherine and John undertook to create posters for the village noticeboards.

.We now await a reply from Tracy with suggested dates. Once received (hopefully before 16th September for inclusion in the Cradley newsletter,) the application to use the hall can be made and any fee charged be assessed and hopefully covered by a small donation from members of Cradley Wild.

We agreed to ask Jessie to write a piece for the Cradley newsletter on the value of wasps as pollinators. Clare and Jessie will liaise and Clare will put the notice in the newsletter of HWT  evening in the village hall  and report on her visit with Mike and Katherine to the Buryfields orchard and the visit to the mound at the play area with members of the environmental group for the Parish Council.

Clare brought the meeting up to date on the visit she arranged to Hanley Castle and their verge wildflower project.

We shared yellow rattle, I have more if anyone is interested. Also Paul brought  birdsfoot trefoil seeds which were distributed to those who wanted some.

We agreed that the next meeting should be the HWT evening at the village hall.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the summer.

Best wishes Linda

July 2023

CRADLEY WILD

The second meeting of Cradley Wild, held in July, saw a productive exchange of ideas about how we can continue to boost wildlife in our villages. Plans are in preliminary stages but look out for news of activities in this newsletter and on local noticeboards. Meanwhile, check out cradley.org.uk for our list of recommended books that may help turn your garden into a haven for nature.

If you are interested in coming along to the next meeting on 30 August, you will be very welcome. Email CradleyWild@cradley.org.uk for more information.

CREATING A WILDLIFE HABITAT PANEL

Attracting birds into the garden is as much about creating the right habitat as putting up birdboxes or filling bird feeders. Many rely on bugs and grubs to feed themselves and their young and the best way to encourage those is to create places where they can live and breed, and to grow plants that will provide an ongoing source of food.

This advice on creating a wildlife habitat panel was picked up from the RHS Resilience Garden, designed by Tom Massey, at Hampton Court Garden Festival, and is a good way to get started. They are an effective way of inviting local species into your garden and are easy to make using waste materials.

1. Choose a suitable site

The visitors to your habitat panels will depend on their location. Solitary bees, prefer a sunny spot whereas frogs and toads like cool, damp conditions that are also favoured by less desirable slugs and snails. (Frogs and toads will eat them, however, so become a food source themselves.)

2. Make the frame

This needs to be strong and stable. Potential materials include timber, wooden pallets, steel. The size and shape are up to you, but square or rectangle are simplest. You will also need netting or chicken wire to keep the contents in.

3. Pack the frame with wildlife-friendly material

The aim is to provide a porous habitat with gaps, crevices, tunnels and nooks and crannies for different sizes of wildlife to occupy.

Dead wood and bark attract beetles, centipedes, spiders and woodlice.

Bamboo, reed, the dry stems of alliums and drilled logs attract solitary bees.

Pieces of wood with larger holes, stones, pieces of tiles, provide cool, damp conditions for frogs and toads. Position these at the base of the frame and towards the back so that they are frost-free in the winter.

Dry leaves, sticks or straw attract ladybirds and beetles.

Corrugated cardboard attracts lacewings.

4. Fix the panels to the side of a bin store, on boundary fences or to the side of a garden room or shed.

WILDLIFE WATCH

What we have seen in our gardens. This month: owlets

In late Autumn, an elderly cherry tree ceremoniously split and a large branch broke off leaving an exposed hollow in the trunk. Throughout winter we were aware of many owl noises but didn’t really think too much about it – owls are always around, heard and unseen. With the lighter evenings of mid-May, we were surprised to see a Tawny Owl as late as mid-day, contemplative in the trees at the bottom of our small orchard. One evening, as I was going to shut up the greenhouse, I felt as though I was being watched. An owlet was perched in the hollow in the cherry tree trunk. A little later another owlet perched above, wings flapping excited to start its fledgling journey. At this point I felt it best to slip away and let nature run its course. Unfortunately, my i-phone camera is not great and I did not want to go too close in case I startled them, but the picture is of the less eager owlet.

There has been owl activity since they left, sporadically seen in the day and heard at night but perhaps best of all, we occasionally find a beautiful fluffy feather to remind us they are still here.

A Cradley resident

If you have any wildlife sightings to report, please send details to CradleyWild@cradley.org.uk