Nottingham RSPB
local group

A Little Bit of History

Our Group leader Peter had been invited to the signing of the legal agreement between the RSPB, Tarmac Heavy Building Materials UK Ltd, and Trinity College Cambridge. But as he is still working over 60 hours a week he could not go so Ursula Reynolds and I went in his stead. The venue for the signing was the Cedric Holland Pavilion on the Newark Showground.

On entering the building I felt totally out of place as it was full of 'suits'. I had put on a tie for the occasion this alone is an occurrence as rare as Squacco Herons in Nottinghamshire, but this only added to my feeling of discomfort.

Then this little fellow walked through the door, he was dressed all in 'birders' green and had a pair of very expensive binoculars around his neck. Big guns from all of the interested parties were wheeled out, and even 'Goodie' Bill Oddie had turned up. After a few short speeches the formal signing took place, twelve years of negotiation had at last borne fruit and we are that little bit closer to having our own reserve in Nottinghamshire.

It was during the signing, that the significance hit me, it really was a little bit of history in the making. This is the first time the RSPB has been involved with the making of a reserve from the ground level. They have a say in what is to be done when all the gravel extraction is finished and can direct the work towards what is best for the society and best of all the birds. At first the reserve was going to be of open water and wet grassland, then came a major rethink and it is now going to have extensive reedbeds, which it is hoped will bring in Bitterns along with Marsh Harriers and Bearded Tits. We all know the dire straits the Bittern is in and now we will have a major piece of their conservation in our hands.

Someone asked Bill Oddie how the birds would get to the site and he quoted the film Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come". And they will, remember, this winter two Bitterns settled into the small reedbed at Attenborough so think what will happen when we have a large reedbed in place - some of our winter visitors from the Continent will decide to stay on.

There is still a lot of work to do, we will not get the reserve until around the year 2020 and many of us will need a lot of help to get around by then. But later this summer we are being handed the first two phases of this seven phase project, these will include the first reedbed, an area that will become the reed nursery. This will need planting, 5,000 reeds are being grown in East Anglia and these will need putting into the ground, volunteers will be called for! It seems odd that the Society has to pay for a natural resource like reeds, but they do and the local group has already sent money towards this. What I found even more surprising was the fact that when the reeds are planted they will have to be fenced in! It seems young reeds are the favourite food of Canada Geese, and more than one project has floundered when these birds have moved in and eaten the proposed reedbed. This will not be allowed to happen at Langford.

If you have any questions about Langford, or would like to offer your services to help with the planting or other jobs that will come up, please contact us or any member of the committee and they will put you on the list. If any of you has any ideas about raising money for the reserve let us know. We will try and get hold of more information and maybe a few maps and pictures and hopefully these will be on show at a later date.