Seriously Upset

[Pete Eeles]

This is a non-sighting really ... I went to my local "nature reserve" today (basically, a stretch of wasteground that the council has decided to nominate as a reserve) ... only to find that they've mowed the darn thing to within an inch of its life. All of the grasses, thistles and nettles are now gone. Including 3 Small Tortoiseshell larval webs (and I'm sure the Large Skipper and Small Skipper colonies have suffered too). Suffice to say - I'll be contacting them to find out what their "habitat management" policy is - and whether it's implemented by anyone whose knuckles don't touch the ground as they walk along.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Gruditch]

You have my sympathy's Pete, sadly I think whom ever you do manage to get a response from at your local authority, will just feed you a load of BS.

The roadside verges locally were left last year, at a meeting, a member of the public asked the Borough Councillor why. He explained that all the verges apart from the areas next to busy/dangerous junctions, were left to provide wild life habitat, and would not be mowed on-till the wildflowers had seeded.

This year all the roadside verges, in-fact every piece of land they could get tractor onto, has been mowed repeatedly. When asked why, one answer was, ( this is quite a good one ) it's to stop the weeds growing into the road surface. When I tackled the same Borough Councillor, who explained why they left them the year before. He said, "we only cut the meter nearest the roadside". Which off cause is a load of b######s as they have mowed every thing in sight.

Each year the local authorities get a budget from central government, if they do not use it all, the following year, they will not get so much, use it or loose it. I suspect paying contractors to go around mowing everything in sight this year, is just a way of using up there surplus budget. They don't give a toss.


Gruditch

[Lee Hurrell]

That is a sad story Pete, and I'm sure repeated all over the country. I think Gruditch is right about the budgets being lost if not used, I've heard the same abut roadworks...

On a positive note though, my local council (Ealing) seems to have started leaving small 'wild' areas in most of the parks where grasses, nettles and thistles etc are left to grow. I'm taking this a small positive step anyway!

Best,

Lee

[Eris]

The 20 odd acre field behind me was cut last week, not for hay, just to keep it looking tidy. ( not owned by a farmer just some millionaire who has a big house) since then my wildflower/hay meadow area in my garden is now so full of Gatekeepers, Ringlets and Meadow Browns and Skippers I can hardly move without stepping over them!

[jellyang]

I too have witnessed some of the councils great strimmer marathons here in Norfolk.
Most do not have a clue about our nature/enviroment. The only thing they are concerned with is Health & Safety & being sued!
When I asked a conservaion officer what he was conserving he didn't have an answer, I suspect the only thing he was conserving was his own job!



angie

[Gruditch]

The reason that all the councils suddenly have all this extra cash. Is because, with the current financial crises, a lot of local projects, for which the councils would usually supply match funding, have been put on hold. Hence they have a surplus of cash, which they have to spend/waste.

Gruditch

[Eris]

I do have to admit to being pleased they cut the verge at the end of our road as trying to see out of that junction was getting a real suicide run.

Around here they do the verges once a year. However it does pose a question as what time of the year it should be done. Hayfield are traditionally cut in June, and if possible a second cut in late July early August. They have been since man first started doing agriculture, and we still have meadow butterflies.

I do feel it is the type of mower that causes the problems on grass verges. Mowing for hay keeps the stalks intact and and any caterpillars can move onto the uncut grass, whereas the mulching mowers just - well - basically mulch everything in to oblivion

[Perseus]

Adur Council have done this in the local park. Wholesale clearance withoiut any obvious reason.

However, on a nerby roadside verge called Buclkingham Cutting south where I have been monitoring butterflies, the County Council sent in an ecologist team to have a look and the result is they have mown just part of the verge. I am not sure why they even did this?

[NickB]

I spoke to a couple of the lads that were cutting the grass in my local cemetery (managed by the Council) and it transpired they were both Agency staff - on for a few weeks when the grass is long in summer. It is not surprising that the chain-of-command is fractured, with staff on and off and no continuity in the work groups that undertake the maintenance tasks each time. Mowing the grass is the easiest, lowest-common-denominator solution; anything more complicated may cause both the staff - but more importantly - their managers, to think about what they were doing. So rather than do that, its "mown grass all round".
Of course, this is really a sign of lazy management, who blame these part-time staff for not doing the right thing! If it was of high enough priority, then it would be done correctly.

Of course, each council is different - Norwich I believe manages its open spaces with appropriate cutting regimes for wildlife and flowers; Cambridge believes in an easy grass standard - MN1 - municipal grass #1 (a bit like a #1 in the barbers!) - for its public spaces. (There was even a campaign to "prettify" some of our Commons with flower beds and short grass a while ago; thankfully they didn't succeed and cattle still do the mowing instead )

Since we ALL, as council tax payers, PAY for all this butchery to be done - "not in MY name" - it is up to all of us to campaign for a change. UKB should get together with BC to help publicise and promote best-practise for environmental management of local authority land.

After all, it seems ironic that we PAY farmers to leave "wild" field margins and yet we also PAY to have our councils massacre our public open spaces as well. Crazy!
(Rant over... )
N

[Lee Hurrell]

Pete,

I would imagine I feel how you did when you started this thread. I went over to the cemetery that I've mentioned a couple of times this year near my house this afternoon to find about half of the meadow I'd discovered had been bulldozed, literally flattened. And I guess with it a lot of the common blue and small copper colonies I found earlier. Grrrr.
I did manage to see a few common blues, meadow browns, gatekeepers and whites despite the drizzle though.

Cheers

Lee

[Denise]

Whilst walking to the doctors on Monday morning, (I took a short cut through a lane) and found a council worker strimming down the nettles and grass to within a inch of the ground. I stopped him, and explained that there could be larva and/or pupa in these nettles and by strimming so low, he was killing them. To prove my point, I looked to see if I could find anything, and I found two large dark hairy larvae which I thought were Peacocks. He agreed to stop strimming while I popped home to grab a jar. When I got back, he had found another two. I collected them up together with some nettles and he agreed to leave at least six inches growth, so any remaining larvae could move to the shorter stems.
I took them home and they were happily munching away. I read on UK-Leps that some people had lost their larvae through using cling film. so I made holes in the lid and cut a circle of blotting paper to go inside the lid to prevent any escapees. My plan was to put them on the nettles in my garden but the rain was so heavy and persistent yesterday, that I thought, "one more day won't hurt". I noticed last night, that the larvae had stopped feeding and were moving all around the jar. This morning I found them hanging from the blotting paper. One is now a pupa! I'm sure the others will change soon.
As there are gold flecks in this pupa, I now think them to be Painted Lady.
What do I do with them once they have all pupated?

Denise

[eccles]

I have no idea where you should stick them (!), Denise, but what a nice story. At least one council worker has learned something to the benefit of the local wildlife.

[Denise]

Well I never. A fifth larva has just appeared from a rolled up leaf! Two more have changed from larvae to pupa. It's quite something to watch.
They are quite dark, whereas the Painted Lady pupa that I found in the garden were golden, but they all have gold flecks in the casing.

Denise

[sahikmet]

How about this. Last week driving back from Chobham Heath , on A30 towards London I had to follow a concerted van with a500 orso gallon tank marked weekkeeler control etc travelling at 15 mph and spraying the kirb. A lot of chemical washing down the drains into rivers doing a lot of harm.

Cheers

Sezar

[PhilBJohnson]

The funniest thing (or not funny at all) about this thread, was that, if it was me, a local Government noticed surveying, someone thought there might be a "tipping point" regarding "Seriously Upset" and where to send a sub-contractor to do some work.

Nettle Management & lets get our Survey's done for the sake of the science knowledge
In Lincolnshire, mid-May to near the end of May in 2024, there appeared to be a more butterflies, management window of opportunity to "half cut" areas of nettles, after checking for no small gregarious caterpillars (but before pupation) from first annual brood (Small tortoiseshell & Peacock). That then stopped more nettle flowers from seeding in unwanted areas, but allowed for less predictable timings of Red Admiral tents and single larvae (Painted Lady, possibly Comma) to escape to a nettle understory. I hope this, part of diversity management can be picked up on elsewhere, rather than just to send the strimmers in, just after Someone's been there, or while they were there.

#FumingCelebrity #LandownersUnwantedAttention

Kind Regards,