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Page 1 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
Marches Meadow Group
A lthough the Marches Meadow Group was formed in 2015 as a spin-off
from the Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Country Land-scape Partnership Scheme, our first full year of operation was 2016. While we have not been around long, we have already been able to make a mark in helping conserve our wonderful local landscapes. We are lucky enough to live in an unusual place where haymeadows rich in wild-flowers and insects can still be found and our aim is to help the owners of such sites look after them. Many of these places are small and unsuitable for the operation of large modern farm ma-chinery. We can provide tai-lored advice to owners, spread knowledge about suit-able techniques and carry out
haymaking using our own small scale equipment. We cannot however control the weather and previous years have been rather tricky! All that changed this year with great weather and the recruit-ment of a contractor support-ive of our aims so that, as is reported below, good pro-gress has been made. We do need to raise funds for the Group to prosper, for exam-ple we already have our sights set on a second tractor, so if you can help or have any ideas for fund-raising then please get in touch.
Our website is now up and running so please keep an eye on it for updates and news of events. Also if you have que-ries you can post them on our message board. We hope, via this Annual Newsletter, to
reach more people. If you have friends or neigh-bours who have a mead-ow that needs managing then please encourage them to contact us.
Finally my thanks to those on our Committee whose work allows Marches Meadow Group to function and to the large number of partners we work closely with. In particular our thanks go to Natural England and Simon Cooter, whose enthusiasm for meadows in general and scything in particular continues to encourage us to further action and to Fiona Gomersall as a repre-sentative of Shropshire Wildlife Trust.
Chair’s Report
Annual Newsletter Autumn 2018
Chair’s Report
Hay Making 2018
1
Shropshire Hills Hay Meadow Festival
2
Autumn Meadows
Annual Talk: Wyre
Forest Community
3
Scything with a View
Curlew Country
Other Events
4
Stepping Stones Pro-ject
5
Who are we?
The Committee
Membership Update
6
Inside this issue:
‘three members
reported common
spotted orchids and
cowslips for the
first time’
MMG tractor at The Hurst, Clunton taken by Paul Roughley
W hether or not MMG members use MMG’s con-tractor they will
not need telling that 2018 has been the best summer for making hay since MMG was founded. The good weather was complemented by MMG’s new contractor, Paul Rough-ley, who demonstrated an excellent combination of good humour and patience, knowledge of farm machinery operation and maintenance, and a thorough understand-ing of the conservation aims of MMG members.
Paul completed hay making on six members’ fields stretching from Habberley to
Clunton, a wider area than previously managed. The hay was often baled within a cou-ple of days of being cut and was of excellent quality. Alt-hough local farmers made a lot of hay early in the season the exceptionally dry weather meant that there was little re-growth of the aftermath and
Hay Making Season 2018
stock had to be fed on 2018 hay, especially as there was little carry-over of fodder from the 2017-18 winter. All this meant that members’ hay, if not needed for their own animals, found a ready market.
In all, hay was made on ap-proximately 4 ha (10 acres). The MMG equipment was also used to harrow an area prior to strewing green hay, to bale (only) one member’s hay and to top two mem-bers’ fields. For the last Paul used a borrowed topper. A further member’s cut hay was also baled, but unfortu-nately only after the weather had broken and the result-ing wet bales were only fit for compost. This was the
by Richard Small
The common spotted
orchid
by Richard Keymer
Page 2 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
I t was a fabulously hot day for this year’s Hay Meadow Festival at the Bog, Pennerley on July
7th. The car parks were over-flowing as the event attracted visitors from all over the sur-rounding area.
There was a packed pro-gramme of activities, from guided walks and games, sto-rytelling and song, to craft stalls and competitions.
The MMG had its own stand and was on hand to offer ad-vice on restoring and manag-ing larger areas as traditional hay meadows. Other experts were also available with some top tips for making gardens
more wildlife friendly. Other stalls and displays explained how local organisations and community groups are help-ing to conserve and enhance the Shropshire Hills.
Plenty of people tried their hand at scything or hay bale lobbing or building hayricks. The annual competition between the scythe and the strimmer was closely fought but once again the scythe was victorious. The winners of the scything competition were Phil Batten (Scythe Cymru) and Chris Symond-sen. There were also lots of activities for children in the ‘hay play’ area, including craft activities, bug hunting
and mini-bale making.
The ‘talk tent’ attracted a more mature audience with 10 minute talk topics, such as “60 years on, how is one of
England’s finest landscapes faring?”.
As well as all this there was local folk music and storytell-ing, and plenty of refresh-ments available at the bar, BBQ or pizza stall.
All in all, a highly successful and enjoyable day! Plans are already being made for the next Hay Meadow Festival in 2020.
Shropshire Hills Hay Meadow Festival by Martin Bonathan
A traditional horse drawn covered wagon
season’s only failure and, although a relatively large area, in retrospect it may have been better if Paul had been contracted to cut, ted and bale the hay so that it could have been better worked into the schedule.
Only one site received green hay, but this was a collaboration of two MMG members working with Paul. The owner of the recipient site organised family and friends to col-lect and strew the green hay, which was cut by Paul on the appointed day. Members who had had green hay in previous years reported new species in their meadows – three members reported com-mon spotted orchids and one cowslips for the first time, and greater butterfly
Hay Making Season (continued)
orchid was new to another member’s field. In each case green hay had been applied three years previ-ously, suggesting that these plants take time to become sufficiently established to flower.
Rob Rowe and I completed plant surveys of four mem-bers’ fields and re-surveys of a further two members’ fields which had been treated with green hay. The survey reports, and particularly the recommen-dations, were well received. ‘New’ species were record-ed in both re-surveys. Rob has also persuaded the owners of about 18 acres of meadows to allow MMG to manage the meadows and to take any resulting in-come to boost the Group’s funds.
It would be helpful (e.g. for funding applications) if all members made an annual return describing their hay-related activities e.g. number (and size) of bales, area har-vested, new species recorded in hay fields etc. This will help to build a body of evi-dence to demonstrate MMG’s impact. In addition, a review meeting will be held for members’ to describe their experience of using MMG’s contractor this year and suggest improvements for the future. Paul himself has suggested his friend could be used as a second contractor and a second tractor would be the most effective means to improve efficiency. We need to plan for much wetter years than 2018!
Page 3 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
‘Any grassland
with fungi
appearing in late
summer and
autumn is likely to
be of interest’
Page 3 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
Autumn Meadows
Wales and Scotland, is globally important. It is characterised by the col-ourful waxcaps which can be bright red, yellow or-ange, green or pink but also includes other charis-matic species like the cor-al fungi and earthtongues.
Any grassland with fungi appearing in late summer
and autumn is likely to be of interest and worth in-vestigating. Many of the meadows that are species rich for flowering plants are also very good for fun-gi.[Such as Natural Eng-land’s Pennerley Meadow SSSI]. However that is not necessarily the case and many other unimproved meadows or pasture, churchyards and even lawns can be really good.
If you find an area that you think looks good please do not hesitate to contact me at:
[email protected] D o look out for waxcaps and other fungi that appear in
grasslands and lawns in the late summer and au-tumn.
Known as “waxcap grass-land fungi”, this is a group of fungi for which the UK and particularly
by Rob Rowe
reconnecting people with the landscapes and sup-porting livelihoods and community.
Much of the forest has been under managed and there are major challeng-es to restore the wood-land landscape, bringing back broadleaved trees and sustaining biodiver-sity.
The CLT current activi-ties include the produc-tion of timber, mainly for firewood at the moment, the development of or-chards, maintaining meadows for livestock and activities to celebrate the beauty and intrinsic value of the forest.
Tim concluded an in-formative and stimulat-ing talk by emphasising the principles established
originally through John Rus-kin and kept alive by the CLT, to rekindle Wyre’s relation-ships with people, with its communities, visitors and those wanting to have direct relationships through partici-pation, products, events, arts and writing
Annual Talk: Ruskin in Wyre: Reveal, Reconnect & Reimagine
O ur Annual Talk, held at Norbury Village Hall, for 2017 was given by
Tim Selman, Chief Executive of the Wyre Community Land Trust, on the natural history of the Wyre Forest and how the Wyre CLT helps to man-age the small orchards and meadows within the forest. Tim has held the post of Managing Director for the past two years and described how he and his team of paid workers and volunteers are restoring and developing what he describes as an ‘amazing piece of ancient woodland’ which is probably the largest piece of ancient woodland in England since the ice age, covering about 4,500 hectares.
The Community Land Trust was formed in 2007 with the aims of finding alternative ways to sustain landscapes,
Tim Selman
Tim Selman can be contacted
through the CLT at this ad-
dress:
Page 4 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
Scything with a View, 2018
Curlew Country Update
T he snaths are hang-ing up in the barn and the blades have been cleaned, oiled and put to bed for
the winter.
The Stiperstones Scything group offers the opportunity to get some scything practice and to help with the bracken management on the Stiper-stones National Nature Re-serve. There are usually about 6 dates over the sum-mer when scythers can come along and spend a morning ‘scything with a view’. Basic instruction can be given be-forehand but it is even better if you have done a day’s course.
A day’s scything course was
run just prior to the Hay Meadow Festival which was very well attended and of course lot of folks tried out scything for the first time at the festival. The winners of the competitions were Phil Batten (Scythe Cymru) and Chris Symondsen, and of course the scythe beat the brushcutter again (although it was a lot closer this year as the grass wasn’t as nice to cut).
The next date will be a peen-ing session in April when we
In 2017 the project decided to waste no more time and started to trial different inter-
vention methods to increase the productivity of nests. Lethal predator control was carried out in two areas, along with temporary electric fencing around nests as first used by German project NA-BU. The fencing proved effec-tive at protecting nests until
hatching, after which the chicks quickly leave and trav-el large distances in search of food. Between 1 and 3 chicks fledged in 2017 thanks to these efforts, however that is not enough to sustain the population in the longer term.
During the 2018 nesting sea-son Curlew Country has been working hard to locate nests and collect eggs to incubate, hatch and rear the resulting chicks. This process, known as headstarting, allows for a much greater survival rate of chicks offering a well needed boost to the dwindling popu-lation. A licence was granted to the project to carry out headstarting after successful-ly rearing and releasing 6 curlew chicks in 2017.
A s awareness is in-creasingly being raised of the plight of curlew and other
ground nesting birds, the race has been on to intervene and save the local breeding hotspot. Curlew Country monitored nests for two years within the Shropshire Hills and Welsh Marches, one of only a handful of populations of this size between here and the south coast, with no chicks seen to successfully fledge. One of the major causes of nest failure was predation, and our nest cam-eras showed that foxes were the biggest threat.
Page 4
by Simon Cooter, Natural England
species in the morning. This was better attended with ten people, mostly CWG mem-bers but also a few MMG members. The meadows at Natural England’s Rigmore-oak offices presented numer-ous grass species, many of which could be seen on the bank surrounding the car park which is managed as a meadow.
Visit to Pennerley House Meadows
About ten people also attend-ed the MMG visit to David
Plant Identifica-tion Workshops
Two plant identification workshops were held in con-junction with the Plant Groups of the Community Wildlife Groups (CWG). In May the workshop concerned plants of roadside verges and five people attended the af-ternoon session. The surpris-ing diversity of plants seen in the Norbury area was evi-dence of verges’ importance as refuges for some species and their potential as corri-dors linking meadows. The second workshop concerned grasses, focusing on meadow
and Janet Poynton’s Pen-nerley House meadows. Three areas had been treated with green hay in different years and the longer-established meadows were noticeably more diverse, alt-hough in part that may also reflect the greater quantity of green hay used on these are-as. David hoped to have a further application of green hay on the largest meadow where yellow rattle has now established and is beginning to suppress grass growth. A new species for this year in one of the meadows was the greater butterfly orchid.
get the blades ready for the new season. If any-one is interested in at-tending a course I have a list of people to contact when I set a date next year.
Simon Cooter ([email protected])
Other Events by Richard Small
Pennerley House Meadows
This method offers a much greater chance for chick sur-vival, and 21 chicks were suc-cessfully released in the sum-mer of this year. The process has been a steep learning curve, and there are many ways in which the process could be improved upon in any future years. Curlew Country does not consider headstarting to be a long-term solution to curlew population decline, but rather a way of buying more time in which wider issues can be addressed.
The project is currently apply-ing for funding to continue with its work in the future and will be giving talks and work-shops over the autumn and winter for those wanting to learn more about how they can help local curlew, or support the project. For more infor-mation on the project visit the website, www.curlewcountry.org.uk If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please email [email protected]
by Amber Bicheno, Curlew Country Project Assistant [email protected]
Page 5 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
Stepping Stones Project Update
A project business case has been prepared with outline proposals and costings based on submissions from part-ners and other interested groups. This includes a sub-mission from MMG which broadly seeks funding sup-port to develop its member-ship and its meadow manage-ment activities and, if fund-ing for additional resources and machinery can be se-cured, to extend its geo-graphic coverage for meadow management and hay making across more of the Stepping Stones landscape.
As the lead partner, the Na-tional Trust is currently re-viewing the business case and subject to approval an appli-cation for Heritage Lottery Funding will be made early in 2019 to coincide with HLF’s new funding strategy and grant portfolio. If successful, this will fund a 2-year project development phase followed by a 5-year delivery phase.
In the meantime, the project partners are testing and un-dertaking pilot work to help inform the developing pro-ject.
We have contacted a sample of farmers from across the project area to hear their views on farming and the environment and have re-ceived helpful feedback on their thoughts for increasing wildlife across the Stepping Stones landscape.
The National Trust has re-cently awarded the project £85K to test its proposals for engaging with farmers and
S tepping Stones is a landscape-scale biodi-versity project cover-ing 220km² within
the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The Project is seeking to safe-guard the future of two na-tionally and internationally important nature conserva-tion sites, the Long Mynd SSSI and the Stiperstones SAC, as well as to enhance wildlife habitats and increase populations of wildlife spe-cies in the surrounding land-scape. It aims to do this by working with farmers, local communities and established con-servation part-nerships and groups, such as Marches Mead-ow Group (MMG), to help restore and re-connect wildlife habitats between the two core sites as well as throughout the Stepping Stones landscape.
The Project is being devel-oped by a partnership be-tween the National Trust, Natural England, Shropshire Wildlife Trust and the Shrop-shire Hills AONB Partner-ship. This is an initial part-nership to get the project underway, but which may change with new partners being added as the project evolves.
From the outset, it was recog-nised that we are in the fortu-nate position of having a long history of partnership work-ing in the project area with a number of well-established groups, such as MMG, Upper Onny Wildlife Group and the Life on the Edge partnership, that have led the way in working with landowners and communities to restore and reconnect wildlife habitats. A key working principle for the project is that it should sup-port and build upon the suc-cesses of these established groups.
local communities. We are drawing on the experiences gained by the AONB Partner-ship and Natural England in setting up community part-nerships and farmer liaison in developing these pro-posals. In addition, we have submitted two proposals to Defra for using the Stepping Stones project as a test-bed for their emerging ideas for a new Environmental Land Management Scheme.
We have undertaken a pilot to map existing habitats and opportunities for habitat res-
toration. This cul-minated in a work-shop drawing on the knowledge of local naturalists to map an ecological network in a sample 6x2km² area of the project.
We have also com-missioned the Up-per Onny Wildlife Group to test ap-proaches to restore verges both for their own scenic and wildlife value and as
a means of increasing con-nectivity between species-rich meadows and other hab-itats. Rob Rowe has led a project using volunteers to cut and remove arisings from sample sections of verges and at others to remove turf and re-seed with native wildflow-ers.
These tests and pilots will continue during the develop-ment phase of the project, hopefully bolstered by addi-tional HLF and Defra fund-ing, and will help shape the final project during the deliv-ery stage.
6 September 2018
Contact details for Andrew Hearle:
Stepping Stones Project Man-ager, National Trust, Carding Mill Valley, Church Stretton, Tel: 01694 725005
‘it was recognised
that we are in the
fortunate position of
having a long history
of partnership
working in the project
area ‘
Page 5
by Andrew Hearle,
Stepping Stones Project Manager
Volunteers clearing & re-
seeding verges
Page 5
Page 6 M ar c hes Mea dow G roup Issue 1
The Committee Richard Keymer Chair
Richard Small Secretary
Paul Simon Treasurer
Siobhan Reedy Membership
Martin Bonathan Publicity
Simon Cooter (NE)
David Poynton
Roger Lambertsen
Rob Rowe
John Brayford
Fiona Gomersall (SWT)
Greater Butterfly
Orchid
S ince it was formed in
2015 the number of
MMG members has
gradually increased
as the group has become
more well known and the
benefits of membership have
become apparent. There are
currently 40 members and
this includes Natural England
and Shropshire Wildlife Trust
which are associate members.
The majority of members
come from within the former
Stiperstones & Corndon Hill
Country Landscape Partner-
ship Scheme area but the
group welcomes members
from other parts of Shrop-
shire and the Welsh borders.
At least 14 of our members
come from outside the former
LPS area. Members can
benefit from the range of ad-
visory and practical services
the group provides, the ma-
jority of which are free to
members. The most popular
for new members is a walk
over survey of their meadows
or grassland provided by the
group’s botanist who will pro-
duce a list of all the identified
species for them. The en-
hancement of member’s
meadows using green hay
sourced from species rich
meadows owned by other
members is another service
which has proved very success-
ful, with recipients reporting an
increase in plant species in the
first year after their meadows
have had green hay strewed on
them. The full range of services
and benefits of membership are
given on our web site and are
also listed on the membership
application form. Annual
membership is £15 per house-
hold and the year starts in May,
when subscriptions are due for
renewal at the AGM. Anyone
joining between January and
May has their subscription ex-
tended until the second AGM
after their date of joining.
Our Membership by Siobhan Reedy
Who are we?
We’re on the Web!
Marchesmeadowgroup.com
Our website has been up and running for a year. Please have a look at it to learn more about the group, access our contact and membership forms or even contribute to the discussion forum.
Page 6 Page 6
We are always looking for new members, so if you, or your friends or neighbours have a meadow that needs managing or you are just interested in the project please get in touch with us. You can do this via our website or by contacting either Richard Keymer, the chair of our committee or our secretary, Richard Small.
Their email addresses are:
