Newtown bird nesting site
If you’re over at Newtown birdwatching at the end of February, you might spy our rangers from the Seabrooke hide. At the end of each winter, they take a boat out to the islands in front of the hide and strim back the grass. In doing so, they create a more inviting habitat for birds who dislike nesting in long grass, such as the Black-headed gull and Mediterranean gull.
Scrub clearance
Up on the downs, we’re also helping nature in the winter. Over the last 50 years in the UK we’ve lost 97% of our wildlife-rich grassland. On the Island, scrub growth has squeezed the scarce and important chalk wildlife into a narrow strip on the top of the downs. Therefore, before spring arrives, we clear patches of gorse and scrub. This breaks up the scrub, providing more edges for insects and nesting birds, and helps the gorse grow back thick and bushy, perfect for them to hide in. It also increases diversity, by ensuring that both grassland and small scrub patches are available for insects, birds and mammals that prefer different environments.
We also ‘top over’ (cut back) areas of brambles and other scrub that have colonised previously cleared areas. This doesn’t expose the ground as pulling them out would, and encourages the spread of grasses, suppressing unwanted scrub germination. The cattle and sheep that graze the downs also help with topping over by chewing off any new scrub growth.
Although it is a lengthy process, after several years the minimisation of the scrub by both humans and cattle means that we are gradually returning the downs to the chalk grassland that is such an important habitat for rare and threatened species.