During a recent trip to the Cotswolds I couldn’t help but notice not only the colourful fields of rapeseed but also the vibrant purple strips of lavender. Apart from being on the wrong side of the road I could well have been driving through Provence. We have a tremendous success story about British lavender-growing in August’s issue of Countryman which is on sale this week. Also in the magazine we look at rising kites… the bird variety… and also someone making a living out of sheep poo. Yes, there’s still a lot to celebrate about our countryside.

As windfarms make their way relentlessly across the country – there were around 2400 at the last count with plans for another 400+ – the threat to our bird and bat population becomes larger. Although little work has been carried out in the UK, a six week study on two American farms recorded more than 4,500 bat fatalities from collisions with the turbines. As mentioned before in my blog, attempts at reducing bird collisions with wind turbines have typically involved making the turbine blades more conspicuous. However this clearly wouldn’t work for bats, where hearing is their primary sense. Anecdotal evidence, including that of bats foraging offshore in Sweden avoiding an area around Utgrunden lighthouse, where a powerful radar is in permanent operation, led Aberdeen University scientists Barry Nicholls and Paul Racey to investigate whether a small portable radar system would act as a repellent around windfarms. Experiments over the last two years have shown that the portable system works, with bats moving some 30m away. Further work now needs to be conducted by radar engineers working in conjunction with bat biologists, but in the end someone will need to pay for the implementation of the system…

Since the demise of the Royal Agricultural Show the Great Yorkshire has become the country’s biggest rural event. It started today in fair weather but by the end of the day rain had set in. Princess Anne, pictured here at one of the hound classes, stayed for around three hours. More photos on my Dalesman blog on www.dalesman.co.uk

I had some good news this week as it’s been announced that work has begun to create 2.4 hectares of new reed bed, wet woodland and wet grassland  habitat at the nearest wetland centre to my home. The  Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) are  to provide Martin Mere Wetland Centre in Lancashire, primarily with a new nesting habitat for reed bunting and water vole and other important species of conservation concern such as bearded tit, sedge warbler and reed warbler.  The project involves the excavation and profiling of ditches and ponds within an area that was once part of the Martin Mere - at one time one of the largest lakes and wetlands in the Lancashire plains. Once completed the open channels will be used for visitors to paddle around the reed bed in canoes.  I’m looking forward to this alternative method of bird watching while getting close to wildflowers and insects such as bumble bees, dragonflies and butterflies – but seeing as it’s thirty-odd years since I’ve been in a canoe I’m not sure if I’ll be allowed in one (or even fit in!). The wetland creation will be completed by October with the canoe safari experience opening next spring.

Results of the first sample survey of England’s 14,500 listed places of worship were published last week by English Heritage. It suggests that around ten per cent are in need of urgent major repairs and that two-thirds of congregations say funding major repairs is a constant worry. In response, English Heritage has produced Caring for Places of Worship, a practical guide, DVD and a website www.english-heritage.org.uk/powar.  Dr Simon Thurley of EH says: “We estimate that there are £925 million of outstanding repairs to be done in the next five years. Grants of £40 million a year help but the vast majority of repairs have to come from voluntary giving and have to be undertaken and organised by congregations themselves. The current climate of increased unemployment, low interest rates and reduced returns on invested capital make fundraising a greater challenge than ever. Alongside this, some congregations are finding the responsibility harder to bear unless their whole community comes together to support its most historic and iconic building.” EH will continue to assess places of worship and will add those which are most vulnerable to its Heritage at Risk register, making it easier for their congregations to attract the help they need from heritage organisations, local authorities and the wider community.

Photo shows St Mary’s at Broughton in Yorkshire - early Norman with additions up to the 15th century. The church overlooks the Countryman offices.

I was pleased to see this week that the CPRE are calling for action over the amount of man-made clutter in our countryside. Overhead wires, phone masts, advertising boards and pylons all all cited along with one blight which particularly annoys me – unnecessary road signs. We’ve all seen them… on my trip to work there are  pairs of no-limit road signs, 40mph signs and 30mph signs all within a stretch of less than 200 yards. All can be viewed within the blink of an eye - a total waste of time and expense. The CPRE tell me that on the B3006 in the South Downs there are 300 signs on a seven-mile stretch – that’s almost 45 per mile. Ridiculous.

I’ve often read about sightings of big cats around the countryside but never one this large and in the sky! Hope you can make it out – or is it just me? There were some wonderful cloud formations this morning during my walk over the moors – for a couple more sky photos visit my other blog on www.dalesman.co.uk (Editor’s Week).

It was good to see and hear curlews and lapwings while out on the moors this week. The curlew’s call, even if a little haunting (!) is a welcome sign of early summer around here. What I am surprised at though, for the time of year, is the lack of water. Streams are just a trickle in many places or have disappeared out of sight into their underground channels in the limestone. Even the major rivers seem lower than normal. Many householders in our village are supplied by a small private reservoir and they have been asked to preserve as much water as possible as it is at an unusual low for early June. My house is supplied by a bore hole which has not been known, in living memory, to run dry – touch wood. As I write, the skies are darkening and the forecast is for short showers so maybe some much-needed rain is approaching.
The photo was taken on Friday and shows the dry riverbed in Deepdale in north-west Yorkshire.

Don’t you just love traditional meadows. There just aren’t enough of them about any more… it may be a trick of the memory but I do seem to remember there being a lot more around when I was a youngster. I read somewhere that up to ninety-five per cent of ancient meadows have disappeared because of pesticides and changes to farming methods. So I was pleased to hear from the National Trust that they are creating wildflower meadows and will publicise them more throughout the summer. I’ll be giving further details about this in next month’s Countryman and you can also visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk
You don’t have to be a farmer or landowner to create meadows of course, and my picture shows a local churchyard where an area has been set aside for wildflowers which will be cut for hay later in the year.

The RSPB tell me that the first nesting pair of purple herons have been spotted in Britain. Coincidentally the site is at Dungeness in Kent where the society and other parties are battling against an airport development at nearby Lydd. The striking birds mainly breed in southern Europe and visit the UK in small numbers. But the nesting pair is set to be the first to lay eggs and raise young in the UK. The RSPB has set up round-the-clock protection.  If the eggs hatch successfully then it is hoped to set up a viewing station. The purple heron, closely related to the larger and widespread grey heron, can reach 90cm in height with a wingspan of up to a metre and a half. Meanwhile the RSPB is calling on the government to call in the planning applications for proposed expansion at Lydd Airport.  The local authority, Shepway District Council, controversially consented the applications in the face of a recommendation to refuse given on environmental grounds by the council’s own planning officials.  So far over 10,000 representations have been made to the Government Office of the South East to ensure this decision is scrutinised in a full public inquiry.