Wild About Gwent April 2012.pdf - Gwent Wildlife Trust

NEWS IN BRIEF
Trevor Evans MBE
Warbler Arrives
Just in Time for
Six Nations
The common yellowthroat, with its deep
yellow chest and a black mask about
its head is a familiar sight to many
birdwatchers … in Florida.
So just hours after someone walking
their dog on a February morning
spotted one in a Rhiwderin hedgerow
and posted images online, hundreds
of birdwatchers from all over the UK
flocked to the scene with their cameras
and binoculars.
Continued from page 1
T: I had intended to for a long time but
could not embark on the project until I
retired in 1984. Then I held meetings, wrote
letters and encouraged recording in every
tetrad (2km by 2km square) in the vice
county. We had an annual meeting of local
botanists, and I led many field meetings
and sent out identification tips for difficult
plants. I entered all the data I received from
volunteers onto master cards – this was
before computers.
There was a delay when my wife, Thelma,
sadly died of a brain tumour in 1999 after a
long illness, and it took me many months to
feel motivated again. Eventually, the atlas
was published in 2007.
S: When did you join the Gwent Wildlife
Trust?
T: It must have been in the late 1960s. I
was Chairman of GWT’s Scientific Sub-
Committee for many years with [Secretary]
Beatrix Broadfoot, Patrick Humphreys, cofounder
of the Trust, and Barbara Thorne
who initiated the purchase of Magor Marsh.
S: What changes have you seen in
Monmouthshire in your lifetime?
T: The loss of flower-rich fields and their
replacement with large monocultures has
had a major impact. Peoples’ obsession
with tidiness in the town and countryside
has destroyed much of interest. Chepstow
Cemetery used to have hundreds of
Autumn Ladies Tresses but now these are
mown off to make the grass look tidy and
flower beds have extended into the rich
turf.
Many of the broad-leaved woodlands that
I knew in my youth, such as The Minnetts
(now Slade Woods) and Hardwick Wood
where I recorded three hundred species
of plant including many Greater Butterfly
Orchids, were felled and conifers planted
instead. This afforestation destroyed many
woods and their flora.
I used to see flooding on the Gwent
Levels and high water levels in the reens
[the drainage ditches that criss-cross
the wetlands]. Now the sea wall and
pump drainage has destroyed former rich
habitats.
S: Finally, what do you feel are the main
issues facing conservation in the UK and
globally?
T: The growth of the human population
has to be curbed. We live in a world with
finite resources and must live more simply.
The world will suffer shortages of water,
food, housing and work. This is already
happening.
An abridged version of Trevor’s interview
– for the full transcript, please visit our
website – www.gwentwildlife.org.
New Airfield Opens
Lapwings in flight (Scott Grant Crichton)
Common yellowthroat
(Wolfgang Wander)
Scott Grant Crichton, of Llanvihangel
Crucorney, has been receiving some unusual
company this year.
Enormous flocks of lapwings have made a
field near his home their personal Heathrow.
Scott estimates the flock to be possibly
three hundred birds when normally he
might see thirty or forty at a time.
GWENT WILDLIFE TRUST x WILD ABOUT GWENT