SUSTAINABILITY

AROUND THE REGIONS
Isle of Wight
Newtown Ranges
11
Hoopoe a rare visitor to Newtown Ranges © Barry Angell
A great year here on the Island, with
bookings for Jersey Camp and the
Training Area up on last year and some
62 units using the Camp facility and 76%
weekend usage across the board. Once
again there is an increase in bookings
from the Air and Sea Cadet community
who enjoy their range days.
Birds and mammals nest in the most
peculiar places. This year mice nested
in the cooling fan of the ride-on
mower. After laying up the machine for
the winter we discovered the
abandoned nest before starting up. A
pair of wagtails decided that the solar
PV system on the roof of Jersey Camp
was the place to settle this year, so as
well as providing an income; the
system is affordable accommodation
for wildlife. Robins nested again in the
barn; they are starting to fill up the old
post offce pigeon holes above the
work bench.
2015 is the 40th anniversary of Sanctuary
as well as the Conservation Groups 40th
birthday and we still have founder
members in the group.
Today, most people accept the need for
greater sensitivity towards our
environment and organisations from
supermarkets to local councils have
‘gone green’. This was certainly not the
case in the late 1960s and 1970s when
such thinking was considered a little
eccentric, the preserve of bearded
individuals who wore sandals. However,
one of the early, somewhat unlikely,
clean-shaven environmental pioneers
was Lt Col Christopher Norman Clayden
MBE. Norman and his wife Jean were the
forerunners in conservation within the
MOD and the original editors of the
Sanctuary; they took a keen interest in
our Conservation Group on the Island.
Norman retired in 1986 but maintained
his interest in wildlife generally, and birds
in particular. Of all the conservation areas
in the nation, Newtown was his favourite.
A frequent visitor to the Island, he often
visited the Range. He died in December
2003. On July 13th 2004 his ashes were
interned near Clayden Pond. A memorial
seat was placed nearby. Jean and her
family come every summer to pay their
respects and picnic by the pond.
We are still commemorating WWI this
year, especially the Gallipoli Campaign.
Many a soldier including our local
volunteer force the Isle of Wight Rifles
fired on our ranges in preparation before
deployment. The IOW Rifles suffered
many casualties in Gallipoli. To relieve the
boredom of working behind the butts
the soldiers just as they do today leave
their mark in the form of graffti. Etched
on the side of one of the target stores is a
good likeness to Kaiser Bill. Sightings are
in abundance; great crested newts, long
and short eared owls, never recorded leaf
minors and fungi discovered by Dr David
Biggs too many to mention. Come to the
Isle of Wight to see our mallishags
(caterpillars if you are not a caulkhead )
they turn into beautiful butterflies here
on the range and what a grand show we
had last year including glanville fritillary.
The crowning glory has to be a hoopoe.
Stuart Hersey and the local Hants and Isle
of Wight Army Cadet Admin Assistant
spotted one on the track leading to the
ranges. This was mentioned to Barry
Angell who managed to photograph the
bird on our Lambsleaze farm a week
later. We believe there have not been
many sightings on the Island.
Jersey Camp hosted a seminar
sponsored by the local council; the
subject was Area of Outstanding Natural
Beauty (AONB), 75% of the Island falls into
AONB including us at Newtown Range. A
successful day, I gave a talk on what goes
on here including conservation, followed
by a tour of the range area.
A very proactive conservation group
AGM in November resulted in an
experiment to change the cutting
regime of the range meadow. Hebridean
sheep on loan from the National Trust
were introduced for winter grazing at the
end of November. This is the first time
sheep have grazed the meadow in living
memory. We await a botanical survey of
the meadow before committing to a
new regime or continuing with the
current practice.
All in all another good and interesting
year, full of surprises and events to keep
us actively involved in what must be one
of the best sites in the UK. Well we would
say that wouldn’t we…
Maj (Retd) Dave Maidment
Range Offcer
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Sanctuary 44 • 2015