The Village Voice: August September 2018, Milford on Sea

WILDLIFE MATTERS ……... to all of us
Welcome to the second Wildlife Matters pages.
In this issue we shall concentrate on telling you
about the conservation management of
Pennington Common.
In June 2011, the Lymington & Pennington Town
Council commenced a ten-year Stewardship
Scheme in conjunction with Natural England.
<strong>The</strong> Council worked closely with the New Forest
National Park Authority’s Land Advice Service,
who provided free expert guidance in making
their application.
<strong>The</strong> Management objectives for Upper
Pennington Common are:
• To restore an open common landscape,
characterised by large glades of acid grassland
and heath with small gorse brakes and
scattered gorse bushes and trees.
• To reduce the cover of gorse in order to restore
further areas of open species-rich grassland,
and purple moor grass-dominated heath.
• To protect historical earth banks.
• To implement a rotational gorse management
plan to encourage bushy regrowth with more
open scrub ‘edge’ habitat favoured by birds
such as Dartford Warbler, Nightingale,
Stonechat, Tree Pipit and Whitethroat. Also to
provide a constant resource of suitably aged
bushes for nesting.
• Create a range of suitable conditions including
wood edge, light scrub cover, scattered trees,
short grazed turf and areas of bare ground to
favour a diversity of heathland birds, including
ground nesting birds such as Nightjar and
Woodlark, invertebrates and reptiles.
Rose, Lesser Bladderwort, Dodder and Matgrass.
Also nationally rare Reddish Buff moth.
Target Species:
Nightjar:
A New Forest speciality and a bird that could be
encouraged to the Pennington Common. Listen
out next May & June for its ‘churring’ nighttime
call.
Pale-heath Violet: Recorded within heath at
Upper Pennington Common
Soft-leaved Sedge: Also recorded on the
Common.
Existing special species on Upper Pennington
Common:
Nationally Scarce Soft-leaved Sedge, Pale Heath
Violet, Wild Chamomile and Upright
Chickweed, with locally uncommon Broadleaved
Cotton Grass, Pale Butterwort, Burnet
8 To advertise call 01590 643969 or e-mail info@lymingtondirectory.co.uk