Some Aspects of Nature Conservation in Suffolk

TRANSACTIONS SOME ASPECTS OF NATURE CONSERVATION IN SUFFOLK F. W.

SIMPSON

THE most important issue confronting naturalists today is undoubtedly conservation. We are urged to protect our wild life yet few naturalists in the County really grasp the urgency of the Situation or engage in positive work for conservation of our vanishing heritage.

The old pattem of the Suffolk we once knew and loved is being swept away: its trees, hedges, woods and copses, green lanes, footpaths, old meadows, flowery banks, and byways. Already in many areas the last primroses, cowslips, and violets have been grubbed-up. Birds, having lost their habitats, have gone elsewhere. Frogs and toads are becoming scarce in some places, and many of our lesser creatures have vanished from the Suffolk scene By the year 2000 there will probably still be some pockets of a trampled countryside, the plantations of the Forestry Commission, and also a number of rather worn-out nature reserves.

Several organisations and societies exist for preservation of the countryside. It was through the efforts of the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves (founded in 1912) that all the County Naturalists' Trusts were established. The Nature Conservancy has acquired areas as permanent Nature Reserves in buftolk at Cavenham and Westleton Heaths and part of Orford Beach The Conservancy also helps in the protection of Sites of special Scientific Interest. These sites are notified to the local planning authorities. In theory no developments, except agriculture and forestry, are allowed on such sites without the consent ot the planning authorities and the Conservancy. This arrangement does not always work. Several of the sites have already been lost or damaged. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has reserves at Minsmere and Havergate Island. The National 1 rust holds a small property at Kyson Point, near Woodbridge, once attractive but now terribly overrun and useless as a nature reserve. The National Trust has an interest in Ickworth Park, but in spite of the Trust's aims, many fine trees and other natural Vegetation have been removed in recent years. The Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Suffolk Preservation รถociety help with advice and by raising objections to some developments.

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Trust Deeds and N e e d s The Suffolk Naturalists' Trust has secured areas of ancient fen at Lopham (Norfolk) and Redgrave. For many years I had been stressing the importance of a reserve in this area. These reserves must be carefully watched and controlled, for numbers of plants are still being dug up and flowers removed. The vandals are mainly naturalists, teachers, students, gardeners, and trippers.

The Suffolk Trust needs the fĂźllest support if it is to acquire further reserves. To obtain control of all sites valuable as habitats of species threatened with extinction will be impossible. The majority are only small, a number under ten acres. I put forward a suggestion that any reader of this article who has the means might be prepared to "donate" a reserve for posterity.

So far no local authorities in SufTolk have acquired land or set up Nature Reserves as they can under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949. Councils provide public parks, but these are of little value as reserves. When I was a schoolboy there were cowslips and buttercups even in Christchurch Park, Ipswich. Shrubberies and other cover are being systematically removed from the Ipswich Parks. Holywells Park would have made an ideal " T o w n " reserve when first acquired. Now very little remains of its original charm. Cauldwell Hall grounds, owned by our late member, Mr. L. H. Vulliamy, were a small reserve with its crag springs, ponds, and natural Vegetation including some lovely trees. This was part of the Spring Road area before the expansion of the Town about 1850. The crag springs once supplied the old Town with much of its water. Now there are houses on the site, the trees have been cut down, the ponds drained and the springs flow into the Town's sewers.

Modern machines can destroy in a few days scenes that have existed for centuries. Let me give an example. One afternoon in June, 1965, I went to a small out-of-the-way wood a few miles from Stowmarket. Twice a year, for nearly thirty years, I had gone to this spot, in April to see Primula elatior flourishing in the greatest profusion; in June to see the wild Orchids, seven species having been found there. As I made my way up the first ridge of one valley, the wood being hidden from view on the slope of another Valley about a mile away, I smelt burning. I feared the worst although I could hear nothing until I reached the top of the ridge and then I heard the sound of bulldozers at work in the distance. A dreadful sight met my eyes: the fallen trees, the fires, the ugly monster machines. All that had been a peaceful and beautiful scene was going. Being June, the birds had nests, with eggs or young; they were all being destroyed, willow-wren, chiffchaff, whitethroat, nightingale, turtle-dove, and others. This is not an isolated example of cruelty in the nesting season. Heathland and other scrub is often deliberately burnt off, before

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ploughing. All grants for ploughing and reclamation should be withheld if any work is carried out during certain periods.

Changes in the established pattern of the countryside began during the Second World War, when extensive sites were rapidly cleared of their trees, hedges and buildings in the construction of aerodromes and camps. The majority of such sites have been restored to farming. They have been left open and bare, except for some planting of poplars and willows in a few instances.

Tree Planting Our native species of trees are nowadays seldom planted.

Foreign poplars, willows, and conifers may grow faster, but they cannot restore the Suffolk scene. A most vigorous tree planting Programme, of indigenous species such as oak, ash, and elm, is urgently needed to make good the enormous losses in recent years.

Not only do trees and hedges help to preserve a landscape or the beauty of a town or village, but they serve such useful functions as preventing soil erosion, purifying the atmosphere and maintaining a balance of conditions beneficial to the health of both men and animals and also to plant growth.

There are a number of Tree Preservation Orders in the county.

Not all have proved effective. Sometimes conditions are imposed before trees can be felled, especially where a Preservation Order extends over an area of high landscape value, as at Freston and Woolverstone on the banks of the Orwell. Seven years ago hundreds of trees were felled in this area, but in spite of an agreement no new trees have so far been planted.

Woods and plantations robbed of their large trees have been left semi-derelict.

(Fortunately the fine avenue of copper beeches in Freston was not felled.)

Efforts made during the last few years by the County Councils to plant trees have been limited and the results disappointing.

Many of the trees have proved unsuitable for the conditions of the Suftolk countryside and have died. In one instance a local Society gave twelve trees. These were planted at Iken in 1961, but they were not the correct species intended by the Society, and all havt died or been destroyed.

The simplest, cheapest, and most effective tree planting scheme would be to raise trees from seeds planted in school gardens and then to get the children to plant them out at various spots and to look after them. Thousands of English oaks, the best and most hardy species, could be raised from acorns collected each autumn.

Other native species which can be raised from seed are ash, beech, hornbeam, field maple, mountain ash, holly, crab apple, and hawthorn (to grow into Standards). Alternatively, young trees could be purchased fairly cheaply from the Forestry Commission.

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I must stress that an extremely large number of trees will have to be planted if we are to leave wayside trees for the benefit and admiration of future generations. I have made counts of felled trees in various regions, and I find that between Ipswich and Sudbury, via Hadleigh, nearly 1,000 wayside trees have gone.

Only a few were past their prime or dangerous, most were quite young trees, between twenty and fifty years old.

Rare Flora Imperilied Hazards affecting the habitats of rare flora are increasing. Even designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest are far from safe.

Two recent instances may be cited. The first concerned a strip of beach at Shingle Street. This was a very important habitat, the Suffolk headquarters of Crithmum maritimum and other scarce flora. News reached me that the site was endangered by the excavation of a new ditch and embankment. I immediately got into touch with the Nature Conservancy and was informed that no notification of the work had been received as should have been the case. Work continued and the entire colony of Crithmum was destroyed. This could have been avoided with a little co-operation and goodwill by siting the ditch and bank a few yards to the west.

This plant is probably now extinct in Suffolk. The last specimen at Felixstowe Ferry was roughly dug up by members of a Natural History Society and exhibited during the first National Nature Week in Ipswich in 1961. Other uncommon Suffolk plants were removed from their habitats and exhibited that week. They were not returned to their correct sites.

Species of plant until recently plentiful or locally abundant have become rare and will soon be extinct in Suffolk. Luzula forsten was formerly found in two habitats in the county, one at Hadleigh Heath. This site was a fairly shady roadside bank, about one hundred yards in length. There was a line of oaks. This habitat, when I first discovered it in 1930, puzzled me. Why should this semi-woodland species occur only along this Stretch of bank and not along neighbouring banks where conditions appeared to be indentical? Checking up with old maps showed that the bank in question marked the boundary of a former wood (Pott's Wood), which was probably cut down and cleared in the mid-nineteenth Century. Survival of this colony was dependent upon the existence of the line of oaks. The trees were felled and within a year all the plants had died. The other site is also a shady hedgebank and verge, at Polstead. Until about 1956 Luzula forsteri was to be seen there in some abundance, but the number of plants has been steadily declining. In the Spring of 1964 I could find only three poor-looking specimens. This loss is attributable to three main causes: (1) spraying of crops in fields by the hedgebank; (2) the wrong method of hedge-cutting,

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stubbing everything down and not leaving the right amount of shade; (3) motorists driving on to the verge, making conditions unsuitable for interesting plants to survive.

Many old chalk quarries, which contained much of interest to the botanist and naturalists generally, are being spoilt and used as rubbish tips. The only known site in East Suffolk, on the edge of a small chalk pit, of Hippocrepis comosa, which I had watched over for many seasons, has been destroyed. A small colony of the rare Gentianella amarella just survives in its last East Suffolk habitat, another chalk quarry.

The majority of our wild Orchids are disappearing. Aceras anthropophorum could at one time be found in fair numbers in a few sites in East and West Suffolk. In some favourable seasons, before the Second World War, visiting all its known habitats I counted up to 500 spikes. In 1965 only four miserable spikes could be found. As many Orchids are monocarpic, i.e., they flower once and then die, it is important that the flower spikes be left to produce seed. Seedlings take several years to reach flowering size. Information on sites should not be revealed indiscriminately.

Our few insectivorous plants, the Sundews and Butterworts, are in constant danger of being removed from their limited sites by students, teachers, and gardeners. These plants receive special mention in textbooks on botany and I am often pestered for information on sites where they can be collected. They have already become extinct in several places where I once knew them.

We cannot afford to have the few remaining habitats despoiled.

Shrinking Heritage Many wild flowers that are beautiful and uncommon have been endangered by over-picking and uprooting. Here is an example.

Pulsatilla vulgaris was fairly plentiful in one locality, just outside the County. When I visited the site in 1947 I went over the whole area and counted all the plants I could find. There were then 452, flowering and non-flowering. With the increase of motoring more week-end trippers and naturalists invade the area. Not only have practically all the flowers been regularly picked, but the roots have been pulled or dug up. Pulsatilla vulgaris is certain to die out in this locality. A short time ago members of an adjacent County Naturalists' Society were shown the now rare Breckland Veronica spicata. Next day some returned and were caught on the site digging up the few remaining plants.

I remember Hottonia palustris being common in the River Gipping, its tributaries, and adjacent ponds and ditches. Nowadays one never sees this lovely water violet in the Ipswich district, ponds and ditches having been either filled up with rubbish or

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drained and dried up. Another water plant fast becoming scarce is Butomus umbellatus, Flowering Rush.

Among adverse factors mention must be made of poisonous sprays. These, and especially "selective weedkillers", do a great deal of harm to our flora, directly and indirectly. The chemicals used often persist so long that plants cannot recover, and the effect of drift sprays, particularly if spraying is carried out from the air or if there be a wind, can sometimes be observed considerable distances from the field being treated.

Further, the burning of stubble, when it gets out of control, may well involve destruction of hedges and other Vegetation. In 1964, the finest colony of Ruscus aculeatus in Suffolk, at Stutton Ness (incidentally a Site of Special Scientific Interest) was very badly damaged owing to a stubble fire spreading.

Bird Life Changes Fewer nesting sites are available every year, with loss of suitable feeding territory for many species. Cuckoos calling from dawn to dusk were once commonplace. They have gone from many sites where they were numerous up to ten years ago. No longer can birds such as the yellow-hammer be heard singing every few yards along our Suffolk roads and byways. The stone curlew, once as common over some of our Eastern heaths as it was over the Brecks, has almost vanished as the heaths have been ploughed up or afforested.

Education and the Wild Birds Protection Acts have had but a limited effect. Egg collectors are still very active and boys go egg collecting almost as much as was the case over thirty-five years ago when I first became acquainted with the habits of these ruthless little terrors. Now there are fewer nests to rob and a decrease in the number of gamekeepers to keep egging boys in check. Not all 'keepers are kindly disposed to birds; on some estates, pole, gin and other traps and snares are still in use.

As for our Suffolk mammals, the majority of species are expected to survive in reduced numbers. The red squirrel will be ousted by the Coming of the grey. The dormouse has been scarce and local for many years. Modern farming practices are likely to make the harvest mouse rarer. Deer will survive and increase in the State Forests, although legal and illegal use of guns take their toll.

Reptiles and amphibians are being fast reduced in numbers. The viper or adder should continue in the Forestry plantations, but the grass snake has entirely disappeared from the places where I used to find it quite abundantly in East Suffolk. The slow worm is now seldom to be seen sunning on dry banks after hibernation.

Frogs have gone completely from many of their former haunts.

Ponds and ditches where I used to find masses of spawn every Spring are perhaps visited now by only a few pairs. After they

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have spawned they migrate over the surrounding meadows, marshes, and pastures.

But suitable sites are lessened by ploughing and draining. (Machine-cut ditch sides are too steep for young frogs to climb, and they fall back into the water and actually drown or die of starvation.)

In recent years the migration of toads during the breeding season has been turned into a carnage on the roads as numbers converge on certain sites. One place where I have watched this migration for about forty years is a section of Melton Hill, near Woodbridge. At one time there were hundreds of toads crossing the road for about a fortnight every Spring to mate and spawn in the dykes near the Deben. There was less traffic when I began my observations. The majority made the crossing successfully.

About five years ago improvements to the road were effected and a high curb added. This barrier has resulted in the virtual extermination of the toad over this route.

Although some entomologists tend to disagree, there has been a very marked decrease in butterflies and other insects especially in the raore highly farmed areas of West Suffolk. Indeed, in some years very few butterflies can be observed where they were formerly plentiful. More butterflies are seen in East SufFolk near the coast, as frequently there may be a considerable influx from the Continent. If it were not for this influx there would now be very few butterflies indeed. There were at least a dozen lovely woods in West Suffolk where the White Admiral used to be abundant: these woods have all been ruined by ruthless felling, or destroyed.

The Purple Emperor was also frequent in several woods near Ipswich, but over-collecting and cutting down of the tall oaks has led to its almost total disappearance. Although the caterpillars feed on Sallow which is still common, the butterflies haunt the tall oaks, and if particular trees are felled they will completely desert a wood.

Over-collecting of several other attractive species, especially the Fritillaries, has no doubt led to their present scarcity. Some collectors continue to take every specimen from a particular habitat.

During the Summer one seldom hears grasshoppers and crickets as formerly. The habitats they require: old grassy pasture, heaths, wild sunny waysides and banks have gone.

Conclusion Every day the population explosion is bringing new threats to our countryside and its wild life. These will tax the combined efforts of naturalists and preservationists. They, and indeed all who value our Suffolk heritage, must be vigilant and prompt in reporting any harmful changes that may be threatened. Otherwise, the little that remains will be lost. Let Naturalists take heed.