Hurst Meadows News
Spring has certainly arrived in Hurst Meadows. Chaffinches, skylarks, song thrushes and many of our other resident and visiting birds have been singing away for the last few weeks, attracting a mate or advertising their territory. We are also seeing the first butterflies f litting about in the sunshine and bats will have come out of hibernation and be visible at dusk.
The range of different habitats the Meadows now provide: from flowering meadow to scrub to hedgerows and woodland provides a rich variety of food and shelter to many species including small mammals and numerous insects.
In the grand scheme of things though, Hurst Meadows is a very small area of countryside and cannot provide everything our local flora and fauna needs on its own. You can really help to build on our good work supporting local wildlife through managing your own garden for nature. There are lots of ideas for how to do this online e.g. on the RSPB website or on programmes such as David Attenborough’s Secret Garden. Key actions are mowing less often, preferably leaving an area of grass uncut from May until September, avoiding using pesticides so our birds have plenty of insects to feed their young, encouraging trees, hedges and climbers and planting pollinator-friendly plants and seeds. If we all do this then we can hopefully leave a rich natural legacy to our children and future residents.
Carpark Charging
The latest update from MSDC is that the proposed parking charges for the Hurstpierpoint carparks have been further delayed and will not be implemented on 1st May as originally planned. As we go to press, no further information regarding any new timetable was available. We continue to press for updates, and these will be circulated via our website and Facebook pages as well as in future Hurst Life editions.
Hurstpierpoint House Martins
In the summer, particularly in the early evening, you may be lucky enough to see groups of house martins hunting for insects over Hurst Meadows and then returning to their nests with food for their chicks. We are fortunate to have a resident group of these lovely birds in the centre of Hurstpierpoint who return every year from migration to breed in our village. A Parish Council Sustainable Communities Grant of Swift leaving its Hurstpierpoint nest box Photo: © Paul Evans £500 was recently awarded to Hurst Rethink towards their house martin nest cups project. House martin numbers nationally are in decline partly because insect numbers have plummeted but also because they are unable to build their distinctive nests on the modern materials that we use on the roof overhangs of our buildings.
Artificial nest cups are designed to be fitted onto suitable eaves in areas where there is already a local house martin colony to assist with successful breeding. In doing this, Hurst Rethink are hoping to build on the success of their Save our Swifts project which successfully improved our numbers of breeding swifts by providing nest boxes. Both species of bird have bred in our village for hundreds of years and add immensely to the character of our locality every summer, so we wish them every success with this new project.
To read the full newsletter, please pick up a copy of May’s Hurst Life or click the images to enlarge them.