Peregrine Falcon Recruited
Wildlife Group Activities
Our newest recruit is a Peregrine Falcon – plastic of course but don’t tell the crows! Benches and similar structures that we install in our sites can prove popular, not only with people, but also crows, rooks and starlings with all the associated deposits that come with them. Our Peregrine is intended to deter them. We shall see – but as crows are pretty 
intelligent it is possible that they will realise that although the Peregrine is the fastest bird, even fastest animal, on the planet, believed to achieve speeds of 200 mph when diving, ours is somewhat static, achieving just the odd wobble in high winds.
We had another good conservation day working on the Upper Orchid Field and re-opened a number of the paths which had become overgrown with brambles and Blackthorn. The challenge now is to keep the paths open so if you have occasion to walk there, consider taking a pair of secateurs and snipping away at the odd bit of undergrowth. Hopefully, the contractor will have been able to cut the field by the time you read this but access has proved a bit of a problem with the takeover of Cemex.
Waitrose have again come up with a donation to Wildlife Group funds, for which we are most grateful. Even before Covid, applying for grants was becoming harder as funding bodies increasingly favoured larger organisations and those living in deprived areas. For example the much-publicised Local Places for Nature capital grant starts at £10,000 and the Biffa landfill tax refund at £5,000. The Small Grants scheme is ‘currently closed to applicants’. Community Packages for Nature offered by the Welsh Government must be ‘located in areas of high physical environment deprivation with limited access to nature’.
We are doing particularly well for apples this year as our trees start to mature with the Welsh Orchard producing an abundance. An apple-tasting session found that Cissy came out top closely followed by Afal Wern. Equal third were Machen, St Cecilia and Pig Aderyn. Cissy dates back to the 18th century. It was raised by a Mr Tamplin from the Malpas area who called the apple after his sister. The Elizabethan Orchard has produced its first Walnuts and Figs. Work on the Bee Lod Glade is progressing with the planting of Escallonia, Eucryphia, Euonymous, Gipsywort, Evening Primrose and Purple Loosestrife. Planting containers have been constructed out of recycled timber. A 100+ tree hedgerow from the Woodland Trust is due for delivery during November.