I was once asked what my three wishes would be – my first answer was can I have two Mays and no Novembers please? Grossly unfair on a month in which the year crumbles towards its end, but let’s face it we are all pining for the spring!
But we have to face facts we only get one May a year and it’s pretty important to make the most of it. Standing in the darkening green of an English woodland listening to the liquid melancholy of nightingales in full song is one of those elemental moments that I have to experience each spring. But for too many of us it is getting harder as the careless rapture of nightingales quietens as their numbers fall.
Portrait of a nightingale in full song. Photo credit Mark Leitch
In Kent on the Hoo Peninsula is the largest single population of nightingales at one site – Lodge Hill. And it is under threat. This blog and others have tracked the plans for 5000 houses over several years most recently here.
But Lodge Hill’s nightingales have many friends and last week we hosted a visit by local MP Kelly Tolhurst – who has recently agreed to be our nightingale Species Champion.
Kelly Tolhurst MP and RSPB Nightingale Species Champion. Photo credit Eliza Saunders
The Species Champions initiative is a partnership project led by seven wildlife NGOs including the RSPB, Plantlife, Buglife and Butterfly Conservation. The scheme recruits MPs to be champions for threatened species that are found in their constituencies. So far 27 MPs have become champions for a wide variety of species from the Tansy Beetle to the Barn Owl. The hope is that MPs will use their role to gain publicity for the plight of these species, raise issues of concern in parliament and work with NGOs to support conservation projects in their local area.
Kelly visited our nature reserve at Northward Hill, not far from Lodge Hill, last week and has written about it on her blog. I’m delighted to include her kind words here.
“On Thursday evening I joined members and representatives of the RSPB at RSPB Northwood Hill to listen to local nightingales’ song following their return from a winter in Africa. Recently I had the pleasure and honour of becoming one of the RSPB’s Nightingale Species Champion, given the importance of our local habitat to their existence and which is sadly under threat. In late 2015, the species was listed as Critically Endangered on the UK Red List meaning now more than ever greater protection is needed.
The RSPB have long done a fantastic job of maintaining these habitats for many bird species around Medway. Our area is vital to countless bird who use our local woodlands and marshes for breeding and nesting, and without RSPB’s tireless support we would noticeably see a negative difference in sights and sounds we have loved since a young age.
I was delighted that the nightingales were indeed in full song, showing to us all their ability to flourish in the face of much local adversity. It has been proposed that areas across the Hoo Peninsula, such as the protected nightingale site at Lodge Hill, will be the subject of significant development, which will pose major environmental challenges to habitats needed by nightingales and other species alike.
While it is clear that housing developments are necessary, I dispute the plans for 5000 homes at Lodge Hill where there would be a significant impact on our natural environment and local infrastructure. Medway is a densely populated urban area, but we are still lucky to have some amazing pockets of tranquil countryside with an abundance of wildlife. It would be devastating for Medway to lose special sites like these; once they are gone we cannot get them back!
I will continue to urge both our local and national government to take effective action to reduce proposed housing numbers to a sustainable level while committing to improving protections of our local green spaces.”
Lodge Hill is a special place and we will be continuing our long-running campaign to save the woods and grassland and the wildlife that lives there – including, of course the nightingales. Northward Hill is one of our oldest nature reserves and is just part of the commitment we have made to the Hoo Peninsula and Medway over many years. Our nature reserves and campaigns to save the wildlife of Medway pay tribute to the richness of the area for nature and simply reinforce our commitment to strive to save Lodge Hill.
At the beginning of this blog I gave you one of my three wishes - my second is to see a world in which our finest wildlife sites - including Lodge Hill - are effectively protected. My third wish? Well lets keep that for another blog.
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