Nick Tomalin, Site Manager of RSPB Franchises Lodge, reveals how his love for birds started at an early age (causing some embarrassment during his teenage years!), and his excitement to manage our first reserve in the New Forest for wildlife and for people
When I was about eight years old I remember getting the latest magazine from the Young Ornithologists Club (YOC), of which I was a member. Aged eight, I hadn’t fully grasped the concept of cool, though I doubt the YOC was an organisation that represented trendiness for its young members. Inside the magazine I was delighted to find a competition to design a nature reserve. There was a map, a budget, and various habitat options that the novice reserve designer could purchase and place around the site as desired. I can’t remember what was at my reserve, nor did I win the competition, but it did establish in my mind the concept of managing habitats for particular species.
Photo 1: A young Nick Tomalin, enjoying his favorite pastime!
Through my teenage years I kept my birdwatching hobby to myself as I became more self-aware and the opinions of my peers mattered more than my interest in birds. Indeed the mere phrase ‘interest in birds’ was usually willingly misconstrued with a massive lack of subtlety! I found the two were largely mutually exclusive. Very few of my teenage crushes yearned for a boyfriend who could boast keeping a checklist of birds seen in the UK. But I loved biology, soaked up natural history programmes, and decided to study zoology at University. Some of the students had a passing interest in the subject, but most went on to become teachers or accountants. I wanted more, and so I continued my environmental studies by taking a Masters degree. Here I was among my kind! A troop of like-minded naturalists, sharing their passion for the great outdoors, revelling in the knowledge and understanding of the world around them. We studied species and habitats, genetics, population dynamics, and conservation biology. On Wednesdays we did practical management: felling trees, doing surveys, and ringing birds.
Photo 2: Nick Tomalin enjoying the great outdoors!
I knew this was the career path for me, and when I left I took all that I had learned and found myself a job with the RSPB. For over ten years I have been conserving farmland birds on species recovery projects, working with farmer and landowners to implement suitable habitat management on their holding to encourage farmland birds, notably the cirl bunting and stone-curlew. Now a new opportunity has presented itself. The RSPB has just acquired land in the New Forest, RSPB Franchises Lodge nature reserve, and I have been charged with setting it up! I am quite certain that it more complicated than having a map and a budget and a few management options, but this is hugely exciting nevertheless.
Photo 3: Stone curlew by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com) Photo 4: Cirl bunting by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
The new reserve contains 386ha of woodland, including wood pasture, broadleaved woodland and plantation forestry, as well as some wet mires and some grassland. The area has been mostly private for many years, and so we don’t really know much about what is there yet. We know that it contains a good woodland bird assemblage, and the area is known to be botanically interesting, including an internationally important lichen community. So we know what could or should be there, and hope to carry out surveys to help us determine appropriate management in due course. Only then will we be able to start contemplating which management options to select and where to put them on the map.
Photo 5: RSPB Franchises Lodge by Clare Elcoate
But the map is where the real interest lies. Aerial photography from the 1950s shows us where certain habitats like heathland used to be found, and gives us clues as to what could be restored or recreated in time. The reserve connects patches of protected land. There are certain species that remain in these isolated areas that could be linked to one another through suitable habitat management on the site. Management of neighbouring areas by other organisations will allow us to further that impact, by sharing knowledge and resources, and achieving together what none of us could do in isolation. This landscape-scale approach to conservation gives us a huge opportunity to make a significant difference to conservation, recreation and economic objectives within the New Forest National Park. All in good time.
Photo 6: Wood sorrell at RSPB Franchises Wood by Terry Bagley
For now I will have to be patient, as will you! The site has limited access currently with only a couple of public footpaths crossing it. There is no car park and no toilets, and for the short-term at least there will be no facilities on site. Firstly we need to understand the place, to learn where the key areas are for certain species and habitats, and to figure out how to unlock its potential. Although we want people to enjoy it, we will not be encouraging people to visit beyond the rights of way until we know more about the impact of those visitors on the wildlife and the local community.
So watch this space! I hope to have more exciting news and discoveries as we get onto the site and start to explore and find those hidden wildlife treasures. I think my eight year old self would think this is pretty cool! Keep up-to-date with news about RSPB Franchises Lodge and opportunities to help by following this blog, our Facebook page here, and our Twitter feed @RSPBSouthWest
Photo 7: RSPB Franchises Wood by Terry Bagley