Newsletter April-July 2022
Hello! I’ve been sending regular newsletters to volunteers for several years now – and you can now read each newsletter right here! Since I last wrote, we’ve been out on the Towans another 13 times, delivering 414 hours of work as well enjoying two extremely informative archaeology walks on Godrevy Warren and some bird-watching along the Hayle Estuary.
Most of our work continued the usual winter activity of scrub and non-native species reduction, but we also really enjoyed making three benches on Gwithian Green, using materials up-cycled from the site – see picture below.
Dorothy, Lois and Kathy enjoying the view across Gwithian Green from one of our new benches.
Spring having now arrived, our attached spring/summer programme contains more events looking at improving our wildlife-spotting and recording skills, as well as beach cleaning – many thanks to Paul for putting that programme together.
The first of the Dynamic Dunescapes identification courses was fully booked, which is very encouraging. Details of the next batch appear below. As usual, please contact me to book a place – and don’t delay, as they are popular! Our hope is that at least some people coming on these will feel inspired to start up some longer-term wildlife recording in the Towans, but there is no obligation…! I can certainly recommend Derek and Sally from Budding Nature as excellent tutors. See also www.buddingnature.co.uk
We’ve just started a Friends of the Towans Art Club, led by Hilary Gibson, a talented local artist and tutor who is one of the FOTT trustees. It’s early days obviously, but our overall aim is to try to use art as a way to reach out to a new ‘Towans audience’.
I’ve tried to simplify the list of events (see Events page), firstly giving less information, meaning that you HAVE to contact me to find out more and book, but secondly as it’s getting quite lengthy, I didn’t want it to seem bewildering! it’s great that there is so much activity going on! I may well be able to add in some extra dates, especially for the popular events such as the botany and archaeology walks, so I will maintain a waiting list and try to meet demand if leaders are available. I will send additional emails around about this as time goes on.
Please also note the Bioblitz in June. We hope to make this a fun event as well as an excellent opportunity for FOTT publicity, so again, more detail will be sent around nearer the time. We may well include having a stall or two out on the Towans, selling who knows what and chatting with people – watch this space!
As some of you know, I’ve recently had a few local schools make visits to the Towans, and it’s lovely to report that two of them are planning to make weekly visits from next term. This will be such a benefit to the children and staff, to be out and about in such a wildlife-rich landscape on their doorstep. Their knowledge and enthusiasm is already amazing!
Thank you to those who responded to me last time regarding doing some patrolling this summer. I haven’t really progressed the idea yet, but will get in touch again soon – and if anyone else wants to get involved, just email me. The idea was just to increase our visible presence out and about on the Towans (ie wearing FOTT hi-viz!), litter-picking and being available to answer any questions/ spot any developing issues such as overnight camping. I’m not trying to seek confrontation, but rather to demonstrate that there is a group of local people who care about the area – and therefore ‘so should they’!
As always, I will sprinkle in some new dates and tasks as-and-when. Thanks for your continued work and company, and I hope to work with you again very soon.
Martin Rule, Towans Ranger
07854 123877
