Newsletter Autumn 2006

Contents

Listen to the evening songs

One of the pleasant things to do at this time of the year is to walk in the copse on a warm sunny evening to listen to the sounds around you. The bird calls are delightful.

We have been intrigued by the disappearing ducks. A while back a dozen or so ducklings appeared overnight on Willow Pond, stayed for one or two nights, then walked to Brandy Hole Pond, only to disappear completely the next day. Where did they go to? Perhaps they knew that the pond would dry up. The water level in all our ponds is determined by the water table, which is now at the lowest we have ever seen it. We will shortly need to remove most of the fish from Brandy Hole Pond by netting.

Unfortunately we still suffer from occasional vandalism. The dog bin on the Centurion Way crossing was broken off and had to be replaced. The platform at Brandy Hole Pond was badly damaged and had to be repaired, and the nearby leaflet box post which was pulled up and thrown into the pond has been replaced with a metal post.

The three entrances at the parking area need some attention. The northerly one has collapsed and we have taken the opportunity to close it off and continue the hedge along the roadside, which is kept in such good condition by the “Crumblies”.

The Wednesday working group have been active throughout the year on pond and woodland maintenance. A dipping platform has been built at Cops Pond, following our very successful pond dipping event. Repair and maintenance of paths steps and entrances will continue, and management of the glades to encourage butterflies.

In response to demand we intend to add more discreetly placed seats for the benefit of visitors as we have done in the glade area.

The CDC has been asked to install “cycle path” signs each end of the path linking Centurion Way with the Lane.

We understand that at long last the WSCC has finally conceded to our request for a safe pedestrian access to the Copse from Summersdale and proposes to start work to complete the footpath along Brandy Hole Lane in October. Unfortunately we have not been able to persuade WSCC that a 30mph speed limit is necessary along the parking area. So care is still needed when visiting the Copse and alighting from cars.

Jim Ayling, Task Leader

The call of the Copse

It hasn’t got to be every Wednesday afternoon, though that’s the current “tradition “for a handful of conservationists. It hasn’t got to be “greybeard” men, for anyone with energy and commonsense, given a little guidance and a pair of loppers, can help keep paths clear of undergrowth and litter. It has got to be done in a reasonably regular, measured way – the woodland nurture that maintains nature just the right side of “civilised” without losing all its innate wild beauty.

As Lord Kitchener would say: “Your community’s copse needs you!”

Terry Timblick

A place of history and much modern interest

Brandy Hole Copse includes the woodland known as East Broyle Copse and part of the Chichester Entrenchment System. This dyke, now registered as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, is believed to have been constructed during the Iron Age.

The Copse occupies some 15 acres of oak and coppiced chestnut woodland along the south side of Brandy Hole Lane and is partly owned by the District Council, with the remainder leased from two local landowners. There are five ponds and some examples of the remaining World War II antitank defences still in position.

The names Brandy Hole Lane and Brandy Hole Pond, at the eastern end of the site, come from the brandy casks discovered in a cave when the Chichester to Midhurst branch of the London Brighton & South Coast railway line was built in 1881. This line, which passes through the Copse, was last used in 1991 for transporting gravel. It was then purchased by West Sussex County Council and opened in 1995 as a pedestrian and cycle path known as Centurion Way.

There are references on early maps to “Roman” and “Smugglers” caves radiating from the dyke. The “Roman” caves were probably natural holes in the ground caused by a subsidence when rain leaches out the sand from the gravel, leaving a vertical hole, a common feature in the area. In 1841 a cave was discovered that extended for 158 feet northwards under the gravel. In it were bottles dating from 150 years earlier. This may have been the “Smugglers” cave indicated on the 1912 map. In 1795 the Chichester diarist John Marsh records how the Company of Volunteers, to which he belonged, marched from the Council House to the Broyle where they practised with their muskets in a disused gravel pit. This may well be the gravel pit that can still be seen in the Copse.

The great storm of October 1987 swept across southern England in a swathe from the Isle of Wight to the Wash and destroyed millions of mature trees. Many of the trees in what is now Brandy Hole Copse were blown down, causing extensive damage to the banks of the dyke system. Chichester District Council removed most of the fallen trees and appealed for a group of volunteers to manage this area of woodland and maintain it for public use and recreation.

The following October at a well-attended public meeting, chaired by Helen Carlton, the Brandy Hole Copse Conservation Group was formed. I was the chairman and committee members were Helen Carlton, Jim Morris, Peter Sykes, Henrietta and Hugh Wingfield-Hayes, Tony Johnson and Len Eyles. Advice was sought from the Sussex Wildlife Trust, the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers and the West Sussex County Council.

With the help of a financial grant from Chichester District Council, and the agreement of the landowners, a small working party was set up to clear the undergrowth and begin a programme of conservation recommended by the SWT Management Plan.

The first major task was to erect a post and rail fence for 300 yards along the roadside boundary of the Copse. This was done in one day by a platoon of soldiers from the Royal Military Police Roussillon Barracks as a local community project. They also cleared the ground and laid a footpath along the base of the dyke, and excavated the wetland areas at the western end to create Willow Pond and Cops Pond, which was named in recognition of their hard work.

Donations from Summersdale Residents Association and BHCCG enabled the WSCC in 1997 to purchase the privately-owned strip of land on the south side of Brandy Hole Pond for a public right of way, thereby finally allowing free access to the Copse from Bristol Gardens.

The BHCCG volunteers managed the copse for 12 years until August 2001 when Chichester District Council designated the Copse as its first Local Nature Reserve and established a Management Board. The first meeting of the board in November 2001 was chaired by Barry Fletcher. Members represented various groups who had an interest in the Copse and an initial Management Plan was drawn up to establish a future programme of tasks. At a ceremony in the Copse on in May 2002 English Nature presented a plaque to the Chairman of the District Council to mark the establishment of the Copse as a Local Nature Reserve. With the aid of a grant from English Heritage, CDC provided three large oak lectern frames with information panels, placed at strategic points. BHCCG has installed stiles at various access points and laid paths and built flights of steps for visitors’ safety. The group has put up many bird, owl and bat boxes and arranged surveys of the bird and insect populations throughout the year, with the help and guidance of the Chichester Natural History Society.

Help over the years has come from the Royal Military Police, Bishop Luffa School sixth form volunteers and the Crumblies, a volunteer group which specialises in hedge-laying and glade clearance tasks. Members of BHCCG carry out most of the work of maintaining the ponds and the woodland with weekly sessions throughout the year.

The Copse is used by local schools for environmental studies and is a safe area for children, walkers and dog owners. Guided walks and illustrated talks are available on request and “The Story of Brandy Hole Copse” is an informative BHCCG publication.

Though there are many access points for pedestrians, sadly the area is unsuitable for wheelchair users. Cycle anchor points are situated at the main entrances but cycling in the Copse is prohibited. There is limited car parking in the lay-by at the western end (pedestrians should take care crossing the derestricted road).

Goldcrest to heron – the Copse is home to 35 species of birds

The birds are perhaps the most obvious natural inhabitants of Brandy Hole – apart from the trees, of course. So far 35 different bird species have been identified in the Copse, and any walk there will bring you into contact with some of them. The most easily recognised are familiar garden birds – blackbird, dunnock, robin and wren.

Song thrushes and mistle thrushes are seen regularly. Blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits can be heard calling amongst the trees. The rarer willow tit can sometimes be seen in the Copse along Brandy Hole Lane and has nested there. The tiny goldcrest may mix with the tits, and can be seen occasionally where there are pine trees.

The noisiest birds in the Copse must be the rooks, in early spring, and the woodpeckers. Great spotted woodpeckers and green woodpeckers, easily recognised by their “yaffle” call, are common. The sparrow-sized lesser spotted woodpecker is much rarer and has not been recorded from the Copse. However, it may be worth looking for it in the tree-tops early in the year before the trees are in leaf. Of the corvids, rooks, crows, jays and magpies are regulars.

Greenfinches and chaffinches are common, but the goldfinch favours the edges of the Copse were its main food, small seeds, can be found. The soft, sibilant whistle of the bullfinch can be heard very occasionally in the trees around Willow Pond. See the striking male bullfinch with his black head, white rump, grey back and rose-red breast, and the much drabber female is sure to be nearby.

Sit quietly on the seat behind the oak at Willow Pond for a while, and you may be lucky enough to see a tree creeper. A quiet little bird, it has a brown back, white underside, and a distinctive downward-curved beak. It runs up the trunk of a tree, probing in the bark for the tiny insects and spiders on which it feeds. The much brighter, brasher nuthatch is also present.

Raptors seen in or around the Copse include sparrowhawks which can often hunt smaller birds over Willow and Cops Ponds. Kestrels, easily identified by their ability to hover on the wind, hunt for small mammals in the fields around, and buzzards, which scavenge for food, occur increasingly in the Triangle. Although Chichester’s most famous avian inhabitants, the Cathedral peregrines, may occasionally be seen from the Copse, they do not hunt there.

Finally, the ponds are used by many birds for drinking, but true water-birds are limited to mallards and the occasional moorhen on Cops Pond. However, if you visit Willow Pond very early in the morning you may be lucky enough to see a heron. Just as they take fish from garden ponds so they will take fish and frogs from Willow Pond – especially when the water level is low.

Occasionally also, a grey wagtail will be seen on the mud surrounding the ponds. It has the distinctive tail-flicking habit of the wagtails and is identified by its grey back and yellow underside.

Clicks, pops and raspberries!

Nearly 40 people turned out on a lovely evening on August 9 to listen for bats and look for moths in Brandy Hole Copse. Our leaders were Peter Etheridge and Mike Perry from the local Natural History Society.

Being such a lovely clear evening it took a while to get dark enough for bats to begin flying and so Peter entertained us with interesting and amusing stories about our local wildlife. We began our walk by listening out on the bat detectors for the “click” noises emitted by crickets. These detectors are little portable black boxes with listening devices that are designed to pick up the very high pitched noises emitted by bats using echo location to search and find their food. The boxes change the sound down into a frequency heard by us, usually in the form of clicks, pops and even raspberries!

We learnt that the raspberry noise is made as the bat closes in on its prey to eat it. We heard the “wet slap” popping sound of the country’s smallest bat the pipistrelle and the drier sound of perhaps a serotine. We learnt that the bat is our best friend as it can eat up to 3,000 insects such as mosquitoes every night.

During the walk we heard reports that bats were busy near the moth trap set up in the woods for the evening and made our way to see what was going on there.

The trap had been set up by Mike Perry and friends by the big oak tree at the top of the main ride. It was easy to find by its very bright light, which we learnt was at least four times brighter than our 100w bulbs at home. The moths were attracted to the bulb and then settled on a cloth placed around it or in special collecting chambers nearby. Each moth was collected in a bug pot, identified and recorded and then put in a special chamber to be released at the end of the recording session. We learnt that this was to avoid recording the same moth more than once. Usual woodland species were found including the maiden’s blush, oak hook-tip and the rosy footman.

We did make note that during this time the occasional bat was detected flying overhead and the raspberry noises emitted indicated that some moths never did make it to the trap for their moment of glory.

We had an enjoyable and informative evening and thanks to Peter and Mike and their Natural History colleagues for giving their time to lead us on this event.

Money matters

The 2005/6 accounts for the group have been revised to include more detail as requested at the AGM and can be viewed on the website.

We have decided to introduce a Standing Order Mandate for membership subscriptions which will be available early in 2007.

Should there be a slip with this newsletter it is to remind you that we have not yet received your subscription (£2 per household) for this year.

The website is drawing more and more visitors