Coton Loves Pollinators 🐝 🍃💚🍃

Been buzzing about helping pollinators in Coton and neighboring communities for a while now but only joined @Twitter today in order to help @CotonBusway #SaveOurGreenCorridors and protect #Biodiversity.

@backborwick @JapanUKSakura @JAPANinUK @AmbJapanUK A wonderful gift. One year on, the cherry trees are firmly rooted, feeding pollinators, their blossom inviting us to pause and notice. A symbol of UK–Japan friendship, and a catalyst for new local friendships as we care for them and grow the Story Orchard. Thank you 🙏🏻🌸🐝

Congratulations @CotonBuzz - Thank you to @Sandy Sano @JapanUKSakura @JAPANinUK @AmbJapanUK for all the wonderful trees donated to across the UK - over 9,000 planted to date!

@TrooperSnooks Us too, thanks @SaveTurtleDoves. We’re getting excited as we await our summer residents in Coton, hoping they arrive safely 🤞🏻🐝 #HouseMartins #TurtleDoves

Turtle dove food delivery has arrived from Eliza at Operation TD. If anyone is in Senegal please can you tell them it's time to get migrating now.

@RedSpudd @markrwilliamson Beyond keeping mitigation sites alive, BNG reduces biodiversity to sterile “units”, losing specificity. We’re restoring habitat for red-list pollinators with precise needs eg milk parsley for swallowtails, tied to soil & conditions. Lose that, and loss cascades to extinction 🐝

@markrwilliamson There's a spreadsheet for that, which says it all really... gov.uk/government/pub…

In the world of BNG, how many saplings have to be planted to offset a chalk stream, or how much has to be paid into the Nature Restoration Fund?

@BonkersBusway @SAKURAProject Tag should be @JapanUKSakura. Thanks to all who made last year such a success—and to @BBCCambs, @CambridgeIndy et al for the coverage. A spot on @BBCLookEast @bbcweather was a particular highlight 🌸🐝 #Sakuraweek #hanami

Walking with @CotonBuzz, planning Blossom Day. Last year’s hanami (花見), led by founder Mrs Cairns, set a high bar—this year we carry it on with her in Argentina. Still, 12 new cherries from @SAKURAProject look ready to put on a display 🌸 #ThrowbackThursday #Friendship 🇬🇧 🇯🇵 🐝

@OurSacredGrove Similar here. Lovely to see them, but a real headache when you’re trying to plant for pollinators or stitch hedgerows back together—anything not behind a tall fence doesn’t stands a chance.

Feeding sheepies this afternoon I got a bit of a shock; no wonder the grass doesn’t seem to be growing much…

@writethewrongs2 Maybe. Regardless, a lovely day today with lots of buzzing and chirping. A nice contrast to everything else going on.

@CotonBuzz Wow, maybe it was then.

When I was out on my walk, I put the Merlin app on because there was so much bird song coming from all directions, but it suddenly showed it had detected a barn swallow. 🤔 Now I think we are still some weeks away from swallows arriving so either this bird was quite early (I didn't see it) or the app was wrong.

A minute in the hedgerow this afternoon. Turn the sound on… #Pollinators #Hedgerows #Wildlife #NatureUK #Biodiversity #Bees #Butterflies #CotonLovesPollinators 🐝

@paulpowlesland @BonkersBusway @greenarteries @Catherinewith11 @FT We work with a cross-section of landowners; farms, gardens… to make wild corridors. What we see here doesn’t match a councillor’s claim this land is trashed, pesticide-soaked or devoid of nature, or agree apple trees are “non-native” and of no value. Should he have CPO power? 🐝

@BonkersBusway @greenarteries @Catherinewith11 @FT Would you back compulsory purchase powers to buy land at current market value, against the landowners wishes, where that landowner has abused & damaged the nature on their land?

Reeves to say she will back compulsory purchase powers for Oxford-Cambridge corridor ft.com/content/3c4e80… via @ft

@BardCumberland And among those losses sits another often overlooked habitat: traditional orchards, around 90% gone. Coton’s century-old trees have stood through that decline. Now we wait to see if @Heidi_Labour gives @CambsCC CPO powers to cleave one more in two. Will she stay the execution❓🌳

Over the past 100 years, the amount of healthy natural habitat in England has shrunk: 99.7% of fens, 97% of species‑rich grasslands, 80% of lowland heathlands, up to 70% of ancient woodlands and up to 85% of saltmarshes have been lost theguardian.com/environment/20…

Cherry Plum @BSBIbotany @wildflower_hour #WildFlowerHour #WhiteFlowers 🐝

@greenbeltsal Some of the ones in the scrub have reached their full height of nearly 40ft quite stunning.

@CotonBuzz Love our Cherry Plums to o o o They feed us with abundance. With plenty of blossom for the bullfinches ❤

The scrub was luminous today. Cherry plums in full flower 🐝

Underfoot, a scatter of daisies. Sunshine and hail taking turns. A perfectly British spring day.

@natalieben @LoTaylor23 Landowners should be free to invite whom they wish & manage their land within the law. If legal activities harm nature, tighten the law, not trespass. Many projects, like ours, happen on private land with permission and we manage access for education while sensitive to wildlife.

@LoTaylor23 But the landowners - and those they invite in, like grouse-shooters - can do whatever they like. Yes, in places protection for nature should be certain, but that protection should apply equally to everybody

#RightToRoam - there is so little nature on these depleted islands, we need access to all of it theguardian.com/environment/20…

@countrymousie Gorgeous

Frosty start

@BonkersBusway @natalieben We agree people need to reconnect with nature. But access to ALL of it isn’t the answer. Use the many footpaths & public RoW, volunteer with local groups to keep them open, & help restore habitats. Walk with those who know the rhythms of a place, tread only in their footsteps👣🐝

@natalieben People need nature, but wildlife needs space from us too. On a crowded island the challenge isn’t just access, but leaving some of the little nature we have left undisturbed.

@RedSpudd Love dogs but some owners…. our biggest peeve is poo bags in trees.

@CotonBuzz We have trail cameras up in the woodland so know exactly what 'the public' do. Free running dogs is my personal hate, that and litter of course.

H’m.. “The study is by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango”. theguardian.com/environment/20…

@RedSpudd One year we had picnickers making flower wreaths from bee orchids and other wildflowers, threaded onto twigs snapped from newly planted heritage fruit trees, so we’re perhaps a little sensitive about people going for a uninvited stroll.

@CotonBuzz @greenarteries If they expect their mass trespass to be 'illegal' then they must be planning more than a stroll and a picnic, otherwise it's a civil matter.

@markrwilliamson Each year we add a little with @onthevergecambs. After discovering chalky subsoil we seeded a chalk meadow last year and wait to see what appears. At our small scale it is affordable to continue, but cuts to farm nature funding risk a landscape-scale loss of a vital habitat 🌼🐝

Significant for the East. Defra SFI overhaul a blow for species-rich grasslands leave most farmers without funding to manage or restore species-rich grasslands, raising concerns among environmental groups and the farming sector.