heath | Trail Action Group

Mention ground nesting birds to most mountain bikers and the likely response will be to roll their eyes. Shy and secretive GNBs (as they are known) are a poster species for the area and its wildlife. For a few their presence may be resented, but this view is very much misplaced as the presence of GNBs is one of the area’s greatest asset.

The birds nest here for a simple reason; the terrain is ideal. The open heather fringed with woodland is GNB heaven for nesting and raising chicks and there is one thing the army land has is lots of heather and open space.

Why are they so important? Why bother protecting them? And if they are worthy of protection, what can we do to help?

The short answer is “take care” and it does not mean the end of recreational access…

But first, let’s take a look at the bird in question.

The Nightjar

In the 50 years of living around and using the military lands a TAG fellow has seen a Nightjar just once (Ash Ranges) and heard their distinctive churring call twice (Long Valley). These are memories burned in and never to be forgotten for such is their rarity and thrill.

Nightjars are migrants and arrive early spring and hang around until early autumn before heading back to Africa so we can’t expect to see them year-round.

Thanks to an amazing camouflage pattern the birds blend in perfectly to their surroundings and to see one at all is exceptionally lucky.

GNB habitat. Good for birds and good for the soul. Spaces like this heal mental and physical health.

They also fly at dusk and dawn hunting for moths. This is a bird that goes out of its way to avoid being seen, which if you nest on the ground is a good strategy. They eat moths – gardeners and farmers bordering the lands will benefit – and their presence and habitat adds a second benefit; protection of the land. You can read more about them here on the RSBP website.

For us, protection means two things; firstly it makes it difficult, but not impossible to sell off the land for housing and secondly it means we all need to stop and consider what we need to do to help (spoiler alert – it’s not a big ask – read on).

Where Are They Hiding?

There are two pieces of legislation that protects the Nightjar:

Wildlife and Countryside Act
Special Protected Area under Article 4 of the EC Birds Directive

The latter protects the habitat – known as SPA – the space the birds, and we, love, and its been mapped:

On the left we have the Aldershot lands (shown in green) and on the right the Bordon training areas plus Hankley Common. In both sets the SPA is shown in orange cross hatch.

Note how much of the military lands are also SPA? These areas have been mapped and the dataset downloaded from the DEFRA website so we can easily visualise them.

These are the areas deemed favourable for Nightjars.

What Can We Do?

There are a few things we can all do to help the Nightjars.

Firstly, keeping dogs on the path – particularly between March and September – is vital. Everyone knows your dog won’t hurt a thing and is just a big soppy pet but the birds are programmed to flee from predators and dogs fit right into this category.

Dogs won’t directly cause harm but they do force the parents off the nest. At that point other more brutal predators – and in particular crows – will come along and help themselves to unguarded eggs or young.

The Thames Basin Heaths Partnership have a campaign called #pawsonpathsplease and have put reminders up at entrances to the lands:

Thames Basin Heaths signs asking to keep dogs on the path

TAG are backing this campaign and hope everyone will join in supporting it.

The terrain the Nightjars nest in isn’t the kind of place the two legged humans choose to walk or cycle. No one in their right mind is going to choose to slog through deep heather when a nearby path or track is far easier. If we can all take a moment to use the existing trails the birds can nest in peace.

Some work has been done in Long Valley to keep the vehicles to the main tracks too:

Boundary and sign intended to keep vehicles out of GNB nesting areas in Long Valley

Marked with heavy stakes these areas in Long Valley have been recognised as GNB prime territory. Everyone, including dogs and cyclists, should stay out of these areas too. It’s a shame the signs don’t explain why the areas have been fenced off in Long Valley, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Loss Of Protection

Being a European Union law the SPA designation may well end up on the planned bonfire of legislation in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) bill that is currently going through Parliament. This could see the end of protection and is extremely concerning. Wildlife groups are rightly calling the loss of protection out for what it clearly is – an act of self harm against our own environment.

TAG would add their name to the list of concerned and call for the application of a hefty dose of common sense. By all means review laws, but a blanket bulldozer approach cannot end well.

If this loss of protection for wildlife is worrying – and we think it is – please take a moment to write to your MP and raise your concerns.

Loss of Access – DIO Space Claim

DIO are on record back in 2020 stating that the new byelaws are needed to restrict or permanently remove recreational access:

“…explaining the problems involved with balancing wider public access with the legislative requirement to protect SSSI, SPA and other ecological areas across the estate.”

Note the actual “problems” are not outlined – there are some problems – but knowing DIO’s aversion to evidence based policy we should not be surprised if policy is being set without it. DIO solve problems with fences so we can predict where this train of thought is heading. The statement predates the existence of the Retained EU Law bill by 3 years and sets out byelaws intent way ahead of potential SPA loss.

Here’s another map of all the designated areas – SSSI and SPA – shown in context of the military lands:

Areas of land protected or of significance for wildlife – DEFRA dataset and TAG map

There isn’t a great deal of space that is designation-free. These maps show just how little space is left once protected areas are removed:

On the left, the lands around Aldershot (hatched red) that lack designation and to the right the Bordon and Hankley Lands. Hankley is 100% designated hence it does not appear.

From our mapping exercises we know the military lands account for 15,300 acres or so of recreational space. Highly fragmented and unevenly distributed the areas without designation account for a mere 3,945 acres.

DIO must be rubbing their hands with glee at the idea of kicking the public off 11,000 acres with new byelaws. The thought of leaving us with tiny sections of little practical use sees their appetite for risk aversion satisfied by making sure we all just go away.

However, TAG are reminded of what our politicians and DIO’s masters have put in writing:

From the Rt Hon Tobias Ellwood in 2017:

“Please be assured that the MoD fully understands how essential it is for local communities to have access to open land to carry out recreational and leisure activities, and the Department remains committed to fostering positive relationships with our neighbours.”

And Jeremy Quin MP in 2019:

“I can however assure you that officials have been directed to ensure that existing gates are open for public access to Long Valley when it’s not in use for military training.”

No politician has committed to remove, limit or restrict recreational access but nor have they done anything to control DIO behaviour which has delivered exactly that outcome.

The difference between political commitments and DIO pursuit of their own agenda regards removal of recreational access is apparent to anyone, yet it persists.

Summary

The simple act of keeping dogs, bikes and people on the existing tracks and trails will reap rewards for the Nightjar. TAG recognise the value of wild open spaces and are supportive of the wildlife groups who work to keep the spaces special.

Keeping the lands special helps keep them concrete free. The current laws and legislation are a very long-term benefit that keeps us recreational users all just a little more mentally and physically healthy than otherwise. For TAG, Nightjars are part of the solution and in no way seen as a problem.

But recreation is not a responsibility-free place and the freedoms we enjoy are rightly balanced by the needs of the natural space. Respect it, do the right thing and value what we have.

There are plenty of civil servants who would gladly see the end of casual access to the military lands so let’s not hand more excuses to that echo chamber mindset.

#pawsonpathplease

References:

Minutes of MOD – HCAF Liaison Meeting – 9th December 2020:

MOD-LiaisonMinutes-December2020 Download

Natural England Priority Habitats – Inventory: https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/4b6ddab7-6c0f-4407-946e-d6499f19fcde/priority-habitats-inventory-england

Background maps: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=6/54.910/-3.432

Logging work has started again on the Military Lands and this news is rarely well received by the mountain biking community. The work takes a few weeks at most but many see the work as doing long-term damage to the forest and the trails we love. Its even been suggested the logging is deliberately intended to trash where we ride. These views are understandable. However there is always a differing view and TAG thought it was time to have a look at the issues.

The trails are being trashed.

On the face of it, yes they are. But rest assured its only temporary and in time the lands will recover and the scars vanish. Some of us in TAG can remember the last time the forest was logged…it was 1990 or thereabouts and we now struggle to remember the damage done.

Our favourite regular routes were utterly wrecked.

Trails come and trails go. Routes used in the 1980s have persisted and some have vanished. The forest and heath may seem a very static and unchanging place but its always changing, mostly on a natural timescale. And for this reason logging and clearance is necessary – the pine forest would come to dominate everything and with that we would lose natural diversity.

It’s also worth noting that historical logging – done decades ago – opened up parts of the forest we now use. The extraction trails carved by the logging vehicles have become new routes and trails in their own right. It just needs a little time and patience and there will be new routes opening up. We need to see the long-term opportunity rather than the short-term damage.

Why leave the cut branches lying around?

This stuff – the brash – is a right PITA to try and ride over. No one likes it – MTB or Army – but leaving it behind does help spread the weight of the logging vehicles and in the long term returns some nutrients to the soil. Ultimately, it costs more to remove than let rot, so its left behind. Burning the stuff is one way to get rid of the mess, but this just adds more CO2 to the planet’s atmosphere and reduces air quality. Whilst leaving it to rot ultimately results in the release of CO2, the process takes much longer than burning and at least a portion of the CO2 is locked into the vegetation that the rotting matter nourishes.

This is environmental vandalism. They are wrecking the forest!

It certainly looks brutal, but clearing the forest is nothing new.

It’s worth stopping for a moment and thinking how the heaths were formed. The lowland heaths have been around for at least 3,500 years when humans decided to stop widespread hunting, cleared the area by burning and started to graze animals. The lowland heaths are a product of human intervention, and as such become a rare habitat that needs tweaking and caring for. If you cycle across Ash Ranges – huge area of heath – you can see tiny pine trees pushing up through the heather. Do nothing and trees and scrub will invade and take over.

By clearing and thinning the tree canopy areas of the forest floor receive more sunlight and letting other wildlife have a chance and stops the heather from being crowded out.

The open vistas of lowland heath are very much man-made.

MOD just wants MTB to go away. This is another way to get us off the land.

TAG does not agree with the MOD, or more specifically DIO, policy towards cycling on the Aldershot Military lands. The current approach goes against their own internal policy document and recommendations. With respect to any policy restricting recreational access TAG always will oppose unnecessary, unreasonable or draconian restrictions. However, when it comes to actually caring for the lands MOD does a pretty good job.

It’s very easy to see everything through the narrow perspective of mountain biking but the conservation work done by MOD helps preserve and protect the lands and keep them valuable for things other than houses, which here in the southeast is no mean feat.

TAG have spoken to the people actually logging the lands and they were really clear; there is no policy to trash trails for the sake of it. They are there to thin and log trees and are not going to be looking to add to their workload.

But they still trashed the trails!

Have a look at the pile of logs in this photo:

It has taken nearly 30 years, but this pile of pine logs is slowly disappearing.

The pile of pine was logged sometime around 1990 and used to reach way over 6’ in height. In the early 90s a certain rider by the name of Martyn Ashton used to practice riding over it whilst I watched and wondered how he did it? That round of logging in the 90s saw some trails go, but only for a few months.

Now the pile has nearly gone. It’s rotting away and has become a source of food for the local wildlife. Sure, its taken a few decades but a 6’ pile of pine is going to take a while to disappear. Give it 12 months and the signs of logging and thinning will start to fade – this can already be seen in areas that were logged in 2017 & 2018.

What about the wildlife?

The lowland heaths and sandy well-drained soils not only make excellent mountain biking but also for wildlife. Adders, deer, woodpeckers, ground nesting birds and lizards all call it home and spotting any one of these on a ride is a huge bonus.

Ask a rider why they ride the lands and you will never get the same answer, but in the TAG report (2017) a fair few respondents listed being close to nature and wildlife as a very good reason to get out of the house and enjoy the lands.

If you are still not convinced, then consider this: land being considered special and protected for wildlife helps keep the housing developers off the land. With cash strapped MOD, someone in Whitehall must have eyed the lands for sale…only to be told “Can’t do it – SSSI”.

Trail Action Group