Berwick Wildlife Group

Present: Fiona Aungier, Molly Hardie, Malcolm Hutcheson, John Inglis, Enid Turnbull, M. Williams.

Apologies: John Rae, Leslie Cook.

Items	Subject	Decisions to Make	Outcome
1	Minutes of last meeting	Agreed?	Agreed.
2	Matters arising not below	Discuss briefly.	None.
3	Recent events.	Wader count – 21st, successful, thank you JI and M. Hutcheson. Gill Young's talk.	M Hutcheson & JI thanked for another successful wader count. Data has been passed on to EYE. Gill Young’s illustrated talk on the natural history of S Africa was superb. A write-up will shortly appear in the Berwick Advertiser (thank you M. Hardie).
4	Forthcoming events.	Lichen/moss walk 21st Mar. SoS 19th April. BSBI 9 -11 May.	Lichen/moss walk 21st Mar. Meet at pill box car park on Cocklawburn dunes 1.30pm. Walk with SoS, 19th.April. Botanical Soc. of the British Isles conference in Berwick 9 -11 May, has an excellent programme of events. All BWG members welcome.
5	Summer programme.	Need to timetable: butterflies, bats, bees, Whin Sill grass, trees, insects, etc. Also Holy Island "bioblitz", 12th/13th June (?).	Need to timetable: butterflies, bats, bees, Whin Sill grass, trees, insects, etc. Following detailed discussion the programming moved forward. Butterfly surveys start 1st April. FA to contact potential surveyors. Positive dates for the tree group are: Ord Rd. and House Sun. 24th May, meet Ord Industrial Estate, western entrance 2.00pm.; and Castle Terrace Wed 10th June, meet junction with old Paxton Road 7.00pm. Green Festival is 28th.June, theme Our Coast Our Seas. Proposed work on Whin Grassland still to be arranged with Steve Lowe. Next ‘Berwick is Brilliant for Wildlife’ probably Jan 2011. Holy Island ‘Bioblitz’ organised by Biodiversity Partnerships and NWT is 12/13th June. Banded snail survey (see www.evolutionmegalab.org ) would be interesting and useful.
6	Stevenson Bridge lighting scheme.	Complications re. possible bat survey work for this. (We cannot accept paid work direct – tax and insurance problems). LC has been investigating. Offsetting carbon with tree care – sums in progress.	LC to arrange bat survey through Ruth Haddon, NBG co-ordinator, as BWG cannot accept direct commission. FA has calculated carbon off-setting, although problems with this idea. Report will be sent to Tim Kirton of BBC.
7	Data.	JR and M Hardie have put huge amount of work into this, including re-organising all past data and liaison with EYE. A few tweaks yet to do. Any feedback/comments on sightings table in Review?	M Hardie and JR have, after a massive amount of work, produced well formatted and user friendly data spread sheets, suitable for retaining our data and transferring to others. Since the work began BWG has sent in over 5,500 records to Explore Your Environment, and has received a letter of praise for the excellent format. M Hardie praised JR for the amount of work he had put in.
8	"Slide Show" for Community Development Trust.	Prepared by JR. Excellent. Thank you.	JR was thanked for the work he had put in to produce an excellent show to be displayed in the foyer.
9	SEPA - Solway-Tweed River Management Plan – Consultation.	Comments to be submitted, preferably by 22nd March (to be included in first phase of amendments), alternatively 22nd June. See http://www.sepa.org.uk/water/river_basin_planning.aspx .	Draft report ‘Solway -Tweed River Basin’ received from SEPA. See http://www.sepa.org.uk/water/river_basin_planning.aspx . FA to respond. (NB – the apparent spaces in web address are underscores).
10	AONB and EMS joint Management Scheme Consultation	Now submitted. JR and FA attended Eyemouth conference – useful meeting.	This can be accessed via http://www.xbordercurrents.com . FA and JR attended the Eyemouth conference which proved very useful. FA has responded and welcomes attention to trampling on dunes and would like AONB extended south and north and to include Tweed estuary.
11	N. Gas Networks.	Hand-over ceremony with NGN, 11th March, 1.00pm Castle Vale .	FA accepted their cheque for £509 for recording equipment, etc., together with the trophy awarded to BWG for environmental work at the short ceremony in Castle Vale. LC showed their representatives the newly installed bird and bat boxes. FA thanked members who had attended.
12	Any other business	.	Planting at Maltings. MW has passed M. Hutcheson's list of trees and shrubs suitable for planting locally (and of benefit to wildlife) to Maltings manager. Wych Elms had been suggested by Maltings staff, but are susceptible to Dutch elm disease and if they survive will grow far too big for site. SoS. The Group has completed a number of surveys since the last report, has had several displays to raise awareness, is fund-raising at Morrisons April 2nd & 3rd, and hope to set up new group in Wooler area.
13	Date/venue of next Meeting	.	15th April then 20th May (Castle). AGM 13th.May.