I have a copy of a leaflet published 1992 (see above cover page), Glanford was then the middle tier of the county council local government structure of Humberside. Glanford’s area covered the region between and around Barton and Brigg, it had existed as a local government area before the creation of Humberside County in 1973 as an area within the jurisdiction of Lindsey County Council (the ‘north riding of Lincolnshire’). Although it doesn’t state it much of the text will have been prepared by Miles Hopper (s.p.b.). I will record here a few of the comments written under the side heading of ‘Birds and Plants’ with a couple of personal observations.
‘Along with nearby Broughton Woods, Twigmoor was well known to visiting Victorian naturalists for its variety of wildlife’ (s.p.b.s).
‘Some of the once common birds such as nightjar, woodlark, redstart, whinchat and hawfinch have gone or are now in very low numbers’. Miles was philosophical about declining populations arguing that population totals rise and fall naturally.
‘The tiny goldcrest breeds, usually in the scattered yew trees where their nests are hard to spot. During the winter they often join mixed flocks of other insect eating birds that roam the woodlands in search of food’. It is always interesting to watch flocks of mixed species, usually a winter feature – starlings and sparrows, ducks and geese – it shows a brotherliness in Nature.
‘The dense rhododendron thickets are popular winter roosts and often hold large numbers of finches and other species that flight to the woods at dusk’.
‘The mixed woodland and heath habitats hold a wealth of flowering plants’ … where the ‘blown sands’ lie on peat ‘acidic conditions are created while shallow sand over limestone allows lime loving flora to thrive’.
‘Hundreds of years of rabbit grazing (s.p.b.s) has created almost lawn-like areas of low grasses and ground hugging flowers’.
‘A notable summer-time feature of the woods are the numbers of dragon-flies’.