Beddington's new media blitz



My old stomping ground - Beddington Sewage Farm (or Beddington Farmlands as it is now referred to) - has undergone a bit of a social media makeover. You can visit the new web site by clicking here. If you are on Facebook they have created an account and you can visit it by clicking here. Are you into Twitter? Well, so is Beddington, under the account name 'Beddington Farmlands'. Last but not least you can keep abreast of all the birding, mothing and political highlights (and lowlights) by visiting Peter Alfrey's excellent blog 'Non-stop Birding' (and you can get there by clicking here).

I have banged on about Beddington frequently on this blog, but for those who haven't visited this blog before (or those of short-term memory), this is the place where I cut my ornithological teeth. It has been birded for almost a century and has an almost unbroken ornithological record stretching back to the 1930s - how many places can boast that? The roll-call of Beddington old boys is one of quality, including such names as Bob Scott and Peter Grant. For an inland site the bird list is lengthy and has some species that even a bird observatory regular would salivate over - Glaucous-winged Gull and Killdeer anyone?

Peter Alfrey deserves a medal for the efforts that he has put into promoting and trying to protect what is left of the old sewage farm. I did a runner long ago, no longer able to accept that the old flooded field systems, the settling beds and the hedgerows had been destroyed in the name of corporate profits and landfill. But Peter is made of sterner stuff, so he carries on battling against the companies and bodies that seem unable to fulfil the environmental obligations that had been agreed upon prior to their desecration of the farmlands. The grand plan for a premier urban nature reserve seems a long way off at present. A trawl back through the posts on Peter's web site will very quickly give you a feel for what he, and the local population, have been up against.

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