The song of the skylark has filled the minds of poets for centuries, from Shelley’s “merry spirit” to Wordsworth’s “ethereal minstrel,” but there is little poetry in the Colchester furor over the bird.
Campaigners for the protection of the Middlewick Ranges, a former Ministry of Defence firing range in Essex, are furious that part of the rare grassland – 76 hectares – was cut last month, an action they believe has killed ground-nesting skylarks and their chicks.
Martin Pugh, an ecologist with Essex Wildlife Trust and member of the Save the Wick campaigning group, protested against a tractor driver who was cutting grass last month and was chased away by a guard, who then showed him being assaulted on video.
The Ministry of Defence plans to sell Middlewick Range and make way for 1,000 new homes, but there has been a long-running campaign to protect the site, known locally as The Wick. Last week, charities including Buglife, Butterfly Conservation, Essex Wildlife Trust and Colchester Natural History Society wrote to Natural England asking for the site to be designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The site is home to rare acid grassland and, according to the charity, is home to 20 bird species of Red and Amber list conservation concern, such as the nightingale, the protected great long-eared bat and around 1,500 invertebrate species, including 167 species of concern.
The Ministry of Defence had previously said 63 percent of the land would be set aside as green space, but a spokesman said grass needed to be maintained because of the risk of bushfires during dry summers, which posed a threat to homes near the site.
Skylarks breed from April to August. According to the RSPBThey live in the woods, and build nests on the ground. The males do not perch in trees, but sing to attract females while flying, sometimes hovering in the air, or flying about. This behaviour inspired Shelley and Wordsworth.
So when Pugh discovered the grass being mowed on July 1, he went there to try to stop it. In a video he took, he is seen talking to a man who identified himself as working for Landmark, a Defense Department contractor, in charge of security for the area.
Pugh tells a man sitting in a red Toyota pickup truck that if the tractor driver continues to mow, he will be committing a wildlife crime. As the tractor moves away, Pugh can be heard saying, “If he keeps mowing, we’re in trouble. I’m calling the police right now.”
The footage then shows the man running away as the guard chases him, telling him, “I’m sick of you, get the hell out of here,” before lunging at the Pug and saying, “You look like an oil stop.” The man then approaches the Pug again at the edge of the field, and the camera lowers and the man can be heard telling the Pug, “You’re trespassing,” with the Pug repeating, “You’re assaulting me.”
Pugh said: “Within three minutes of speaking with him very discreetly and respectfully, he assaulted me and physically removed me from the site. He dragged me off the site.”
Essex Police arrived on the scene and officers instructed the men to stop mowing, Pugh said. On July 11, the mower returned. This time, police told Pugh he could be arrested if he tried to stop the tractor.
He and other activists were later told that police did not believe the birds were being deliberately killed or injured and so the mowing did not violate the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Officers walked the fields to check where they were mowing and had set the mower blades four inches off the ground to avoid damaging the nests, officers said.
The video also shows mowing crews saying they have been mowing the land every year for 20 years and have never seen a skylark.
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“When they were clearing the property, there was a lark hovering over the tractor,” Pugh said.
On July 21, the ecologist and his colleagues captured footage of a skylark “with a worm in its beak, looking for a nest, looking distressed” in grassland that had been mowed that day. “That’s the kind of thing that makes people very upset,” he said.
An Essex Police spokesman said: “We were called to a report of an assault on Middlewick Range, Abbots Road, on July 1st, which left a man with an injury to his arm. Investigations are ongoing.”
Police said that “based on the current evidence” the MoD has not committed a wildlife crime. “We have advised the MoD, as we would do with any landowner where an allegation of this nature has arisen.”
“We have advised concerned residents groups to speak directly to the Ministry of Defence about their concerns about ground-nesting birds.”
A Landmark spokesman said: “We are aware of a video circulating on social media which appears to show an altercation between one of our staff and an activist at rented site in the Middlewick Ranges. We take this matter very seriously and are conducting a thorough internal investigation, therefore we are unable to comment further whilst our investigation is ongoing.”
“Middlewick Range is surplus Ministry of Defence land and following a three-year review we will be selling the land to provide maximum value for taxpayers,” the Ministry of Defence said.
