Ran the Bat Detector for the first time last night.. Positioned it in the back garden connected to an MP3 recorder and left it for a couple of hours. Great thing about MP3 is that you can upload to the PC and analyse files much quicker than in real time.. Took about 10 minutes to confirm that not a single bat had passed through!
Have found quite a few military connections to Baddesley Common today:
First surprise is that the peaceful, soon to be migrant hotspot(!) was a decoy site during WW2 used to distract enemy bombers away from the south coast ports. Seems that all my local birding haunts were bombed significantly and even the main road at the end of my street got some heavy shelling. Reminder not to go kicking anything metallic that I stumble across!
The second connection is in the Southern Daily echo, and relates to a battle between a local tool manufacturer and the village locals ( http://archive.dailyecho.co.uk/2001/9/13/71559.html ) .
Seems that the public footpath was bordered on both sides by barbed wire fencing along the village side of the common by the company. The area has subsequently been nicknamed "Checkpoint Charlie".
To be honest, my initial experience was that the best concentration of birds were all feeding in the fenced off areas, so it can't all be bad! Have a feeling the fence is no longer Barbed wire, but will check next time.
And finally, I found a reference to the "Great Stampede on Baddesley Common"
Couldn't begin to do this story justice here, so here is the link to a tale of military SNAFU!: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sandra.s/Stampede.html
Not sure I want to know any more secrets about the local area!
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