Congratulations to our 2024 Gordon Miller Award Winners – The Lennon Legacy Project.
The Lennon Legacy Project came about thanks to a generous legacy from Vivien Lennon which enabled the Barn Owl Trust – a conservation charity devoted to conserving the barn owl and its environment – to purchase 26 acres of intensively grazed sheep pasture. This land had been stripped of much of its natural richness over decades of grazing and artificial fertilisation and supported very little wildlife, no barn owls had been sighted since the 1960s.
After extensive surveying work was undertaken to create a level area, erect a timber framed building, build a hedge bank, rebuild a stone wall and most importantly change the way the grassland was managed.
By 2005 not only had a wild barn owl arrived, but huge numbers of other wildlife had moved in too. Spring and summer flowers were flourishing and new species (never seen on the site before) appeared, including hundreds of ladybirds, grasshoppers, crickets and butterflies. In turn swifts arrived to feed on the insects, as well as more swallows and house martins. Today volunteers from around the West Country visit the site to learn about conservation, nest box erection and land management.
A full article on the Lennon Legacy Project can be found in the Winter 2024/25 issue of Ranger Magazine.
