conservation

Hazy days of summer

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Heather in the valley of Bystock, Devon Wildlife Trust
Looking across a purple haze of heather in the valley of the Bystock nature reserve, owned by Devon Wildlife Trust.

“Where would you like to go?”, Matt Boydell, the Land Manager, had asked when we spoke to arrange a visit to one of Devon Wildlife Trust‘s 50 nature reserves. A difficult choice, but I decided it would be good to see some lowland heathland, a habitat I’d not visited yet on my travels, and one which is in very short supply in Kent and getting rarer everywhere else. So in mid-August this year Matt took us to visit two Devon Wildlife Trust nature reserves, Bystock and Venn Ottery, both of which are part of the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Special Area of Conservation, an area of lowland heath (named after the rounded pebbles in the sandstone deposits that lie beneath the soil ).

Walking through The Copse at Bystock nature reserve
Walking through Brock Wood at Bystock nature reserve

Bystock is a beautiful reserve containing a mixture of habitats. We walked across a rabbit-grazed meadow and through shady green woodland to where the site opened out into a purple sea of heathland, in full bloom in August and alive with the buzzing of bees. Threaded through the grass and heather were yellow tormentil flowers and the occasional golden splash of gorse.

There is a  spring line running through the heathland; as we walked down the hill we came across two long ponds.  This mix of wet and dry heathland, ponds and woodland is what makes the reserve incredibly rich in wildlife. There are 19 species of dragonflies and damselflies on the reserve, I’m not sure how many different ones we saw as they didn’t sit around waiting to be identified, but we were accompanied by flashes of blue, red and green as they darted across our path.

Stonechats are common at Bystock
Stonechats are common at Bystock

The site is really important for birds, particularly rare ground-nesting birds such as nightjar and Dartford warbler. Because they nest on the ground they are easily disturbed; Devon Wildlife Trust works hard not only to manage the site but also to help ensure that everyone can enjoy the site without affecting the wildlife. One of the ways they do this is by promoting the Dorset Dogs initiative, which has a membership group and lots of information sharing to encourage responsible dog ownership, including a code for owners to sign up to.

Exmoor ponies at Venn Ottery
Exmoor ponies at Venn Ottery, in the hazy sunshine after a summer shower.

Traditionally, heathlands were kept open by grazing animals, which like to eat young growth including tree seedlings, so the heath didn’t become overgrown with trees and shrubs. Devon Wildlife Trust now uses Exmoor ponies to graze the heathland at Bystock and at Venn Ottery.

The dry open habitat is perfect for lizards and adders to bask in the sun, we saw lots of lizards on our walk round.

These are some of the heathland plants we saw:

Gorse
Cross-leaved heath
Honeysuckle berries
Ling heather
Not sure what this fern is, I thought maybe Buckler fern. Any ideas?
Round-leaved sundew
Hard fern
Bell heather
Honeysuckle
e reservoir at Bystock
The reservoir at Bystock

Below the heathland we climbed down some steps to the edge of a lily covered lake. This is actually an old reservoir, as the site used to belong South West Water. Devon Wildlife Trust have been managing it for them since the 1990s and now own the site.

Quite a few people asked Matt about terrapins as we walked round the reserve. Terrapins were popular pets in the early 90s, when, inspired by the TV series and film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, people bought baby terrapins, about the size of a 50p coin. Actual teenage terrapins though, are bigger and feistier, so when they grew to the size of a dinner plate, many people abandoned their pets in local ponds and lakes. Unfortunately for the wildlife that already lives there, terrapins are voracious predators, eating just about anything they can swallow, and here they have a big impact on dragonflies as they eat their aquatic larvae.

Terrapin trap in a lily pond at Bystock
The terrapin trap, cunningly disguised as a terrapin basking spot.

As we got to the reservoir we found Ed and Andrew, the reserve wardens, lowering a terrapin trap into the water. The idea is that the terrapins, which like to bask on logs, will climb out to bask on the wooden frame which is mounted on plastic piping to keep it buoyant, and then plop back into the water and find themselves in the cage inside the frame. Any that are caught will be re-homed by a local tortoise collector. The terrapins aren’t the only introduced species found in the lake, Ed said that there are also Koi carp, one of which is called Henry by his fans.

Southern danselfly
Southern damselfly (image from http://www.british-dragonflies.org.uk/species/southern-damselfly)

The wet heathlands of the Pebblebed Heaths are fantastic habitats for dragonflies and damselflies including the very rare southern damselfly. This is only found at a few sites, and is very poor at colonising new ones. We went to Venn Ottery to look at the work  that had been done to restore habitat so that it would be suitable for reintroducing southern damselflies.

The name Venn Ottery comes from fen, and means a marsh near the River Otter.  We scrambled over the tussocky heathland and through a few boggy puddles to the middle of the reserve, where small streams have been dammed with wooden boards. This is to slow the movement of water and create suitable habitats for the damselfly, which lives in runnels –  tiny shallow streams – on the heath. We didn’t manage to spot any, but it might have been just a little late in the year for them.

Andrew Warren, Edric Hopkinson and Matt Boydell, from Devon Wildlife Trust
Andrew Warren, Edric Hopkinson and Matt Boydell, from Devon Wildlife Trust.

I’m incredibly grateful to Matt,  for taking the time to show us around the reserves and to Ed and Andy for sharing their knowledge of the site, even though Ed was standing in leaky waders and quite keen to get some dry socks on. We had such a great time we went back the next day to take some extra photos and admire the wildlife.

 

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The Ercall

Oak woodland
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The edible arch at The Cut, Abbey Foregate, one of Shropshire Wildlife Trust's visitor centres.
The edible arch at The Cut, Abbey Foregate, Shropshire Wildlife Trust’s HQ and visitor centre.

Shropshire Wildlife Trust has a fantastic HQ, beautiful old restored abbey buildings surrounded by gardens, that once housed the Cadfael Experience, celebrating the books and TV series about a medieval monk with detective leanings, set in Shrewsbury. The garden still has an old-world, kitchen garden feel, with herbs, vegetables and fruit trees promising an abundant harvest.

Jan Mckelvey, Conservation Manager and Pete Lambert, River Projects Manager at Shropshire Wildlife Trust
Jan Mckelvey, Conservation Manager and Pete Lambert, River Projects Manager at Shropshire Wildlife Trust

I was there to meet Jan Mckelvey, Conservation Manager at Shropshire Wildlife Trust, to find out more about the work of the Trust, especially how it runs behind the scenes. They have a lot of great projects running at the moment. I met the incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic team running an extensive landscape restoration scheme, The Meres and Mosses, and had a very interesting chat with Pete Lambert who manages the varied work that the Trust is doing to improve Shropshire’s rivers.

Wheat sculpture water feature Shropshire Wildlife Trust Vistor Centre
We timed our visit well, as the Trust was hosting a pop-up restaurant, so we sat in the garden enjoying lovely vegan food and a ferociously healthy smoothie.

Of course I couldn’t visit Shropshire Wildlife Trust without seeing a nature reserve, so in the afternoon, clutching a map and set of directions, we braved the rain and set off to visit The Ercall, little sister to that more famous Shropshire landmark, the Wrekin.

The changeable weather enhanced our experience of the reserve. The Ercall is covered with ancient oak woodland, with moss covered trees, lush green ferny undergrowth, open grassy glades and small ponds. As we walked through the trees, the rain pattered softly through the leaves and gave everything an emerald glow.

Rain pattered through the leaves
Male fern
Striking patterns made by spore capsules on a fern leaf
The rain droplets on tufted hair grass turned this woodland glade into a shimmering silver sea.
Raindrops make ripples in a shady woodland pond, one of the group of pools known as the Dairy Pits
Pattern of oak branches

Just as we reached the top of The Ercall, the clouds parted and the sun shone through, lighting up the woods and wet landscape in glorious technicolour.

The Ercall is hugely important geologically, the scars left by quarrying reveal that the area was once under a shallow tropical sea just south of the equator.

The Ercall Unconformity – what it’s all about
The Ercall Unconformity, reclaimed by green
A trilobite, inhabitant of the area millions of years ago

I loved this poem carved into stone, reflecting the site’s geological history.

Poem carved into rock
A poem inscribed into the rock

Upon my shore you stand
Marking time
A mark in time I am
And older yet than that
Over hill
And under the sea I’ve seen
The birthing of this land

 

By pick and blast made now
Ripped open
It ripples on through me
A scar reclaimed by green
Uncovered
My secrets held in folds
Of quiet eternity

On that reflective note, I have to leave you with a gorgeous Shrewsbury sunset, one of the most fiery skies I saw on the whole trip.

Shrewsbury sunset

 

Gwaith Powdwr

Southern hawker dragonfly (male)
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I was struck by how many of the sites I’ve visited during this trip have been reclaimed from industry. Of course most Wildlife Trust nature reserves are habitats that have taken hundreds of years to establish and are now saved for the future, but something the Trusts are very good at is bringing wildlife back to areas that have been used for quite different purposes.

Balistic Pendulum, Gwaith Powdwr
The Pendlum Shed houses a huge ballistic pendulum, used to grade the quality of the explosives produced on site. A canon, set with a charge of explosive was pushed into the hole in the pendulum and fired. The distance it swung would be used to calibrate the strength of the explosive. The heath around this area is now the main nesting site for nightjars.

Gwaith Powdwr, at Penrhyndeudraeth, is one such site. In the 1970s it was the most sophisticated nitroglycerin manufacturing plant of its kind in the world. Production stopped in 1995, and it was decontaminated before being donated by ICI to North Wales Wildlife Trust, Ymddiriedolaeth Natur Gogledd Cymru,  in 1998.

Heathland at the top of the site, overlooking the Dwyryd estuary
Heathland at the top of the site, overlooking the Dwyryd estuary

Due to the security requirements of the site, nature survived undisturbed in parts of the site, the heathland in particular has remained mostly ungrazed and is a haven for species such as adder and nightjar.

Lesser horseshoe bat (image Janice Whittington)
Lesser horseshoe bat (image © Janice Whittington)

Wildlife started to reclaim the rest of the site once the factory was closed, bats moved into the buildings and structures and the site is now designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its importance for bats, especially the rare lesser horseshoe bat.

 

 

North Wales Wildlife Trust volunteers and site manager at Gwaith Powdwr nature reserve
The volunteers meet regularly on Wednesdays to help manage the site. Today they were clearing paths, making space for visitors and making bat boxes in preparation for Party Penrhyn.

At the end of July, we joined Rob Booth, Living Landscapes Officer at NWWT, and his volunteers for their lunch break. They were busy getting ready for Party Penrhyn, an annual event at the site. Rob told us about the wildlife on the reserve and the work that is being done to encourage more wildlife.

Female slow worm
Female slow worm

The reserve provides ideal conditions for four kinds of reptiles. We saw lizards basking on old wood and bare patches of ground amongst the heather, and were given permission to peak under some reptile monitoring sheets, where bronze-sheened slow worms glinted in the sun before slipping further into the thatch of grass and old bracken. Adders are also to be found in the heathy parts of the site, but sadly not by us, although we searched carefully. In the midday heat they are far too quick for mere humans and would have been off as soon as they heard us coming. (Although snakes don’t appear to have ears, they can in fact hear, by sensing vibrations, including sound waves, which are passed through their jaw to an inner ear.)

Blast wall and building at Gwaith Powdwr
This storage shed has been re-roofed for bats. Many of the buildings are protected by blast walls. One of the volunteers had been researching the history of the site and told us about two serious explosions that had happened in the previous century.

As the reserve is so important for bats, much of the management is aimed at improving conditions for them. Lesser horseshoe bats use the tunnels and there are up to 30 hibernating on site but they don’t seem to breed there. The Trust managed to get a grant to re-roof one of the explosive storage sheds, and are hoping it will become a maternity roost. Since the work was done, brown long-eared bats have bred in there and Rob said that lesser horseshoe bats are already checking it out. The Trust is also working to make the bunkers more homely for bats, putting new doors on to prevent disturbance, reduce light levels and draughts and make them safer from predators.

The woodland on the reserve is particularly good for moths, the Trust  found 130 species in just one night. Where a stream runs through the woodland, the damp, shady conditions are ideal for ferns and mosses.

Clouded border moth
Woodland at Gwaith Powdwr
Speckled wood butterfly
Ferns and moss in the damp woodland

Ponds were part of the industrial legacy, providing water to help keep the explosives cool (and therefore stable) and also allowing contaminants to settle out of the water. These settling ponds are now a wildlife haven, we saw lots of tiny toadlets setting off on their journey into the big world of dry land, stragglers from the great toadlet exodus that happens during July. The grass snakes that have been seen around the ponds proved elusive, which is probably fortunate for the toadlets. Dragonflies and damselflies darted across the water, rarely settling long enough to have their photographs taken, except by the most patient of photographers. Fortunately I had one with me.

Settling pond at Gwaith Powdwr
White water-lilies
Male and female emerald damsel-flies (these ones from Gwaith Powdwr)
Toadlet coming up for air
This male southern hawker dragonfly was flying along a woodland path at Gwaith Powdwr, a North Wales Wildlife Trust nature reserve.
This common hawker dragonfly at Gwaith Powdwr had recently emerged from its larval skin.

We had such a brilliant time exploring Gwaith Powdwr, everywhere we looked there was interesting wildlife. It is a fantastic example of how a site can be restored after such intense industrial use.

Foulshaw Moss

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Ospreys are the obvious attraction when visiting Foulshaw Moss but I had heard a lot about the work that was happening to restore this site and hoped to find out more. We met Simon Thomas, the Reserves Officer and Grace who is on a placement from Cumbria University, on a wet Friday morning. I’m sure they could have retreated to a nice dry office but such is the generosity of Cumbria Wildlife Trust staff that they kindly showed us around the reserve despite the rain.

Sphagnum moss mound
Simon explained how sphagnum is structured to collect and hold rainwater – he squeezed a strand of moss to show us how much water trickled out of just a single strand. It also creates an acid environment, which means that as the tip of the plant grows, the older parts don’t decay, they are preserved so that it starts to pile up to form mounds.

Rain is good news at Foulshaw Moss. A Moss is a raised bog in the lowlands. It develops when an area is constantly waterlogged and sphagnum moss grows there over many years, building up into a huge peat dome which rises up above the surrounding landscape.

Foulshaw Moss lies on an area that used to stretch over seven miles of continuous swamp, reedbed and bog. The peat is still up to 6 metres deep in some places. It was very treacherous to cross, and people used to take the guided path over the adjacent Morecambe Bay sands in preference. Much of the area was eventually drained and subject to extensive peat cutting (for fuel) before being used for farming and forestry.

Sundew plant
There are few nutrients available in the acidic peat soil. Sundews trap insects on sticky hairs on the leaves and digest them to provide vital extra nutrients.

When Cumbria Wildlife Trust bought the site in 1999 from the Forestry Commission a large part of it was covered with regimented rows of conifers. There was still a small patch of raised bog remaining, an increasingly rare habitat with plants like cotton grass, bilberry, cranberry and sundew, all growing through the wet sphagnum moss.

To restore the rest of the site, Cumbria Wildlife Trust had the trees removed and blocked up the drainage channels to keep as much water on the site as possible. That is why they like the rain – the bog is fed entirely by rainwater, and the wetter the better for sphagnum moss.

Low growing cranberry plant
Cranberry is one of the specialist bog plants found at Foulshaw Moss.
a pool on Foulshaw Moss with cotton grass
Pools like this are great for dragonflies, including the rare white-faced darter. Common cotton-grass and hare’s tail cotton grass both grow here.

Cumbria Wildlife Trust are using other techniques to help the developing bog to hold more water: damming up large drainage channels to create pools, creating peat banks in the degraded peat bog to create water-tight cells, planting reedbeds and restoring wetter habitats on surrounding land to slow the water loss from the bog. All these things are helping to raise the water table and provide the right conditions for the bog specialist plants and animals to thrive. This has been so successful that they have been able to re-introduce the rare white-faced darter dragonfly (previously, in Cumbria, only found in one other site) to the reserve. In fact, if it hadn’t been raining so hard I would have been able to post lots of pictures of the dragonflies, damselflies and large heath butterflies we would have seen.

Wildlife Trust staff and volunteers at Foulshaw Moss
Simon, Grace, me and Colin at one of the osprey viewing points. Colin volunteers at the reserve on Tuesdays to point out the ospreys to visitors, who can get a good look at them through the viewing ‘scope.

And what of the Ospreys? They are nesting on a specially built platform in a tree in the middle of the inaccessible and therefore safest part of the reserve. There are two chicks in the nest this year. The nest is too far away to photograph with our basic equipment, and the chicks were hunkered down against the wet much of the time, but we saw both parents as they took turns to guard the nest and the chicks did poke their heads up above the edge before we left, which was a magical sight. For amazing footage of the Foulshaw ospreys, click here.

Looking across the oldest part of Foulshaw Moss
Looking across the oldest part of Foulshaw Moss
actual size model of an osprey nest
Osprey nests are huge. Staff from Cumbria Wildlife Trust built this one on the ground to demonstrate just how big they are.

 

Edited 14.7.16 to correct the date that CWT purchased the reserve.

Brandon Marsh

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One of the most precious books in my collection is a battered, brown hardback edition of the Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, published in 1966 and bought by my father not long afterward. A checklist at the front tells a hidden story, bringing back memories of childhood holidays and shared moments, as well as being Dad’s lifelong bird list.

Bird book and Brandon Marsh Brandon Marsh starts to appear alongside the ticked list in the 90’s and was a favourite haunt of Dad’s, who moved to Coventry at that time. He always planned to take me there, but somehow we never got round to it. Whilst I was rummaging through a box of his books recently, a leaflet for Brandon Marsh dropped out from between the pages of a book on wetland birds. So it seems fitting that my first stop on a tour of Wildlife Trust reserves should be the favourite site of a person who nurtured my own passion for nature.

Karl Curtis, the Reserves and Community Engagement Manager at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, showed me round the reserve in a timely break between downpours on Wednesday afternoon. As we made our way around the lakes and pools which make up a large part of the reserve, Karl explained how the site had originally been farmland, but subsidence due to coal mining locally had created a large lake, known as Brandon floods, linked to the River Avon which flows to the south of the reserve. Sand and gravel extraction created more lakes and pools and the resulting wetland habitats attracted a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. A group of local enthusiasts came together to look after those parts of the site, and the Brandon Marshes Voluntary Conservation Group was formed. Warwickshire Wildlife Trust took on the site in 1989 and works with the Brandon Marshes Voluntary Conservation Team to look after the site.

There is something about an expanse of shining water that instills a great feeling of calmness. As we sat in one of the many bird hides looking across a lake, the stresses of work, packing and travelling melted away.

East Marsh Pool at Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve
Looking out over East Marsh Pool.

From one of the reserve’s eight hides, we watched lapwings strutting, smart in their metallic green-sheened plumage and single, show-off curl of a crest. Oyster catchers, black and white with striking orange beaks, peep-peeped as they swept round before landing. Elegant common terns flew gracefully down, one of the many species nesting or feeding on the shores of the islands in the East Marsh Pool.

kingfisher pole at Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve
Look carefully to see the kingfisher pole which allows the birds to pose obligingly for photographers, although the reserve’s kingfishers were far too busy to pose for me that day.
Newlands Reedbed at Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve
Newlands Reedbed at Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve

An exiting ongoing project at Brandon Marsh is the creation of the Newlands Reedbed. This summer, 20,000 plugs of reed will be planted to extend the habitat. It is hoped that providing this huge area of reedbed, open water and marshy grassland will encourage bitterns and marsh harriers, which visit the reserve from time to time, to stay and breed here, as well as attracting other rare wetland species. The work has taken place over many years, and funding has now been secured to complete the final phase, fulfilling the long-held ambition of Alban Wincott, one of the volunteers instrumental in setting up the Brandon Marshes Voluntary Conservation Team and leading the work of the team. Sadly, Alban is no longer here to see the work completed, but Karl told me of plans to name this area of reedbed in his memory.

As we looked across the developing seedbed, a hobby swooped back and forth before settling on a branch. I was thrilled, as this was my first really good look at this beautiful bird.

Like many of my colleagues working in the Wildlife Trusts, Karl grew up somewhere where he could always be out exploring – up a tree, down a hole, and these experiences started his love of nature. He seems to be passing this enthusiasm on to the next generation; after being promised a snake hunt, his children were excited to find three grass snakes under corrugated iron refugia and a sloughed snake skin to take into school. I bet not many children get to report a snake hunt at show-and-tell on Monday morning!

 

Karl Curtis, Reserves and Community Engagement Manager at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust
Karl Curtis, Reserves and Community Engagement Manager at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust

 

Never one to turn down a snake hunt, I also got a peek at the grass snakes – a perfect end to my tour of the site. Thank you Karl for taking the  time to show me round and explain how Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the team of volunteers are looking after this fabulous reserve.

 

 

Wildlife Road-Trip

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For an island, Britain packs a huge variety of landscapes and wild places into its 80,000 square miles. If you wanted, you could see craggy mountains, windswept coastal plains, bleak moorland and lush valleys, cascading waterfalls and meandering rivers, wide open spaces and tiny urban green gems, all in the space of one day. Although you would spend most of it in the car, to explore it properly takes more time.

A two week holiday makes just a small impact on the list of places I would love to visit,  so this year I am taking a three month sabbatical break from work, to see all those places. Travelling the length and bredth of Britain in a campervan, I will find out more about meres and mosses, limestone pavements, honeycomb reefs, and the Machair.

Released from my desk into the wild, I hope to see more of the biodiversity we are working so hard to look after. It is also a chance to find out more about other Wildlife Trusts, their reserves and projects. So for the next three months, this blog will feature a series of Wildlife Trust reserves from around Britain and the people that look after them.

Sabbatical survival kitFriday was my last day at the Trust for the summer. In a fabricated meeting about rubber ducks (don’t ask, I may post an explanatory picture next week), the Conservation Team presented me with a sabbatical survival kit. As well as providing camping rations, midge protection and emergency wine, they have set me the challenge of filling in a hand crafted I-spy book of things I should be looking out for on my travels.

Page of I-spy book

Spring survey

Bluebells at Thornden wood in the Blean
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I really should have known better – I had managed to plan a visit to Blean woods during the first hot and sunny week of the year, and was looking forward to a gentle wander through the woodland, dappled sunlight playing across carpets of spring flowers. How I actually spent the morning was scrambling through bushes, old bracken and bramble and falling down the occasional hole. Still thoroughly enjoyed it though!

Surveying dense scrub regrowth at Blean Woods
Can’t see the surveyors for the trees – Paul and Pica are in there somewhere. In a couple of years this will be even denser – perfect for nesting nightingales.

Paul had allowed me to gate crash one of his surveys, which turned out to be in an area of conifer plantation that was being restored to native woodland. Of course the thing about woodland restoration is that it takes time, and three years in, the area was thick with small birch trees, last year’s bracken and bramble, all growing fast now that the deep shade from the conifer trees has gone. It will be a while before the tree canopy lifts and the plants at ground level become more varied, but we found a fair bit of heather, which is an important part of the mixture of plants we hope to eventually see in this part of the woodland.

Thornden Woods in springArriving late, I had missed the chance for a lift from the car park to the section of Thornden Wood that Paul and his ecology group volunteers were heading for. Luckily, that meant a chance to walk along the track, flanked on either side with trees just erupting into that vibrant but ephemeral spring green. There were plenty of flowers along the woodland edge to satisfy my desire for spring colour; bluebells, wood anemones, bugle and the occasional lime green of a patch of wood spurge, almost fluorescent in the sunlight.

Wood spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides
Wood spurge
Wood anemone, bugle and bluebell
Wood anemone, bugle and bluebell

After a lovely walk down the track, resisting the temptation to explore the Wild Art trail, I found Paul and Mark (the Canterbury Area Warden) with Alex and Paul, two ecology group volunteers, forging through the undergrowth in pursuit of science.

Mark is experimenting with different management techniques, to see which is most effective in restoring the woodland. In the three areas we were surveying, one had been clear-felled (all the conifers removed)  and left to regenerate, another had also been clear-felled  and was being grazed from time to time. In the third, some conifers had been taken out to thin the canopy and let more light in. At this stage, there was a relatively small variety of species to be found, but it can still be quite tricky to identify young plants that are not in flower – fortunately Alex is an experienced botanist and able to help with any unfamiliar species. I can’t report any unusual species in the bits we surveyed, but the presence of native birch, willow, oak and hornbeam shows that the restoration to native woodland is clearly underway.

————–

Edited 10th June 2016 because I got Paul’s name wrong. Unforgivable, because as well as being an ecology group volunteer he is a regular volunteer at Blean Woods and highly appreciated by the wardens. So sorry, Paul.

Storyboards at Samphire Hoe

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The classroom at Samphire Hoe, at Dover, beside the white cliffs of Dover, looking out across the English Channel

Another great location for a meeting – the Education Shelter at Samphire Hoe has fabulous views of the white cliffs of Dover and out across the Channel.

Kent Wildlife Trust conservation team working on storyboards for a video clip
Home-made biscuits, provided by the Kiosk, and a steady supply of tea and coffee fueled our creativity.

With some trepidation, the conservation team gathered in the Education Shelter at Samphire Hoe, a country park on the outskirts of Dover. They had provided me with a long list of things they really wouldn’t want to do on a team building day, and a quick internet search had added to the list of activities widely considered to be uncalled for. Luckily, Bryony, Paul, Vinny and I had come up with (we thought) an excellent idea – to get everyone to work on producing some video clips about the work of the team. It seemed to meet with general approval, provided certain people didn’t have to stand in front of the camera.

 

Kent Wildlife Trust's conservation team making a video
Paul checks the first bit of footage, introducing the Conservation Team

 

 

By the time we had got our ideas together, it had stopped raining long enough for us to risk taking the ipads we had borrowed from the marketing department outside. We headed out to various locations, braved the cold and our fears of being in front of the camera (for some of us; but it turned out that some of my colleagues could be doing this for a living!) I will share the end results once Gordon, social media guru, has turned our various clips and re-takes into the seamless footage we had planned.

 

Good news and bad news

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I have been on a roller-coaster of hope and despair for the natural environment over the past few days.

At the Westminster Briefing on Biodiversity in London last week, we heard that 40% of global GDP (a measure of the goods and services that a country produces, which governments typically use to measure their success) depends on nature. It seems bizarre then, that the message from Defra is that they will not be spending money on environmental work. I lost count of the number of times that the speakers from the public sector said “there is no money” for the natural environment.

We were told that the England Biodiversity Strategy, Biodiversity 2020, is an initiative from the last government, and that the new initiative, a 25 year strategy, will only partly be about biodiversity, it will expand to include farming and food. Meanwhile, progress on improving the condition of threatened habitats and sites has slowed, and there are 361 species that experts believe are at risk of becoming extinct in England by 2020.

Depressing news, but I’m not ready to give up. Fortunately, I had just returned from the World Forum on Natural Capital, where it is clear that other governments, and businesses, are waking up to the fact that nature is essential to business and to the economy. The things that we get from nature appear to be provided for us free of charge, but this is an illusion. If the environment becomes so degraded that some of these things stop working, we suddenly become aware of the cost, and it is huge. Flooding that is made worse by artificial landscapes that no longer soak up the water is on everyone’s minds at the moment, but there were many more examples showing how important it is to invest in looking after this vital resource.

Nat cap conference 1
At the World Forum on Natural Capital in Edinburgh

Natural capital is a way of viewing the natural environment as an asset that can be valued, and if it has a monetary value then it can be factored in to political and economic decisions. One of the most inspirational speakers of the conference was John D. Liu, a film maker and environmentalist, who believes that change is possible and it is starting to happen. He showed a film of a devastated landscape restored to health in China, showing what can be achieved with sufficient vision and support.

Throughout the conference here were many inspiring examples of nature being valued and then enhanced, although sadly very few from the UK; the challenge is to work out how we can get this happening here. I have a notebook full of ideas, just need the time and resources to put them into practice!

It was good to end the week on a positive note – this is just one of the maps that we covered at a Kent Nature Partnership meeting with notes of projects happening right now to restore and create new habitats for wildlife.
It was good to end the week on a positive note – this is just one of the maps that we covered at a Kent Nature Partnership meeting with notes of projects happening right now to restore and create new habitats for wildlife.

 

 

 

Ten to One

~ sueyoungwildlife ~ Leave a comment

Once or twice a week, at 10 to 1 pm, the conservation team (or those of us who are around at the time) climb the precipitous stairs up to the Sunley Solar. This is the informal meeting space at the top of the farmhouse offices, named after a generous benefactor of the Trust. The ten to ones, as they have come to be known, are a chance to share knowledge and help us keep up to speed with the latest in conservation, or simply to ask if anyone knows the answer to question that has cropped up in our work that day.

meeting in the Sunley Solar
Half of the Conservation team gather in the former attic of the 17th century farmhouse that now houses our offices, so that Chloe can update us on the latest in wetland conservation.

For example, last week, Chloe fed back to us about a conference she had just been to, Wetland Futures, which was focused on those areas where the rivers meet the sea. These wetland areas can look desolate, but the marshes, mudflats and saltmarshes that characterise them are some of our most wildlife rich areas. We are looking at what we can do to improve wetland biodiversity, it is an important area of our work at the moment; Chloe brought back lots of information about projects that are happening around the country, and ideas for things that would work in Kent.

Marine species like the sea walnut can be carried in ballast water and in the absence of local predators, multiply and form extensive populations. The sea walnuts then consume zooplankton, including fish eggs and larvae, reducing the food available to native species, and having a knock-on effect along the food chain and a devastating impact on local fisheries. Image from: http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-photos/sea-walnut-mnemiopsis-leidyi
Marine species like the sea walnut can be carried in ballast water and in the absence of local predators, multiply and form extensive populations. The sea walnuts then consume zooplankton, including fish eggs and larvae, reducing the food available to native species, and having a knock-on effect along the food chain and a devastating impact on local fisheries. Image from: http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-photos/sea-walnut-mnemiopsis-leidyi

She also provided an update on the problem of invasive non-native species, which are particularly difficult to deal with in these environments. It is vital to track the spread of invasive species, to understand how they colonise areas and where we should target work. Anyone can help to do this, simply by recording species that they come across and sending this information to the various recording schemes which record the spread of invasive species. There is even an app for that to make it really easy to do -download the That’s Invasive app.

Ivy bees have only recently been found in Britain, and are spreading across the South.
Ivy bees were first found in Britain in 2001. Since then, they have spread throughout the south of England. If you see a very stripy looking bee, with a furry thorax, on ivy in the autumn, it is almost certainly an ivy bee. They are mining bees, which means they create a nest in the ground. Although they are solitary bees, each creating a single nest, you can get large aggregations of bees nesting in one area.

Sometimes, at ten to one, we go for a wander instead. It gets us away from our screens, provides some low level exercise, gives us time to catch up with what other people are up to, and we usually learn something new as well, or at least I do. It’s the good kind of multitasking. Last week, on a lunchtime walk with some of the conservation team, we were practicing wild walks, Greg was spotting spiders, Paul found a badger latrine and I learned about ivy bees.