A Batty Weekend

This week has been rather manic and I've had a taste of what it's like to be an ecologist in the peak survey season.

On Friday, we had a team meeting at the East Coast along the theme of nature tourism.  After a few presentations, we had a guided bird walk along the cliffs at Flamborough.  We then made our way down to the beach at South Landing and spent some time rock pooling. It was a bit of whistle stop tour, but good to get out and mix with other trainees and staff in a relaxed setting.

The weather was fine and warm, and I was very tired by the time I got home on Friday. However, there was a bat survey organised close to my home - as most of the other outings so far have been some distance away, I thought I ought to make the effort.  I met other members of the West Yorkshire Bat Group and we spent several hours walking through Hollinghurst Wood and along the Lines Way near Great Preston/Allerton Bywater.  We heard lots of activity on the bat detectors but they were mostly pipistrelles. The woodland, where we had hoped to pick up some of the rarer species, was quite quiet.  Nevertheless, it was good to get out and practice using my detector.

On Saturday, there was a South Yorkshire Botany Group trip to Wombwell Woods near Barnsley.  It was another warm day, and I was grateful for the shade of the trees.  Due to the early Spring, many of the woodland flowers were finished, and the number of species seen was disappointing compared to other recent woodland visits I have made.  There was a large stand of japanese knotweed at the bottom of the reservoir which I dutifully reported.

On Saturday evening I joined the ARG group to visit a local nature reserve near Wakefield.  Whilst it was still light we laid out some felt for reptiles to bask on/under and searched for newt eggs.  We found eggs for both smooth/palmate and great crested newts. We then set out some bottle traps before retiring to the pub for dinner and to wait for it to get dark.

An hour of so later we returned and carried out a torch survey of the ponds.  One was very turbid, the water being stirred up by cattle, but we did see a couple of smooth newts.  The larger pond was fenced off and much clearer - there were numerous newts in the ponds, and we were optimistic for a good catch in the bottle traps.

We returned to the ponds early this morning to remove the bottle traps. We had a good count from the larger, enclosed pond - three great crested newts, a couple of palmates, and a number of smooth newts (mostly male).  The greated crested newts had DNA swabs taken as part of a wider study.  We also found palmates in a rather overgrown smaller pond in the woodland, which I think was a first record for that site. There was a mass of parrot's feather in this pond, so I made sure we all checked our footwear before leaving the area, I have just given all my kit a good scrub down and it is drying in the sun, and I have made my second invasive species report of the weekend :(

All in all, a busy but successful weekend.