Rainy Conservation Tasks

The weather has become more autumnal all of sudden, and it's feeling rather cold and wet.

This week I spent two days on my new volunteering job with West Yorkshire Joint Services. Through contacts made on a conservation task, I am now helping out the ecology team. It is just a desk based job - keying biological records from various surveys that have been done.  However, having studied on the MMU UCert programme, it is interesting to now be part of a biological records centre and see first hand how it works.  It is also really useful to read through the different formats of ecological survey report that are done by different consultants, and I am getting more familiar with Recorder and MapInfo in the process, as well as learning species' scientific names. So it's a win:win situation at the moment, and hopefully I can continue to build my skills and make contacts that will be useful in the future.

On Friday I attended the 'Green Team' volunteering day at TCV Skelton Grange. It was raining heavily all day, but luckily they had some alternative indoor activities planned. We set up a make-shift workshop in the cloakroom, and spent most of the day making bird boxes. My partner and I made three boxes, and I'm quite impressed with our efforts - probably not good enough to sell but certainly good enough for the birds!

Yesterday I took part in a task day with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Lower Aire Valley volunteers.  We met at Kippax Leisure Centre, which is overlooked by Townclose Hills, our site for the day and just a few minutes walk away.  I had hoped to be practicing some coppicing skills, but instead we took out some small trees that were growing to close to the path. As well as improving access, this will open up some parts of the site and create sunnier glades where the undergrowth and butterflies can flourish.  The material that we took out was too small to produce log piles, so we made some dead hedges. These will serve the dual purpose of blocking off some unofficial footpaths and thus protecting some areas of woodland, and providing a habitat for invertebrates and hiberating animals. It was another very wet day, and I finished the task cold but exhilerated for being out working all day, making the cup of tea and hot bath once home all the more welcome.

Today I am catching up on my study notes, and tomorrow I am jetting off to Edinburgh for the CIEEM autumn conference.

Exploring the Great British Countryside

I've had a couple of really great days out in the last few weeks.

First was exploring an area of the country I rarely get to - the Derbyshire Peak District. I attended an away day with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, which was a good opportunity to take time out and brainstorm project ideas with other trainees and members of staff. As part of this, we spent an afternoon on the Monsal Trail - a disused railway line that has been converted to a trail. We hired bikes from the Hassop Cafe (an excellent enterprise with good food and a shop too), and rode the middle section of the route. This took us over a viaduct, and through three tunnels that were repaired and opened to the public just a few years ago. The route was fairly flat, but must have been slightly uphill as it felt a lot easier peddling back!  The trail links various wildlife reserves and other sights, so it was interesting to think how nature conservation could link to different activities like walking and cycling trails. The autumn colours were spectacular, and views of the valleys and gorges were stunning.  Despite practicing at home every night for the past week, I was still a little slow and seemed to be at the back of the group (it has been a while since I was last on a bike!). It would be good to go back again when there is a bit more time to explore and to detour into some of the reserves.

This weekend was spent with a couple of friends up in the Yorkshire Dales. We stayed in our camper van and frequented the Station Inn at Ribblehead, in the heart of three peaks country, which was spookily decked out for Halloween with the staff looking rather gruesome.  We caught up over dinner and a few pints on the Friday evening, and had a leisurely start on Saturday morning. The cloud was hanging low and covering the top of Whernside when we set off, so we ambled up the valley and took time to explore the viaduct, waterfall and aquaduct. The cloud seemed to be clearing, so we turned left and took the long path up the back of Whernside. The sun came out when we reached the top, giving spectactular views north to Dentdale, but it was still bitterly cold in the wind so we just stopped briefly for a picnic lunch. We then started the descent, steep in places but giving great views over the other two peaks and the Ribblehead viaduct. It was nice to get out in the fresh air and stretch the old legs.

I've also managed to squeeze in another small mammal survey before the weather turns too cold. I supported one of the YWT Reserve's Officers with some trapping at Hollinhurst Woods near Leeds. The results were a little disappointing; as it is a very public site we only left the traps in situ overnight (if they had been pre-baited and left longer, we may have caught more and different species). As it was, we caught two field voles and four wood mice out of 26 traps. At least it has given us an idea of what is on site and which types of habitat they seem to prefer.

Another cute Wood Mouse picture

Changing Times

October is turning into a slightly strange, rather unsettling month, with lots of change and a fair amount of uncertainly.  My traineeship with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust officially ends on the 17th October, so I have been trying to tie up any loose ends. This has included sorting out my PPE and uniform to hand back, which makes me a little sad. I have been wondering what to do with the extra 2-3 days I will gain when I leave. I hope to continue attending the practical workdays run by the YWT Lower Aire Valley volunteers, and have also taken part in the TCV 'Green Friday' workday down at Skelton Grange, which is an environmental centre just a few miles from home.

I carried out some more small mammal surveys at East Keswick with their local wildlife group and the Yorkshire Mammal Group. This involved a whole weekend of trapping and checking. We had some good results, with over 50% capture rate (mostly wood mice) but unfortunately no harvest mice or pigmy shrews. However, through talking to people there I have a volunteering opportunity with West Yorkshire Ecological Data Network, so am going to visit later in the month. It will be a desk-based job data inputing, but will give me a different experience and may open up more opportunities.

I have also been applying for several jobs. Coincidentally, a course has just started on FutureLearn (an online learning system) which is all about writing job applications, so I have been working through that and hoping to pick up some tips on how to make my application hit the right note.  If you haven't heard of FutureLearn it is worth checking out, as they run a range of free courses covering various topics.

Study wise, I have concluded the team project for my Open University Practical Environmental Science course (SXE288) which was quite intensive in the last few weeks of September, especially as I was also writing up my mammal survey for MMU at the same time.  I have now started a new course, S295 The Biology of Survival, and the workload is fairly manageable so far. It is a combination of investigative biology and evolution, and looks as thought it will be really interesting.

One of the first tasks for the course has been a bird prey discrimination experiment. This basically involves making hundreds of coloured dough balls, putting them out for the birds, and counting how many of each colour are taken.  I have been training the birds for the last two weeks, and this weekend started the proper experiment.  I set up my naturecam to make sure I captured all the relevant data, and am pleased to say that with a new memory card this is now working properly and getting some really good shots - I didn't realise there was so much diversity in my garden. I normally only see sparrows and blackbirds, but have caught dunnocks, robins and blue tits on the camera. It is magpies that seem to be eating all the dough balls though - I wouldn't normally encourage them into the garden, but they are helping to get me some results.

The Great Dormouse Hunt

Last weekend I attended my first proper outing with my local mammal group, to check dormouse nest boxes in woodland north of Ripon.  I was quite excited at the prospect of seeing my first dormouse up close and personal, and tempted by the tea and cakes promised at the end of the day.

It was an early start for a Sunday morning, and nearly an hour's drive to the site. I met up with the rest of the group at 9:00am and, having split up into three smaller groups, we stomped off into the woods. In all, we had 350 nest boxes to locate and check. The nestboxes were all located on a map, laid out on a grid system and marked with a length of orange tape, but nevertheless some were quite hard to find.  As there is no access to the woods, a lot of the vegetation was overgrown and it was difficult terrain to walk over.

Unfortunately, none of the groups found any dormice in the boxes, and only a few possible nests were discovered. I also looked for signs of eaten hazlenuts on the ground and didn't see any. Dormice were released in the area ten years ago and have been recorded there until recently, but it looks as though the colony has either moved on, died out, or is finding somewhere else to nest.  Some of the nestboxes contained old bird's nests; others were completely empty.  Wood mice had moved in to a number of the nestboxes, and shrews were occasionally found. We even came across a couple of bats in one of the nests.

It was nearly 2pm before we stopped for a lunch break. After this, we moved on to a second woodland to carry on the search. Unfortunately it was much the same story.  The woods were full of wonderful fungi and other life, but no dormice.

After a long day, we finished around 5pm by which time the tea-shop had closed.  So not only did we not find any dormice, but we didn't get any cake either!  Still, it was a friendly group, nice to be out in the open air all day, and a good experience - I'm now more familiar with how a dormice release programme would be carried out, and the long-term monitoring needed to follow it up.

Citizen Science & Invasives Conference

On Friday, I travelled down to London to attend a free conference organised by UKEOF (Environmental Observation Framework).

It was an early start and a long train journey, but I put the time to good use and made lots of progress in writing up my MMU Mammal Survey.  The conference was held at the British Ecological Society's HQ at Charles Darwin House, just a short walk from Kings Cross station. I arrived early, so had time to work my way there slowly and stop for a coffee en route to perk me up a little after my 5:30am alarm call.

The conference was a unique blend of citizen science and invasive species, so fit perfectly with the work I have been doing on my traineeship with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It was interesting to hear about other organisation's experiences of using volunteers to help in the fight against invasives. Many organisations, like my project, are using members of the public to carry out surveying and monitoring work, and to gather data to be collated to improve our knowledge of certain issues.  The distinction was also made between these Citizen Scientists and so-called "Citizen Killers" who carry out a different but equally valuable role involving killing plants or despatching squirrels/rats/mink.

It was also great to meet people and be able to put faces to names, such as the team behind the PlantTracker app that we have been using to collect invasive plant data in Yorkshire. There were also colleagues from the NBN Gateway and the Environment Agency that were all keen to share experiences. It was a really enjoyable day and a great opportunity to network with like-minded people.

Brushcutting

With the end of my traineeship looming, I have been reviewing the skills and experiences I have gained on my placement with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.  As might be expected, these are very focused on invasive plant species, so I was fortunate when a place became available on a Brushcutter course.

A brushcutter is a heavy duty strimmer that is used to cut anything from grass to bracken to small saplings. Before the course I managed to get some tuition from my local reserve's officer Kate, and spent a morning cutting back tall herbs and scrub from the clearings around Hollinhurst Wood. This experience was invaluable, and made sure I had a some experience before attending the training.

The training course, held with other trainees at Potteric Carr, included maintenance skills. In the morning, we took the engine to bits and learned how to clean and replace various parts such as filters and spark plugs. We also learned how to exchange the cutting head (and matching guard), and sharpen the blades.  In the afternoon, we had some practice using different cutting heads and cleared some vegetation in the pond areas.

Overall, an enjoyable day and I now feel confident that I can use brushcutters safely and competently on the reserve. And I have another qualification too :)

Mammal Surveys at Fairburn Ings

My post course assignment for the MMU/FSC Land Mammals course was to carry out a mammal survey on a site of my choosing. I was lucky in that one of the other students, Heather, lived close by, so we worked together to carry out the survey at her workplace which is the nature reserve at RSPB Fairburn Ings. This had the benefit of us being able to share the experience and support each other in helping confirm identification. It also meant we could share the workload and could visit the traps frequently, one of us being able to do so even if the other was working.

It was quite an intense couple of weeks, but I must say the most fun I have had on a project!  We carried out 2 x 2 days of trapping with a short pre-baiting period to familiarise the small mammals to the Longworth traps. We set up twelve traps along a disused track separated from the main reserve by a locked gate, which gave a little confidence in being able to leave traps out safely without worrying about them being stolen or disturbed. We had good results: with a 75% average capture rate we caught a mixture of Bank Vole, Field Vole and Common Shrew.  As well as getting lots of experience in setting the traps, we had lots of practice handling the voles and even had a go at sexing them (though I think a bit more practice is needed here!).

The staff at the RSPB were all very interested and friendly. On several occasions, I turned up in the afternoon to empty the traps and was greeted by a small crowd of people, as Heather's colleagues were keen to see what was going on. One of them came in very useful, being a vetinary nurse in the past, as she was able to remove ticks that were infesting one of the captured Bank Voles.

In addition to the small mammal trapping, we carried out wider surveys around the reserve, concentrating our efforts on those places we were most likely to find field signs. This was repeated on two different days. We walked through a reed bed and found more Field Vole signs and, to my delight, a Harvest Mouse nest.  In the woods, we found numerous burrows. These looked too small to be badger. We set up a trail camera which confirmed the burrows belonged to rabbits, though we did capture a fox on the camera too.

At the eastern end of the reserve, we walked along a path known as The Cut which runs between two lakes and joins to the River Aire. We had hoped to survey for Water Voles, but it was too overgrown to get down to the river bank. We did survey in small patches around bridges and where there were gaps in the vegetation for anglers, and were really pleased to find a fresh otter spraint as well as mink scat and rat droppings, but sadly no sign of Water Voles.

Writing up the project was really useful too (dare I say enjoyable) as we had to consider which species we had not found as well as those that we had. This involved further research via the NBN Gateway to find out what could potentially be found in the area.

Last weekend, the YWT LAV volunteers with help from the Mammal Society held a small mammal trapping session at the Ledston Luck reserve. This is less than three miles from Fairburn Ings, so I was interested to see what would be found.  As well as the three species seen at Fairburn Ings, we also caught numerous Wood Mice and a Water Shrew, which is the first I have ever seen. This gave me some new data to work into my project write-up. These species could feasibly have been present at Fairburn Ings but were missed, so I could consider where we might have placed additional traps to carry out a more comprehensive survey.

It was good to meet members of the Mammal Society local group at Ledston Luck, and I am looking forward to attending some more of their events in the future.