Pond Restoration

Following the surveys I did in the Spring, I wrote a report for each site outlining some recommendations on how the ponds could be managed to benefit amphibians. It was great that I could join the reserves manager last week and start to make improvements to one of the ponds.

Pond clearance is best undertaken in the winter months (November to February) when amphibians are less likely to be present in the pond. Nevertheless, as the pond was known to be home to great-crested newts, only a third of the pond was worked on, leaving plenty of areas undisturbed where newts, efts and other amphibians could retreat to.

The pond was very overgrown with rushes and reeds, with hardly any open water (top photo shows the pond before any work was done). Although still a pond rather than a reed bed, without action it would dry up over the coming years. The invasive pond weed Crassula helmsii had also started to take over, forming a mat on one side of the pond and stretching several metres in.

As it's a relatively small pond, we tackled it by hand. Wearing waders, we got stuck in and found the vegetation was fairly easy to pull up from the roots. The water was also deeper than I thought, reaching mid-thigh on my waders. Whilst this bodes well for the future of the pond, it formed the natural limit of our work!  To try and avoid spreading the Crassula further, the whole mat was rolled back and piled on the side of the pond.

This is still somewhat of an experiment, but it is hoped that by covering the vegetation with black membrane it will die and decompose. We are reluctant to use any chemicals as this would harm the wildlife in the pond. It is unlikely that the Crassula will have been totally removed, but it should slow the spread. The silt stirred up during the work will soon settle and provide a nice area of open water for breeding newts to display, whilst leaving areas of vegetation for egg-laying and protection.  If successful, the work will be repeated next year to remove a further third of the vegetation, and the technique will be repeated on other ponds.

Helping to eradicate Japanese Knotweed

Whilst I was a trainee at the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, I gained qualifications allowing me to use pesticides/herbicides, but never got the chance to use these skills.  The Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) project is now at the stage where it is carrying out treatments, and I have been along several times over the last month to help out.

Japanese Knotweed was originally brought to the UK as an ornamental plant, as it looks rather like bamboo and has pretty white flowers. It has large, bright green shield shaped leaves that zig-zag up a pink stem. Although it is infertile, it easily spreads from broken plant fragments, particularly the rhizomous roots. It is often dug up and illegally dumped, which actually makes the problem worse as the plant then occurs in two places!  It is easily spread along roads, rivers and railways via broken off fragments.

As with other invasive plants such as Himalayan Balsam and Giant Hogweed, where they occur along rivers this can be problematic. As well as spreading downstream, they grow fiercely and outshade native plants.

When the invasive plants die back over winter, bare soil is left; this is susceptible to erosion and the whole process exacerbates flooding.

Each invasive plant has a different method of treatment. For Japanese Knotweed, the best method is to inject herbicide directly into the stem of the plant. Special industrial size syringes are used, and each individual stem has to be injected with a calibrated measure of the viscous liquid. This ensures that the chemical goes straight down into the root, meaning that the plant is killed in the root ball and not just above the surface. This will stop it from growing back and spreading further. Another benefit is that, unlike spraying, the chemical only goes into the Japanese Knotweed - no other plants should be damaged, meaning regrowth of native plants will be quicker. There is also virtually no risk to passing people and animals, as the chemical is all inside the plant. 

Protective clothing, boots and gloves have to be worn, making the task quite warm and uncomfortable. A lot of time is spent scrabbling about in the undergrowth on your knees, trying to avoid sharp stones, twigs, rubbish and dog poop, often on steep sided river banks so there is the added task of keeping balance and not slipping into the water. It is not the easiest or most glamorous task!

There are large infestations of Japanese Knotweed on the Rivers Colne and Holme in West Yorkshire, which is where some of the recent work has been carried out. Earlier in the week I was on a stretch of the River Colne between Marsden and Slaithwaite, near the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. There was a massive, continous broad swathe of the weed right along the river bank. After a full days work we managed to treat about a third of it, so further visits will be needed.

A few minutes upstream was a patch of river bank that I helped to treat several weeks ago. It was good to go back and have a look at the effect of our work. All of the Japanese Knotweed had died back, leaving just brown twigs. The photos to the right show the before and after pictures.

It is a mammoth project to try and rid Yorkshire of invasive plant species, but I feel I have played a small part in the battle.

To help, you can report any invasive species that you see using the PlantTracker app on smart phone or via the website. This helps get a better understanding of where invasive plants are, and by mapping them and getting an overall view by river catchment, appropriate action can be planned.

Wildflower Meadow Creation

A sad but well documented fact is that 97% of the UK's wildflower meadows have been lost in the last 100 years. Well, today I helped do something about it. Taking part in a practical task day with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's Lower Aire Valley volunteers, myself and a small gang of helpers spread wildflower seed over a large field, and in doing so helped to reverse the trend of our disappearing meadows.

In the weeks leading up to the task, seeds were collected from a donor meadow that has a healthy popluation of wildflowers. These were dried for several days under a polytunnel, then stored in a cool dry place. The field (which previously had horses on it) was prepared by the farmer, though it was only ploughed a few inches deep to break the surface of the soil.

Arriving this morning, there were 8 large bags of seed that needed to be wheel-barrowed a short distance from the car park to the site.  On arriving, we placed the seed bags at intervals across the field, and marked the field into plots. This was actually quite hard as the field is on the peak of a hill and so you can't see one side of the field from the other ... as a result, some of our plots were a little crooked, but it didn't really matter.

We then broke each plot down into more manageable sections, and set about spreading the seed. This was all done by hand. After filling up a small bucket with seed from the large bag, we basically walked up and down the field casting the seed onto the soil. The first plot was the hardest and we were unsure how much seed to use, but soon got a feel for how far one bag would go and thus how generously we should spread the seed.

Luckily it was a fairly still day so the seed went pretty much where it was thrown, but occasionally what little wind there was did change direction, resulting in a face-full of seed!

The task took about four hours to complete, and in the end our planning paid off - we had just enough seed to finish the approx. 7 hectare field. As I was pulling out of the car park, the farmer was just pulling in, and will now have finished rolling the field to push the seed slightly into the soil and prevent it from blowing away.

A popular dog walking area, we had lots of positive feedback from members of the public passing through the site, who seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing. Hopefully when we return next Spring/Summer the meadow at Water Haigh will be a beautiful vision of wildflowers including betony, scabious and yellow rattle, and perhaps even some orchids. As well as improving the aesthetic value of the site, this will also have a knock on impact to other species by providing habitat and food sources for pollinators including butterflies, bees and invertebrates.

MSc Residential Weekend

In September I commenced postgraduate studies, on the MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation with the University of Leeds. I am studying part-time over two years, hoping that a slightly more relaxed study pace will help me really embed the learning, whilst allowing me to continue to volunteer and gain practical experience in conservation and ecological surveying.

One of the first events was to join all the other MSc students and meet some of the staff on a residential weekend held at Malham Tarn FSC in the Yorkshire Dales. This differed from other weekends I have spent at FSC centres in two major ways:

• Normally I drive which means I can chuck as much kit in the car as I want and be prepared for any weather/eventuality. This time I went on a coach from the university, meaning I had to be very selective in what I took as I had to (a) fit it in a rucksack and (b) carry said rucksack half way across Leeds before I could get on the coach.
• The pace this weekend was very relaxed with late starts, early finishes, and plenty of time to chill out. This contrasted sharply with residentials for the MMU UCert, which usually start early and finish late, with no free time to yourself and the stress of being tested hanging over us all weekend.
• Oh, and a third point - the weather was awesome all weekend!

As we went a coach, this could not take us all the way to the field centre as the roads are just to narrow. Instead, a van picked up our luggage and we walked the 3+ miles from Malham village up to the FSC at Malham Tarn.  I have done part of the walk before, but never the section in the middle. Leaving the village, we climbed up the side of Malham Cove and had good views from the top before following the path through a narrow valley then walking around the tarn.

On Saturday we had various activites to try out, and split into smaller groups. In the morning, we met some of the National Trust staff that look after the estate. We did a practical conservation task, using hand saws to chop down willow from the fen. This wasn't too bad, but we then had to remove all of the wood from the fen, dragging it for what felt like a long way (probably less than 0.5km) along the boardwalk to the road. It certainly gave us a good work-out, and I think we were all a little pleased when lunchtime arrived and we could swap tasks.

After lunch we had a go at pond dipping. We tried various techniques, using a figure of eight motion to take samples from different depths of the pond and from vegetated vs open water areas. We decanted the aquatic invertebrates that were caught into sample pots, and took them back to the lab to try and identify them. We were a little short of time to do a very thorough job, but my lab partner and I managed to identify 12+ species.

After afternoon tea (and the compulsory cake), we had a bird-ringing demonstration. Nets were erected close to a bird feeding station, and the fine black netting was virtually impossible to see. Birds that were caught were carefully removed and placed in cloth drawstring bags before being brought back to the table to identify.  As well as identifying species and gender, age and moult status were recorded. This seemed quite hard, as it involved looking at the growth of feathers, and comparing different colour patterns and how much they had faded. We were lucky enough to capture a great spotted woodpecker, so got the chance to see this lovely bird up close. We also had the chance to handle and release the birds.

In the evening, dusk occured just after dinner so we went outside and used bat detectors to identify where the bats were emerging from. We used nets on long poles to catch some of the bats as they were emerging from their roost in the roof of the stables. These were taken inside and we had an interesting talk from Professor John Altringham, and also got the chance to look at live specimens up close and personal.

On Sunday morning, I got up before dawn to watch the bats return to their roost.  I sat in the courtyard and observed their swarming activity, so will know what I am looking for on future bat surveys.

Before breakfast, I also helped with some more birding ringing. On a one to one basis, I got another hour's practice in and it was great to handle a variety of small birds. I am not sure this is something I would like to pursue though: the rings themselves are very tiny and the numbers are difficult to read, and it also needs a lot of patience and manual dexterity to get the birds out of the nets.

Overall, a superb weekend where I got to know the other students and staff a little better, and learned some new techniques.

Small Mammals at Ledston Luck

In September 2014 I helped survey Ledston Luck nature reserve with the Yorkshire Mammal Group - in fact it was my first event with them and on the site. On a single overnight session, five species were caught in the Longworth traps: wood mouse, field vole, bank vole, common shrew and water shrew. After being gently examined and carefully recorded, all were released unharmed back into the wild.

YWT has lots of improvements planned for the site, including cattle grazing to help manage the grassland. With lots of work and management going on, reserves manager Kate is keen to engage the local people by getting them involved and showing what's on the site. With this in mind, I agreed to help her run another small mammal session.

We decided to survey a different part of the site, and focused on three different habitats at the southern end of the reserve. These were:

1. Tall grass and hawthorn scrub near centre of limestone plateau
2. Semi-mature woodland with grass and bramble ground flora
3. Meadow area of knee-height grass and wild flowers close to the boundary with the industrial units and alongside a damp ditch

On Friday evening several volunteers from YWT and the University of Leeds MSc group helped to set up the traps, and learned a bit about survey protocols. They were shown how to construct and set the traps which were baited with a mix of bird seed, oats, raisins, peanuts, apple and blowfly pupae. A ball of hay was added for insulative bedding. The traps were placed on site along transects, and clearly marked with biodegradable tape so that we could find them again in the morning.

Early on Saturday morning we returned to check the traps. Just three of the traps had sprung, with a wood mouse and two common shrews caught. There were no signs of small mammals at site 1. Those traps were moved to the other side of the plateau near a reed bed, to try and increase our chance of catching something the next day. The traps were locked open during the day, with a visit planned that evening to re-bait and set the traps. However, heavy rainstorms flooded local roads and we were unable to reach the site to reset the traps.

Plan B saw Kate and myself on site early on Sunday morning to set and bait the traps. The previous days storms were a distant memory, and it was a lovely warm and sunny day. None of the local villagers unfortunately showed up, but keen members from the LAV volunteers met up at lunchtime to check the traps and collect them in. Site 1 again yielded no results, though bank voles and common shrews were found in the other two areas. Everyone got the chance to practice emptying the traps, handling the mammals, weighing them, and trying to identify their gender.

There was some excitement in the woodland when we thought we had caught a pygmy shrew, which would have been a new site record. However when weighed it was 8.5 grams, which although it seems very light is still heavy for a pygmy shrew as these are normally 6 grams at the most. Given the colour of the fur, on reflection it was more likely to be a juvenile common shrew. (Photo credit: Wilf Greenman).

The overall trap rate was just 17%, which is low compared to the 56% achieved in 2014. This may have been down to the appalling weather overnight and the relatively short time that traps were set on the second day. 

But although there were fewer animals caught than we had hoped, at least we did get to see some small mammals up close. It was good to meet up with some of the students on my upcoming MSc course, and the volunteers learned how to set the traps, handle animals safely and learnt a bit more about the species that can be found on site.

Canalside Aquatic Plants

This morning I attended a CIEEM regional field meeting looking at plants alongside (and in) the Stainforth & Kearby Canal at Thorne, South Yorkshire.

It was a relaxed morning, and it was good to see some familiar faces and have a chat. We had a very leisurely stroll down a 600 meter stretch of the canal, sharing knowledge and experience to identify as many plants as we could. Grappling hooks were used to scoop out some of the submerged aquatic vegetation from the canal itself. We also had a look at the coir rolls that were installed and planted up last year to support the bank.

Here are some of the plants found, along with my brief notes on their identifying features:

Submerged Aquatic Plants

- Curly water-thyme (Lagarosiphan major) - leaves curl backwards and are densely spiralled up the stem
- Flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus) - triangular, twisted stem that when snapped apart leaves fibrous strands [photo 1]
- Water-milfoil (Myriophyllum sp.) - slender with feathery leaves
- Yellow water lily (Nuphar lutea) - more obvious venation on leaf
- White water lily (Nymphaea alba) - leaf rounder, flower larger
- Fennel pondweed (Potamogeton pectinatus) - thin grass-like leaves with irregular branching
- Celery-leaved crowfoot (Ranunculus scleratus) - thick stem, shiny three-lobed leaf, yellow flower
- Curled pondweed (Potamogeton crispus) - leaves look crimped rather than curly
- Nuttall's waterweed (Elodea nuttallii) - leaves slightly recurved and taper to a point

Emergent Aquatic Plants

- Arrowhead (Sagittaria sagittifolia) - triangular stem, leaves in three's in a 'wind turbine' shape, flowers and fruit in clusters of three: flowers white with purple centre; fruit spiky like a bur [photo 2]
- Water plantain (Alisma plantago-aquatica) - large, wide, erect leaf with a cordate base
- Narrow leaved water plantain (Alisma lanceolatum) - large, narrow, erect leaf that tapers to the base [photo 3]
- Amphibious bistort (Polygonum amphibium) - creeping habit, pink flowers in a compact spike, floating hairless leaves, rooting from nodes

Wetland/Riverbank Plants

- Marsh woundwort (Stachys palustris) - square stem, leaves short stalked; pink-purple flowers encircling the stem [photo 4]
- Gypsywort (Lycopus europaeus) - square stem; leaves short stalked; many very small white flowers (with purple dots) clustered above leaf axil [photo 5]
- Orange balsam (Impatiens capensis) - oval toothed leaves; orange flower with red-brown spots and a spur that narrows and curves back on itself [photo 6]
- Skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata) - blue-violet flowers with a long calyx tube [photo 7]
- Woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) - distinctive purple and yellow flowers; red berries
- Water figwort (Scrophularia auriculata/aquatica) - square stem with wings; leaves oval, opposite and blunt with blunt teeth
- Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) - tall with red-purple flower spike [photo 8]
- Great willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) large, downy willowherb with deep pink-purple flowers
- Marsh willowherb (Epilobium palustre) - dainty willowherb with pale pink flowers
- Lesser pond sedge - (Carex acutiformis) - blue-green appearance with rough leaves
- Hemlock water-dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) - poisonous umbellifer
- Horsetail (Equisetum sp.) - distinctive plant - a sample was taken away to try and identify this to species level (either water E. fluviatile or marsh E. palustre)
- Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) - identified by its distinctive smell, as the plant we found was rather stunted and trodden on, unlike the tall, clumpy yellow-flowered plants I have seen before

It was also good to practice my grasses, with reed canary-grass (Phalaris arundinacea) being identified by it's membranous ligule. (Common reed is larger with a ring of hairs as a ligule). 

Many thanks to Phillippa from the Canal and River Trust for organising the event.

Ledston Luck Nature Reserve

Today I helped out on one of the regular practical task days for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Lower Aire Valley volunteers.  This was held at Ledston Luck nature reserve, a small site a few miles north of Castleford.

Over the coming months, improvements are being made to the site. To help manage the grassland, it is hoped to implement a grazing regime with a small number of cattle. To facilitate this, fencing and gates need to be installed and some of the footpaths improved or re-routed slightly.

Our task for today was to finish installing a foot-bridge over a drainage channel, and to cut back some of the scrub and widen the pathway to allow access for contractors to install the fencing.

The day started off with a spot of rain, and this got more persistent, and heavier, as the day went on. However, we plodded on undeterred and managed to complete the tasks early.

Using loppers and hand saws, we managed to remove a swathe of around two meters of saplings and scrub from the path leading up to the plateau (top photo), opening up the path.

After fitting a strut under the bridge, we were able to lay the planks across and screw them in. The cross-rails/hand rail were then measured, cut and fixed onto the uprights.

Despite it being August, I was well and truly wet through and starting to get chilly by the end of the session.  I was pleased to get home by mid-afternoon for a cup of tea and a steaming hot bath.