Tackling Himalayan Balsam

This morning I led a work party of local volunteers in tackling Himalayan Balsam, an invasive plant species becoming increasingly common and widespread. This is an annual plant that seeds profusely, with seeds lasting in the soil for a couple of years. The aim is to pull the plant up by the roots before it flowers - this prevents further seeding and should reduce the amount of plants coming up the following year. If an area if tackled for several years in a row it can be cleared of balsam completely. In practice, if the nearby and upstream areas are not also tackled, seeds will just drift downstream and reinfect the area. They can of course also be brought in on people's shoes, etc.

The patch we chose to tackle is not on a stream, so in theory if treated it should stay clear. It is along a footpath that runs between Meanwood Valley woods and a new housing development. Some of the volunteers that came to help me belong to local community groups, whilst others are associated with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

Volunteers with a large plant just coming into flower

The weather was dull and cool, which was a bit of a blessing as we had to be well clothed to get stuck into undergrowth that was quite prickly and nettley.  Himalayan Balsam is best pulled up from the roots to prevent it shooting up again. The plants are then crushed (by stamping/jumping on them) and then piled as discretely as possible where they rot down quite quickly.  Two of us managed to clear an area just the other side of the fence (pictured), which looked hideous to start with but we managed to blitz it. The rest of the group cleared a large area alongside the footpath.

What is left after a balsam bash is usually quite a barren area, which just proves what a problem this plant is - it basically outcompetes our native plants. And while some people like it because 'it's good for the bees', the bees would be just as appreciative of native flowers growing in its place!

I planned a short session of two hours and this was just enough as it is very tiring work. We retreated to the local pub at noon, where the landlord kindly provided us with tea and sandwiches.

Afterwards I had a walk into the woods with one of the volunteers where she showed me an infestation of American Skunk Cabbage, now lacking the distinctive yellow flowers. The huge leaves looked out of place. The photo opposite probably doesn't do it justice - the leaves were 2-3 feet long and this monstrous plant clearly doesn't naturally belong here. Some seed heads were still present though it looked as though someone had tried to remove some others.  I brought a couple home for dissection and to confirm the identification.

There was also a small clump of Japanese Knotweed by the beck. I have written to the Council to see if they are aware of this and have any plans for treatment.

It was a worthwhile session but I can't help think we have made a tiny dent in a massive problem. Still, every little helps. We have another session on Thursday to finish the area around the estate, and then at least we will have cleared one area and helped spread the word amongst the local groups.

MMU Using a Flora

Last weekend I attended the second of six courses working towards the MMU Certificate in Biological Recording.  Entitled 'Using a Flora' it aimed to give us the tools to identify any plant in the UK, armed with a knowledge of plant anatomy and terminology and using the extensive and (dare I say it) over-complicated floral key written by Stace.

Our tutor Mark was incredibly knowledgeable and patient, and the facilities at the field studies centre at Preston Montford was comfortable and well-catered. The other students were all really friendly and we got on well as a group. This all boded well for an enjoyable course.

Days were long with twelve hours tuition - you certainly get your money's worth on an FSC course!  We typically spent the morning in the lab having lectures and looking at/dissecting various plant specimens. In the afternoons, we had a field trip, visiting three very different but beautiful sites. After dinner, there was an evening session which summarised the day's work and introduced other aspects of botany.

The most difficult part of the course was learning the terminology. The floral key that we used could almost be written in a foreign language. I am sure it would be more accessible to a wider audience, and thus increase an interest in botany, if simpler language were used.  For example, why say 'glabrous' when 'hairless' would do equally well? There also seemed to be more than one word for the same thing!

Despite the language barrier, we all learnt lots, focusing on identifying the top twenty families in the UK. Some of the work was fiddly - dissecting a flower is not so bad in the lab, but virtually impossible in the field when there is a breeze blowing! It is also difficult to distinguish many of the parts of a flower - for example the number of ovules in an ovary - if the flower is very small in the first place. 

Our first field trip was to Colemere, a country park close by.  A relic glacial lake, it has hay meadows and is surrounded by mature woodland. After spending some time in the meadow discussing various species, we took the circular walk through the woods to look at a rare lily on the lake.

The second trip took us to Snailbeach, an old mining area I believe, with some wonderful dry grassland plants. We were lucky enough to see lizards basking on some of the tumbled down walls, but they were too elusive to be photographed.

The third day took us to Llanymynech quarry on the Welsh border, a nature reserve managed by Shropshire Wildlife Trust.  At the bottom of the quarry was a heat trap, and we spent some time keying out plants and admiring the blooms of orchid. We then moved up to the top of the site where there were amazing views of the surrounding countryside.

On the final evening, we had a session on voucher and herbarium specimens. It is part of our assigment to present five good quality herbarium specimens alongside a dichotomous key that we create for ten species.

On the last day, we had a practical test to do. This was open book but in exam conditions. We had ten questions to complete in an hour and a half, which sounds quite easy.  When it took me the first hour to complete three questions, I inevitably went into panic mode. The test wasn't that hard, but I did start stressing when I realised I wouldn't have enough time to complete it and consequently I made some silly mistakes. For a couple of species I discarded the species name I had keyed out to and went for a more familiar one instead ... I should have had faith!  We went over the answers at the end so I am confident I have passed but not as well as I had hoped - I will have to wait until I get the official result to see the true outcome.  It's all a learning experience and in real life I won't be limited to time and be in such false conditions. I'm sure I will get faster with time and practice.

As well as looking at the plants, there was the chance to get involved in some of the other activities at the field centre. I got up early one morning and helped to retrieve the mammal and moth traps.  My next MMU module is on land mammals, so I thought this would give me an insight to what may be involved.  Accompanied by a member of staff from the centre, I retrieved twenty Longworth traps from around the site. Those sited along the A5 embankment were all empty, but we had more luck with those situated around the pond.  We caught several field mice, a bank vole and a field vole. These were all sexed and weighed, then released back into the undergrowth.  The results are submitted to the Mammal Society every week.

The contents of the moth trap were more exciting than when I visited the field centre a few months ago, the warmer weather obviously more conducive to different species.  Some of the more exotic looking species included Elephant Hawk Moth and Garden Tiger. We also caught some Buff-Tips, that look amazingly like a birch twig!  There was a lot of activity around the pond too, with damselflies mating and laying eggs on the vegation.

Overall, this was an very enjoyable and productive five days, and I am sure I will be able to use much of what I have learnt in my future career.

Floral Surveying

In addition to my role on the Invasive Species project at the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, I have volunteered to carry out wildflower surveys at several sites across South Yorkshire. The purpose of these is to monitor change in plant composition over several years. This may take place through natural processes at some sites. Other sites are having seeds removed, so its important to ensure this is done sustainably and does not impact the swarth in future years. In contrast, seed is being added to some sites so the species composition is expected to change in those locations.

On Monday I attended a training session with some other volunteers to practice the survey methodology and get up to speed with the species we are likely to come across. The session was held on Maltby Common, which has some areas of magnesian limestone, whilst other parts of the site are quite damp and semi-acidic. This gave rise to an unusual mix of species in some places.

We reviewed 92 species, including some grasses, sedges and rushes.  I had come across many of these before, though it was good to reinforce my knowledge.  We reviewed some of the similar looking species - such as Cat's Ear, Rough Hawkbit (pictured) and Goat's Beard that all look superficially like Dandelion.

We came across two slightly less usual members of the Galium family: Lady's Bedstraw (Galium verum) was abundant in some parts of the site, and I found one small specimen of Field Madder (Sherardia arvensis) which has the distinctive galium-whorls but a pale purple rather than the more normal white or yellow flower.

Some of the rarer species we came across were Adder's Tongue and Pepper Saxifrage.  There were also several orchids: Common Spotted orchid, Bee orchid (pictured), Twayblade and the rarer Greater Butterfly orchid though this had finished flowering.

This weekend I attend the MMU's "Using a Flora" course where I hope to reinforce these skills even further, and I'm looking forward to start surveying properly in the next few weeks.

Testing Times

It has been quite a hectic few weeks, with some nerve-wracking assessments taking place.

Last week I attended PA1 and PA6AW training at Askham Bryan College near York. This is a practical qualification that allows me to carry out pesticide spraying using a knap-sack sprayer.  The course was quite intense, and included an element of theory and statutory knowledge, as well as the mechanics of checking equipment, calculating chemical dilutions, and carrying out treatments in a safe and effective manner.  The hardest part was walking in a straight line, spraying and pumping, all in time to make sure you used the correct amount of chemical and had none left over.

On the third day, we had the assessments. PA1 was a multiple choice test taken on computers - we received the results immediately and all passed.  The PA6AW was a one to one test with an external assessor. This was basically an interview with lots of questions asked.  We had to set up and calibrate the sprayer, measure an area, calculate the chemicals to be used, measure them out, carry out the spraying itself and make equipment safe afterwards.  It was quite nerve racking, and as I was the last candidate to be tested I had a long wait, but came away with a good pass :)

I spent all week revising for my Open University exam in Ecosystems, my first Level 3 exam.  It feels as though there is a lot of pressure on, when a whole year's work comes down to a three hour exam!  On Tuesday afternoon I sat down and scribbled away for the full three hours.  I am sure there are some things I missed and a couple more I think I just got wrong, but overall I feel it went well.  Only 9 weeks to wait until the result.  Fingers crossed!

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.

Training, training, training ...

Phew, what a week. I feel more tired this week than I did when I was working full-time!

MMU UCert in Biological Recording

Last weekend I was down at the Field Centre at Preston Montford again for my first module in the MMU's Biological Recording and Species Identification certificate.  Having arrived ridiculously early the last time I went down then, I set off later ... the bank holiday traffic caught me out, and I arrived with two minutes to spare!  We had dinner as a group and then launched straight into our first evening lecture.

This was quite a full on course, running from 9am to 9pm each day and covering the basics of Biological Recording - from map reading to data flow to creating voucher specimens. On the first day, we had a quick visit to the moth trap to see what had been captured overnight - there wasn't a great deal, but we did find this lovely green carpet moth.

As part of the course, we had to carry out a mini-project that would then be written up for our first assignment. There was almost too much choice - we took a guided tour of the grounds and could literally choose anything to study ... as long as we could generate viable biological records from our field work.

Some of the other project included a study of the number of male and female red campion flowers, and the 'smut' that can be found - this is a fungus that affects the flower, and causes the females to change gender.  Another looked at native vs spanish and hybrid bluebells - talking to other students increased my understanding of this which was also helpful in our study. Spanish and hybrid bluebells have a more open flower and blue stamen (as shown).

In the end, I decided to consolidate the work I had done on Ancient Woodland Indicators the previous week. I had a lot of reference material from the CIEEM event, and wanted to make use of them. I buddied up with another student and we did a site survey of Preston Rough, to see if we could prove it was ancient woodland based on species composition. Claire's species ID was stronger than mine, and together we managed to log 68 vascular plant species. In my research I also learnt more about the process of defining Ancient Woodland and the use of historical records.  In our final presentation, we confirmed that the site was an ancient woodland, but was not officially designated as such as it is less than the requisite two hectares. Overall, it was an enjoyable project in which I continued to improve my plant ID skills and also learnt how to take voucher specimens ...and I actually enjoyed writing up the assignment.  I'm just waiting for my plant specimens to dry out before I send it in for marking.

Bee Identification

As soon as I arrived home, I was packing for my next trip. On Tuesday, I went down to Matlock in Derbyshire for a day's course in Bumblebee ID organised by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.  In the morning, we had a presentation on bee ecology and species identification. At this time of year, it is fairly easy to discern the different species as it is mostly the queen bees that are out foraging and they are large and easily identifiable. Later in the year, when males and workers are also abundant, some species can look very similar. After lunch, we had a wander out onto a hillside meadow and managed to catch 6 out of the 8 common species, using butterfly nets and a small container to get a closer look at the bees. This one is a garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) ... I think!

Newt Bottle Trapping

On Wednesday I had a very early start. The ARG group had another visit to Ilkley on Tuesday night and had set bottle traps, so on the Wednesday morning I went and helped Gordon and Tom to empty them. We had good results with all four species of newt, plus lots of frog and toad tadpoles as by-catch. My newt identification is also improving, though it is easier when they are in the traps as you get a much closer inspection. We recovered a number of male palmate newts with their distinctive tail filaments and webbed back feet (top photo).  Several alpine newts were caught and will be going on a trip to London Zoo for education and research purposes. We also found a beautiful female great crested newt in one of the top ponds - where they have not been recorded before - although none were caught in the lower pond this time.  The 'rings on her fingers' are evident in the bottom photo and you can clearly see the size different between the great crested and palmate newts (they are both in the same size bottle). Despite the 5:00am alarm call it was well worth it.

Phase 1 Habitat Surveying

At the end of the week, I went down to Newark for a two day course on Phase 1 surveying organised by CIEEM.  It was a bit surreal as it was held in someone's house, but we soon relaxed into the conservatory that formed our classroom, and the menagerie of animals made us feel welcome (cat, terrier and yellow lab that kept stealing our shoes!).  The first day was all indoors, which was a blessing as the weather was atrocious. We concentrated on plant identification, and our trainer Jane patiently taught us how to recognise the different parts of plants and work them through taxonomic keys, and brought lots of real plants from her garden and around the village to work through. I admit I found this quite difficult, and am glad I chose 'Using a Flora' as my next MMU module as I feel I need more practice to really embed this skill.

The next day we finished our identification skills by looking at grasses, then had a presentation on the survey process itself.  After lunch, we drove to a nearby nature reserve and had the chance to put our new skills into practice. We took a slow walk around the reserve as a group, then had another half an hour or so to collect further data.  Once back in the classroom, we compared notes on the number of habitats identified and ranked them in order of size - it was surprising how different everyone's interpretation of the site was!

We were given some optional 'homework' to write up the report. As Jane offered to give us feedback on this, I spent most of the next day writing up my findings and constructing a Phase 1 map. I looked at examples online and came up with what I hope is a good first attempt at a report. I did learn a lot from the experience though - make lots of notes, annotate the map really clearly with boundaries and habitat types, and take lots of photos to prompt the memory and include in target notes. Although I collected lots of data on species composition, my recollection of the extent of hedgerows etc was a little vague afterwards.

Overall, it has been a very informative if exhausting week, and now I'm trying to get back into the swing of studying.

Ancient Woodland Indicators

On Wednesday I attended another CIEEM regional event, which was looking at woodlands and particularly Ancient Woodland Indicators (AWI).

This was held at Hackfall wood just north of Grewelthorpe in North Yorkshire - an area much visited in the past. I have not been up there for several years, and was reminded what a beautiful part of the world it is.

The site is now managed by the Woodland Trust, and has a new car park, footpaths and interpretation board. There are many and varied plants, and stunning views, as well as a range of follies to explore.  This is definitely worth another visit, when I have more time to explore and photograph at my own pace.

We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon taking a slow wander through the steep, riverside woodland - much of it on well worn paths, but occasionally venturing off piste to look at particular plant species.  We considered plants that are good and bad indicators of ancient woodland, and that these can vary from county to county. We managed to locate the distinctive yet easy to miss Herb Paris, and the unusually looking Toothworth that is a parasitic plant found around the base of hazel trees.

We also discussed survey techniques, and the merits of carrying out a range of transect and quadrat surveys to best describe the woodland. We saw how the nature of the woodland can vary even over a very small area, with noticeable changes in vegetation. Some plants have clear preferences for the wetter areas alongside streams for example, or the dark northern areas that receive little light.  Point locations can also be taken to highlight particularly noteworthy plants.

It is also important to consider the factors that make woodland diverse and valuable, such as fallen wood, marshy areas, streams, etc. After a rather strenuous climb back up to the car park, we reconvened at the Crown Inn to socialise and have a bit to eat.