Garden – Grantham Ecology

2017 Retrospective – The Rest!

December 31, 2017Grantham Ecology1 Comment

I like to take the opportunity which the end of the year presents to look back over what I’ve seen and encountered. Some fall nicely into groups so do check out trees, wildflowers, butterflies, bees and invertebrates on their own posts!

The remainder are individual species or places which don’t form a group, but which are an important part of the year just passed. I hope you enjoy!

Easegill Bat Surveys

I was lucky to be invited along to a hibernation check in the caves in Easegill, Cumbria by a friend in the bat group there. We found a number of hibernating myotis and brown long-eared bats in the various cave systems, along with the tissue moths, herald moths and cave spiders which use the same habitats over winter. It was a great day out in some stunning scenery, and the opportunity to do a spot of caving whilst searching for wildlife was a real treat! You can read more, and watch a short compilation video, on this post from January 2017.

Snowy walk along Stanage Edge

It takes around an hour and a half for us to get to some of the most stunning walks in the Peak District; a bit of a trek but always worth the visit especially if there’s snow to line the fields and de-mark the landscape with its series of hedges and stone walls. I love too how the hills in the far distance can give an illusion of mountains when they become snow-covered!

Smooth newt – Lissotriton vulgaris

I couldn’t resist this photograph when we were undertaking translocations at the beginning of the year. The legislative driver behind the translocation is the great crested newt, but we take the opportunity to move any species we encounter to a place of safety. With the juveniles, such as this little smooth newt, you need to keep a sharp eye to make sure you spot them all!

Common frog – Rana temporaria

Spring is one of the most rewarding times to have a garden pond – when the croaking begins and the surface is a mass of calling frogs. This was taken on a cool March day when the frogs had decided that spring had sprung! In this photo, I tried to capture the turbulence of the water which these amorous amphibians bring to a placid garden pond.

Slow worm – Anguis fragilis

We encountered this slow worm under a piece of corrugated metal in the woods near Woodhall Spa in the early summertime. There had been a rainshower which caught us out and the slow worms too had taken shelter. As the sun came out and the corrugated metal began to warm, the chances of catching one reduced significantly as they are anything but slow when they want to be! These reptiles are in fact legless lizards rather than snakes. Their habit of sheltering beneath these artificial refugia forms the basis of the reptile survey technique we use in ecological consultancy to find out whether reptiles are present on a particular site.

Dandelion seedhead before the full moon

The was taken at Muston Meadows at midnight when the moon was full and I couldn’t resist a walk. The dandelion seedheads glowed white against the dark grass but I was struggling to capture this in a photograph – then I thought this might make an interesting angle!

Shropshire Hills

We spent a few days over the May bank holiday in Ireland for a wedding, coming back via Anglesey and spending a night in Shropshire on our way back east. We walked over the Long Mynd at dusk, heading back towards our campsite, and this was the view as we began to descend.

Church of Saint Mary, Whitby

A weekend camping near Robin Hood’s Bay in the summer found us in Whitby before walking back along the coast. This is the taken at the Church of Saint Mary – set above the town and referenced in Dracula. I was struck with this view of the tombstones dark against the long meadow grasses and wished this was a more common sight – cemeteries and churchyards can be beautiful places full of life after death, if they’re managed sensitively for wildlife rather than manicured as bowling greens!

Curbar Edge, Derbyshire

We had a survey site which saw me out in the Peak District until 7pm one evening in August – after which I took the opportunity to see the heather and take a walk along Curbar Edge at sunset. This is the view out across from the Edge as the sun was sinking low on the horizon.

Vancouver Island

The following are a few photographs from Vancouver Island this year – we encountered some spectacular wildlife and were amazed by the scenery. You can read more in my blog posts here, but below are a few highlights.

Anna’s Hummingbird in Victoria

American red squirrel at Long Beach, Tofino

Black squirrel in Stanley Park, Vancouver

Orca’s from Victoria

Grey heron reflection against the vending machines on the marina in Vancouver

Slow worm – Anguis fragilis

This tiny slow worm was one of this year’s juveniles – we were surveying a site in Somerset and this was one of seven young ones which appeared under a single survey mat where the sun warmed a bank at the edge of the site. When I picked it up, it wrapped itself around my finger but was so small that the nose and tail didn’t quite meet!

Sunrise on the day of Storm Ophelia

This photograph was taken of the countryside in Warwickshire on the day Storm Ophelia swept across the UK. At that time, I didn’t realise what was causing the effect but was just taken by the colours – it turned out that the day was to be filled with the pseudo-apocolyptic light brought on by the Sahara sands.

Cattle at Muston Meadows

Muston Meadows is an ancient haymeadow and a National Nature Reserve in Leicestershire. The site is managed with a late-summer hay cut and is grazed in the winter by cattle. I visited one frosty morning in December and they were delighted to have a visitor, charging over before stopping and checking me out. They then accompanied me all the way off the site so perhaps their role is security as well as site management!

Icicles under Burbage Bridge

On a snowy cold day in December, I took a walk through the white from the Longshaw Estate in Derbyshire, through woodland and across tors and encountering these beautiful icicles hanging beneath the bridge which takes the road over Burbage Brook.

Clematis seedhead – Clematis vitalba

These are also commonly known as old man’s beard and it’s easy to see why! I came across these seedheads in a hedgerow on a survey site in Bedfordshire where the wind had left them with this shape over time – I liked the feeling of motion which they held even when still. It seemed appropriate for seeds which are waiting for their time to take to the wind and begin a new plant elsewhere in the landscape.

Teasel seedheads – Dipsacus fullonum

On the same site as the clematis above, I also found an amazing stand of teasel seedheads. These striking plants are excellent for wildlife – in the summer they provide an abundance of nectar for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, and the winter seedheads will play host to flocks of goldfinches foraging for the seeds.

Brimstone butterflies – the perfect harbinger of spring

March 11, 2014Grantham Ecology7 Comments

Brimstone butterflies are the perfect harbinger of spring. They are typically the first butterfly seen in most years – excepting the occasional tatty small tortoiseshell or peacocks – and they always look pristine. Perhaps the connection with spring is so strong because they confirm our own perception of the first spring day – they need the warmth and clemency of sun and still blue-skies in February or March to take to the wing.

I saw my first brimstone of 2014 a couple of week ago but they were out in abundance last Sunday – settling on the south-facing hedge in the garden to warm up and bask in the sunshine. A short drive across the Vale of Belvoir saw almost every hedge graced with at least one which bobbed and bounced around the periphery of the foliage.

The brimstone is one of five or six species of butterfly which hibernate in the UK. You may see much tattier and battered small tortoiseshell, comma and peacock butterflies at this time of year along with the occasional clouded yellow and, increasingly, the red admiral. All of these, excepting the brimstone and the clouded yellow, are in the Nymphalidae family – a group which includes many other familiar UK butterflies including the fritillaries and the browns. The brimstone is in the Pieridae family which also includes the whites.

Hibernating peacock butterflies which find dark places such as sheds, roof spaces, tunnels and tree cavities to close up their wings and wait for spring to return.

Brimstone butterflies are a single brood species – the adult butterflies emerge in August and are on the wing, feeding and building up fat reserves, until they go into hibernation at the end of autumn. The butterflies, also called imago, re-emerge early in the spring to mate and begin their life cycle once more.

The comma and small tortoiseshell butterflies, in the Nymphalidae family, tend to have two broods in a year – that is the first batch of imago will mate and lay eggs which hatch and give rise to a second batch of imago in the same year. The red admiral has a single brood but the prevalence of imago is affected by migrating butterflies from the continent. The peacock has rather a similar life cycle to the brimstone.

It is always noticeable that the brimstone butterflies look pristine in spring, whereas the commas and small tortoiseshells often look much more battered and tatty. I was hoping this might be explained simply by the Nymphalidae butterflies being older – that is they had been on the wing longer in the previous season before hibernation, but the phenology doesn’t seem to bear this out for all. It could explain the particularly tatty comma and small tortoiseshell butterflies, if some of these are surviving stragglers from the first brood of the previous year.

There is still a difference in family between the brimstone and all of the other hibernating butterflies and I wonder whether the brimstone is simply a more structurally sound butterfly, with stronger wings which are less likely to deteriorate than the other species. The species is the longest living of the UK species, at a year, so the imago would need to be hard-wearing! I would be fascinated to know an answer to this if anybody can advise.

The brimstone butterflies feed on a range of nectar sources – as they are so early to emerge they rely initially upon long-flowering species such as dandelion, or early flowering species such as bluebell, cowslip and primrose. The key food plant in the autumn is thistles with a range of other species also used.

The larval food plant is surprisingly specific and not abundantly common – they require buckthorn or alder buckthorn. The species name for the butterfly eludes to this link – rhamni which refers to the latin for buckthorn – Rhamnus sp. This is a shrub which can be found in hedgerows and woodlands but is not nearly as common as other similar species such as hawthorn or blackthorn. I do not know of any buckthorn in the area but the presence of the brimstone butterflies clearly proves its existence! The comparative scarcity of buckthorn has been directly addressed by Butterfly Conservation in the past with planting programmes to increase their presence within landscapes and this has had a positive effect on the brimstone populations.

The female is much paler than the male – I saw one in the distance on Sunday which I at first through to be a large white until I crept closer and saw the distinctive veined, contoured folded wing which looks so much like a leaf.

Making a home for the birds and the… bees!

February 25, 2014February 25, 2014Grantham Ecology4 Comments

National Nestbox Week is designed to encourage people to provide more homes for wildlife in their gardens – why stop with the birds? I spent last Sunday making bird boxes, bat boxes and this – a home for solitary bees.

I confess to knowing very little about these bees but I do find them fascinating – I watched one coming and going from an old drill-hole in a fence post in the garden last summer and meant then to do something to increase the availability of suitable niches for them this year.

February is the ideal time to install these habitat features – it gives them time to naturalise a bit as well as ensure that they are in evidence for any bees which may be seeking a home as the temperatures rise in the spring.

You may well have seen various bee houses for sale in garden centres and similar gift shops. I have always been surprised at quite how much these cost, although drilling all of the holes made me re-consider the economy of having somebody else do it for me! Nontheless, I rescued a selection of silver birch logs from my parents’ house (they recently took down a tree and the logs seemed too beautiful to be consigned to the ashes of the logburner) and set about making a mini bee hotel.

The logs were cut into 7 inch sections and I made a simple frame from some old offcuts of wood to hold them. I would suggest, if you choose this approach, to screw the frame together very firmly. This allows you to pack the logs in tight and hammer in additional smaller pieces to fill in the gaps and keep them in place, using the tension of the solid frame to hold against.

Once I had arranged the logs in a fairly stable manner within the frame, I set to work drilling holes in the logs, being careful to remove as much of the sawdust as possible and making sure that they were pointing slightly upwards to stop the rain from getting in.

This guide provides an excellent introduction to making these habitats and, following its recommendations, I have made holes from 2mm to 8mm in order to attract a range of different types of solitary bee.

I could not find much in the way of siting recommendations for these habitats although one page on the Telegraph website suggested the sunniest spot in the garden. Our garden is quite shaded but I have selected a spot near the vegetable and herb garden, to encourage pollinators to our vegetables this year, where the sun shines throughout the morning and should provide warm conditions. It also benefits from being sheltered to prevent rain from reaching the bee hotel.

Below are some step-by-step photographs showing the creation of the feature – I will hopefully update in the summer to describe all of the bees which have come to use it!

If you wanted to encourage bees in a more casual way, the guide recommends simply drilling holes into fence posts and other logs and pieces of wood around the garden. This creates less of a feature but, in terms of encouraging biodiversity into your garden, it is ideal!

Silver birch logs which looked too beautiful to burn!

Cut the logs into 7in sections which can then be drilled longways to create the holes for use by solitary bees.

The logs stacked inside a simple wooden frame made from offcuts of wood. It took a while to arrange them all in a stable manner but a sturdy frame allows you to hammer in additional smaller pieces to pack the logs in, using the tension of the frame to hold them in place.

Then drill! This is the finished product, filled with various sized holes from 2mm up to 8mm. I would suggest drilling all holes with a small drill bit to begin with, then widen some of them to different sizes as starting work with an 8mm bit is tough going! The metal around the outside is not part of the design, rather the shelving unit behind a shed where pots are kept - it faces onto the vegetable and herb beds whilst the shef above it also provides cover from the rain. — Then drill! This is the finished product, filled with various sized holes from 2mm up to 8mm. I would suggest drilling all holes with a small drill bit to begin with, then widen some of them to different sizes as starting work with an 8mm bit is tough going! The metal around the outside is not part of the design, rather the shelving unit behind a shed where pots are kept – it faces onto the vegetable and herb beds whilst the shef above it also provides cover from the rain.

Don’t forget the bats in National Nestbox Week!

February 22, 2014February 22, 2014Grantham EcologyLeave a comment

This week is National Nestbox Week which encourages people to put up nest boxes in their gardens. This is a great idea and focuses attention on providing these features as the birds first start to pair up and scope out nest sites. We have birds nesting in various locations around the garden but, for some reason, I had never got around to adding some more purpose built nesting habitats for them – something I have now rectified!

But why stop at providing habitat for garden birds? Don’t forget that gardens are vital to some of our most common bat species, such as the common pipistrelle and the brown long-eared. Attract bats to your garden and you will be able to watch fantastic aerial displays as the sun goes down throughout the summer. There are lots of tips from the BCT on how to attract bats to your garden.

There are many designs of bat box on the market and plenty of designs which you can make for yourself. I realised that the offcuts of wood we had in the shed provided everything I needed to make a Kent Bat Box – one of the simplest designs and one I would strongly recommend to anybody putting one together for the first time. This box is very simple and creates cavities which small bats such as common pipistrelle can use as a roost. This video shows the kind of tight niches which are used by pipistrelle bats.

Bats fly in the garden regularly throughout the summer and one of them – probably a brown long-eared – uses the porch as a feeding perch. I know this from the little piles of moth wings which suddenly appear some mornings, often 5-10 of them. The bats bite off the wings of the moths they have captured, eating only the nutritious bodies of the moths and leaving the wings to flutter down. Just opposite the porch is a holly tree and this struck me as the ideal place to put a box, seeing as I know the bats use this little niche of the house and garden.

Moth wings in the porch - they have caught on the spider's web on their way down but there are tell-tale signs that a bat is responsible - especially as so many appear overnight in a single night! — Moth wings in the porch – they have caught on the spider’s web on their way down but there are tell-tale signs that a bat is responsible – especially as so many appear overnight in a single night!

I also put up another box on the tree beside it, facing the opposite direction. We were recently called out to climb a tree to check a bat box where the tree was to be removed. The bat box had only been up for a few months and was clearly un-used so we were able to inspect it and take it down without causing disturbance to any bats. There was nowhere else on the site to place the box so I have put it up in the garden instead – I am interested to see if either of the boxes are used and whether a particular design might be preferred.

If you are putting up a bat box, make sure it is high above the ground (at least 4m if possible) to deter predators and ensure that there is not too much disturbance to the bats as you use the garden. Another important point is to ensure that there is a good fly-in and fly-out route for the bats. This can be achieved by imagining the bats dropping from the entrance in an arc which is 1-2m out and 2-3m down. If you have left this space for them, they should be able to enter and exit the box. Another important point is to allow them to emerge into some cover, if possible, or out along a hedge or tree line. Bats use these vegetative features for commuting around the landscape and placing your box in such a location should increase the chances of a bat moving in.

The designs for the Kent Bat Box can be found here and all you need is a plank of wood, some smaller wood for battons, a saw and a drill (or hammer and nails). The design is very simple to follow but below shows the step-by-step progress of the construction.

The log shed with offcuts we've been given for the log burner - but there is a Bat Box there just waiting to be built! — The log shed with offcuts we’ve been given for the log burner – but there is a Bat Box there just waiting to be built!

The constituant parts of the Kent Bat Box, cut to size. At the bottom you can see the three boards of varying lengths, at the top right is the top for the box, top left are the battons used to create the cavities.

This shows how the main pieces fit together - the battons are attached to the long-sides of the boards which are going to be placed one on top of the other onto the longest back-board. — This shows how the main pieces fit together – the battons are attached to the long-sides of the boards which are going to be placed one on top of the other onto the longest back-board.

The pieces constructed in the last image are placed, one on top of the other, with the smallest at the top and the largest (the backboard) at the bottom to create the two cavities which will form the roosting sites for the bats. These are drilled securely together.

Attach the top. As with all bat boxes, the crevices will be downwards facing as bats will land and climb up int the crevices to roost. The top will keep the cavities dry.

A view from the base of the Kent Bat Box showing the crevices which will for the roosting opportunities for the bats.

The chosen location for the bat box - after a bit of 'gardening' to clear leaves and twigs away from the fly-in to the box. — The chosen location for the bat box – after a bit of ‘gardening’ to clear leaves and twigs away from the fly-in to the box.

The new bat box securely attached using a bungee cord to ensure that the fixing does not damage the tree as it grows. The box is about 4m off the ground with a clear fly-in below, opening onto further shrubs and cover for the bats.

National Nestbox Week – Making a Wren/Robin Box

February 20, 2014Grantham Ecology1 Comment

Last Sunday was such a sunny, beautiful day that it called for outdoor projects to keep me busy in the fresh air. The first thing I noticed when I stepped outside was the sheer volume of bird song, with blue tits, robins, dunnocks and wrens all busy singing and chasing one another in pairs around the garden. I even spotted a long-tailed tit clinging to the side of the house, plucking spiders webs from between the brickwork to build a nest. It seemed a little too early to do much in the way of gardening, but the birds were making it clear that they were making ready to nest. What better project than to build a couple of bird boxes! It is not pure coincidence that this week is National Nestbox Week.

I have to say my choice of design was limited by the tools available – I don’t have a drill bit which can make the large round holes preferred by some species such as blue tits, but fortunately the designs for wrens and robins are open fronted which means that with little more than a plank of wood, a saw and a drill (and an old inner tube for the hinge), you can make a nest box.

I actually used plans I found on the Which? website, adapted a little to suit the wood I had available. I’ve sited the wren box within an area of dense shrubs in the garden – this is the habitat favoured by the species and provides them some cover and protection from predators. I attached the box securely (imagine how bad you would feel if the box blew down when the birds had begun nesting!) using a bungee cord as this will not cause any damage to the tree as it continues to grow. The cord may need to be replaced after a few years but should certainly ensure the box is securely attached until it wears down.

The box has been up for two days and already there has been a great tit investigating. I am hoping that it won’t be long before something takes up residence – watch this space! Just for the avoidance of doubt – it’s the camera which is wonky in the video below rather than the nest box!

Below are some step-by-step photographs which show the progression of the box from planks of wood through to completion.

Why not have a go at making a nest box yourself and see what birds you can attract to breed in your garden as part of National Nestbox Week? Construction is not one of my strengths but you will be amazed at how simple and satisfying it is to make a box of your own. All of the instructions to get involved in National Nestbox Week can be found here, along with some great resources on how to build/buy and site your box. Lincolnshire Wildife Trust also have some fantastic resources for building all kinds of bird boxes including those designed for more unusual species such as kestrel. You can register your box with the National Nest Box scheme and then provide updates on the species which use the box and how they fare – all of this information provides valuable data for monitoring and research into garden birds.

Cut your plank (or planks) of wood into six pieces. This is one for the back (the longest), two for the sides (the two with angled cuts), one for the base (the small square), one for the front (the smaller of the two remaining rectangular pieces) and the lid (the last piece). Details of measurements can be found in the links provided in the text above and will vary depending on the size of box you wish to make and the species you wish to attract! — Cut your plank (or planks) of wood into six pieces. Clockwise from top left are the two sides, the square base, the long back-board, the front piece and the lid. Details of measurements can be found in the links provided in the text above and will vary depending on the size of box you wish to make and the species you wish to attract.

Attach the sides and the back to the base. You can nail your box together but I opted to drill holes and screw the pieces of wood together for a stronger end result.

Attach the front. If you were making a box for blue tits perhaps, this would cover the entire front of the box with a hole drilled in the classic bird-box style to allow the birds to enter and leave. Sadly I don't have such a drill bit which partly influenced by decision to make one for robins or wrens - they like an open fronted box such as this but be careful to ensure the gap is the right size to allow them to hop in and out whilst still giving enough cover at the base to keep the nest safe. — Attach the front. If you were making a box for blue tits perhaps, this would cover the entire front of the box with a hole drilled in the classic bird-box style to allow the birds to enter and leave. Sadly I don’t have such a drill bit which partly influenced by decision to make one for robins or wrens – they like an open fronted box such as this but be careful to ensure the gap is the right size to allow them to hop in and out whilst still giving enough cover at the base to keep the nest safe.

Attach the lid. This is really simple to do - I cut a section from an old inner tube, opened it out and nailed half to the lid and the other half to the back board of the box. Voila, a hinged, waterproof lid! Make sure you use wide headed nails to attach the inner tube to the wood to make sure it doesn't sever and tear out over time. — Attach the lid. This is really simple to do – I cut a section from an old inner tube, opened it out and nailed half to the lid and the other half to the back board of the box. Voila, a hinged, waterproof lid! Make sure you use wide headed nails to attach the inner tube to the wood to make sure it doesn’t sever and tear out over time.

Here is the finished result, attached securely using a bungee cord (and utilising the shape of the bough) within an area of dense shrubs. This type of habitat is favoured by wrens and should provide some cover from predators. Unfortunately I managed a small mis-calculation in the wood sizes and so there is no overhang to my lid to keep the rain out - this situation provides natural cover from the rain and should ensure that this omission doesn't impair the suitability or acceptability of the box. — Here is the finished result, attached securely using a bungee cord (and utilising the shape of the bough) within an area of dense shrubs. This type of habitat is favoured by wrens and should provide some cover from predators. Unfortunately I managed a small mis-calculation in the wood sizes and so there is very little overhang to my lid to keep the rain out – this situation provides natural cover from the rain and should ensure that this omission doesn’t impair the suitability or acceptability of the box.