snow – 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.

2016 in trees

January 5, 2017January 5, 2017Grantham EcologyLeave a comment

Looking back through the photographs I’ve taken in 2016, it’s striking how many trees there are! As with the small things such as wildflower ‘weeds’, it’s easy to take for granted these enormous beings which grow amongst us. The sheer scale of a mature oak or beech is far beyond our magnitude of experience, as is the timescale they can span which numbers many of our lifetimes combined.

Here are just a few of my favourite encounters from 2016.

25626853755_cac353555d_o — These snow-lined branches were in the mountains above Freiburg at the beginning of the year – we took the cablecar from the grey countryside below up into a winter wonderland of freshly fallen snow. I liked the way that the snow outlines the curved architecture of the branches.

24968072300_7e4bcbee94_o — Part of my job involes climbing trees to inspect them for roosting bat potential. On my way up this field-edge tree, the sun came out and I couldn’t resist a quick shadow-selfie!

img_8623_24221289184_o — This photograph was taken for the Woodland Trust – this is one of the Verdun Oaks which grew from acorns brought back from Verdun after the First World War and planted in towns and cities as a commemoration to the fallen. In the background is Lichfield Cathedral. The Woodland Trust are tracing these trees as part of the commemoration of the First World War – you can read more about these pieces of living history on their website here.

24362553044_63fc4663f4_o — I spotted this tree sillouetted against the sunrise on a drive across to Norfolk one morning and had to stop off to get a photograph. The tree was in the middle of a field which was not publically accessible, so I only have the shape to go off but this looks like a poplar tree to me – perhaps a black poplar?

img_6746_27031557975_o — This is the view up to the canopy at Treswell Wood in North Nottinghamshire. This is a Notts Wildlife Trust site which has a precominantly ash canopy. Unfortunately, Ash Dieback was confirmed in one corner of the woodland and targetted trees were felled in an effort to stop the disease spreading. Ash trees are a characteristic part of the British Countryside and one of the most common species in our landscape – it would be a tragedy if they were to go the way of the English Elm.

28465615812_d1431068a2_o — I love being out in the countryside at night – we spent much of the summer watching trees to survey for emerging bats so this scene feels very familiar to me. I took a walk out past this tree near Harlaxton one night when the skies were very clear to capture a starlapse with the North Star centred above the dead crown of this oak.

27956968763_7fb02cfebb_o — This is a slightly boosted photograph in terms of colour saturation, but is otherwise untouched. This was a starlapse of a meadow oak but the quirks of lighting led to this rather psycadelic image. The tree and the hillside to the left were occasionally lit by car headlights from the road behind me, and the background cloud was illuminated by the light pollution of Nottingham in the distance. Not your typical tree image but I rather liked the effect!

img_6135_29222589594_o — These beautiful old beech trees line a trackway which forms part of the Laurie Lee Wildlife Way in Slad. I love trackways which are overarched by tree canopies, and I especially like the idea that Laurie would have walked these tracks. The book Cider with Rosie is a favourite of mine, especially the descriptions of the Gloucestershire vally in which he grew up, so there is a real feeling of walking somewhere familiar, even when exploring this landscape for the first time.

img_8328_30687717261_o — This is a photograph taken in Wyndham Park in Grantham. The autumn leaves of a beech provide a frame for the Hand and Apple sculpture which commemorates Isaac Newton’s connection with the town of Grantham – he went to school at King’s Grammar which is just beside Wyndham Park, and lived at Woolesthorpe Manor just down the A1 from the town, where the famous apple tree can still be seen today.

30562578213_7bbd2a6e02_o — These two majestic field trees stood like sentries on either side of the gateway. This was on a walk in Somerset which explored an ancient landscape full of both recent history – including an old lead working now rewilded as a nature reserve – and ancient history including a number of monuments, burial mounds and barrows.

img_9335_30517666944_o — This photograph was taken on a farm track footpath which leads to Muston Meadows, an old haymeadow now designated as an NNR. I wanted to try to capture the essence of mid-December in the Midlands – to me that is muddy walks, early sunsets and skeletal trees.

31623046486_de377bcf5a_o_31673664252_o — This photograph was one of several I took of bark patterns in a veteran oak we were climbing to look for potential evidence of bats. This deadwood can be very stable, remaining as a component of the tree for decades after the wood has died, and the patterns etched into the wood represent to the various conditions and experiences which the tree has gone through.

31387740670_e57a393bb5_o — This photograph neatly finishes where this summary started – back in the mountains above Freiburg. This was taken just before Christmas where we had the magical opportunity to rise up above the clouds and see the sun setting. The fog and cloud was rolling up the valleys, obscuring and revealing treelines, and the sunset coloured the fog in pinks and oranges.

Things to do in January Number 3: Grasses in the snow

January 23, 2013January 23, 2013Grantham Ecology2 Comments

Snow changes everything, if only for a few days. You can walk through the fields and see exactly who has been where – in which spot the blackbirds have chosen to dig for food, which gap in the hedge the rabbits run through, where the heron stalks along the canal in the early morning. Here’s a slightly unusual one but it struck me how obvious all the grass seed heads are when walking through the snow up to Belmount Tower. Usually half the battle with grass ID can be spotting the distinctive heads against the mass of green and brown around them but they stand out beautifully against the white. Here are a few which should be easy to see!

Cock’s foot – Dactylis glomerata

So called because of the spur which you can see at the base of the seed head, this grass is a common find where management isn’t too heavy. In this case, it is doing well in a field with a low level of sheep grazing but roadsides, wastegrounds and field edges are other good places to find it.

Crested dog’s tail – Cynosurus cristatus

This is a common, tufted perennial grass which is finer than some of the more boisterous grasses such as the cock’s foot above or the tufted hair grass below. Its distinctive feature is a line which runs from top to bottom and, a little like a parting, the seed grows one way or the other. This is distinct from some other similar grasses which grow all the way around in a cylindrical cone, a little more like a pipecleaner.

Tufted hair grass – Deschampsia cespitosa

This grass is large and imposing, growing in a tussock and sending its seed heads up and out a metre from the base. Its leaves are a good give-away if you’re in doubt – squeeze the blade between thumb and finger and you will find that it runs smoothly in one direction but drags with impressive friction if you try it the other. This grass is generally found in damper ground – this could be alongside rushes in a marshy grassland or simply a part of the field where the water collects.

Purple moor grass – Molinia caerulea

I think that this grass is purple moor grass – another large, tussock-forming species which can be up to a metre tall. Like the tufted hair grass, it is often found in slightly damper locations and is most commonly associated with acidic habitats such as moorlands, as the name suggests.

Common bent – Agrostis capillaris

This is a common grassland species which is likely, along with crested dog’s tail, to be one of the main constituent species within this field. It has a fine, spreading panicle (the term for the entire cluster of flowers) and likes nutrient poor conditions. Again, its prevalence will be down to the right level of management (grazing) to keep the nutrients low.

The official grassland managers (with voluntary assistance from the rabbits and deer of course)