Bug Pots and BioBlitzes on Troopers Hill – by Susan Acton Campbell

It was great to be invited to be part of Bristol 99.  Our event on Troopers Hill was a mini Bio-Blitz.  This was a first for Friends of Troopers Hill but Bristol Natural History Consortium (BNHC) made it very easy.  A training session for volunteers was provided at Brandon Hill.  Our attention was slightly diverted as a Gromit was wheeled past but soon we were having all our questions answered and much useful information was shared.

Emails were exchanged with lists of needs (a toilet was top of our list), timings, useful forms and the all important risk assessment.

The day came with bright sunshine.  We had packed two events into the day, so for us the day started with a tree gazing walk with Tony Titchen.  Just after lunch volunteers met, put up two gazebos, arranged information displays, bug pots, nets and clipboards and settled back to wait for interested people.

Along they came and expert naturalists Tony Smith, Ray Barnet and Matt Postles worked hard to keep up with the stream of questions.  Volunteers were kept busy recording, photographing, meeting and greeting, giving out nets and bug pots.  Photos can be seen on http://www.troopers-hill.org.uk/events/13Br99.htm

So what happened next?  Wonderful volunteers collated all the data and put it on spreadsheets, so we have a snapshot of some of the species on Troopers Hill on the day.  We also made use of contacts made for the event.  Tony Smith has been back and carried out a plant survey of 3 compartments on Troopers Hill and given some training on grass and fern recognition to two volunteers.  The all important toilet was so successful that we have used the same company again for which many people were very grateful when they came to Troopers Hill to watch Bristol’s Balloon Fiesta on the same day we were holding our Bugs and Beasties event.

Thank you BNHC and happy 10^th birthday!

The Wild Men of Stoke Park (there is more than one you know!) by Matt Postles

 As the street lights began to flicker into action in Lockleaze, a strange gathering hunched against the drizzle outside the Cameron Centre. These twenty blokes left the comforts of their homes and families to come out into the rain and pit their wits against nature in a testosterone fuelled demonstration of the ancient art of survival…. and in the process learn how to make a lovely salad!

 After the briefest of health and safety briefings and armed with nothing but a few carrier bags we were led into the wilderness of Stoke Park by Steve England, local legend, wild food fan and all round outdoors guru.

 On hitting the park’s central meadows, Steve immediately put us through our paces.  We identified and collected wild sorrel and other delicious morsels before descending into the darker woodlands where the guys were at least sheltered from the rain, if not from the dew that had been slowly creeping up their jeans. Here we learned about more plants and how Dogs Mercury would prove a potentially lethal addition to our dinner if we failed to distinguish it from amongst the Wild Garlic for our salad.

As the darkness crept in we turned our attention to fire and the atmosphere changed tangibly. As we gathered wood and fungus fire lighters, you could almost hear the ‘Dawn of Man’ music building in the trees around us with every spark from the fire-sticks and every snap of kindling. The atmosphere was somewhat broken when one of the guys lit his cigarette with the lighter stashed in his pocket but we got a fire going eventually, for a well earned supper of wild salad and slightly less wild sausages.

 Each of us urbanites had a great time, learned a lot about wild foods and fuelled our masculine egos sufficiently to return to our wives and girlfriends – or as I call mine, The Boss.

 To find out more about Stoke Park visit Steve’s website: www.steveengland.co.uk

Matt Postles visits Glyn Vale, buzzing with wildlife on the Northern Slopes

As the sun beat down ferociously, Zeke and I slowly dragged our heavy bug hunting kit up Glyn Vale before emerging on to Wedmore Vale where we are greeted by a huge archway marking the gateway to a hidden world behind the houses.

The Northern Slopes are a band of low hills across Knowle West which, in spite of the suburban surroundings, have remained in keeping with their rural history. A patchwork of wildflower meadows and scrubby woodland, the south facing slope is alive with insects soaking up the rays of the latest freak heat wave – a good day for bug hunting!

A big shire horse casts a lazy eye in our direction as we pant our way up to the top of the hill where we meet our intrepid explorers for the day – two classes from Parson Street Primary School and Ruth Worsley who was in charge of proceedings.

Our mission: To explore the slope of Glyn Vale in search of invertebrates and the plants that they like to feast on! As well as valuable Bristol99 records we were specifically on the lookout for some key species to help with some big national surveys: PlantLife’s Bee Scene survey and OPAL’s Bug Count.

In a frenzy of bug pots, identification charts, sweep nets and sun cream we managed to discover 37 species in just a few short hours including some huge mounds of yellow meadow ant nests (Lasius flavus). These ants are specialists of open meadows, building nest mounds over several generations, so are a good indicator that the slopes have been used for pastoral grazing for hundreds of years.

We also collected some very noticeable tan lines.

Find out more about the Northern Slopes and how you can enjoy and protect this beautiful green space at http://www.northern-slopes-initiative.co.uk.

Thanks to BNHC’s Matt Postles, for this article.

Ben Connor goes a bit batty as he joins in for The Big Commute!

Every evening in Bristol, dozens of commuters travel silently, speedily, almost unnoticed by the rest of the population as they soar above the city. A new cycle flyover? Not quite. For these commuters are small, furry, and in search of an insect feast. I’m talking, of course, about bats.

On a drizzly evening in June, about 40 people gathered for The Big Commute, an evening of bat watching in St. Andrew’s graveyard, Clifton, led by Dr Marc Holderied, Senior Lecturer in Biology at the University of Bristol, and an expert authority on bats, their behaviour and ecology. Despite being just a stone’s throw from the city centre, the graveyard is one of the main commuting routes for bats in Bristol, as they leave their roosts at dusk to head off to their feeding grounds in search of insect prey.

As the crowd – including one enthusiast donning the full Dracula – gathered expectantly, and Marc and his team set up their bat detectors, there was just one problem: the incessant rain. Bats hunt by echolocation, emitting calls inaudible to the human ear that rebound off their surroundings, enabling them to map their surroundings and hunt insects in the dark. Fill the air with raindrops, and this process becomes increasingly difficult.

Despite the less than promising conditions, the brave crowd stuck it out, and Marc gave an entertaining introduction to Bristol’s bats, their behaviour and ecology. St. Andrew’s graveyard may just have the most studied bats in the county, providing researchers from the University with a convenient study site, and is home to a number of species, including common pipistrelles, as well as rarer Leisler’s and barbastrelle bats. Marc explained some of the latest research into and the ongoing evolutionary arms race between bats and their prey, from bats ‘whispering’ to avoid detection, to moths planting distractions with tail streamers.

As the night drew to close we were finally rewarded, as a solitary pipistrelle flew overhead, recording a rapid chatter on the bat detectors. While on this occasion this solitary bat was our only record, many of our participants were determined to return on a clear evening, when up to 200 bats can be seen heading out into the city night.

 

Article by Ben Connor

“It’s like seeing the same place but with different eyes” Lamplighters Marsh gets the Bristol99 treatment!

“It’s like seeing the same place but with different eyes”. So concluded one of our enthusiastic participants after Bristol99’s morning expedition to Lamplighter’s Marsh, amazed at the wealth of wildlife to be found on her local patch.

Alight from the Severn Beach Line at Shirehampton, head towards the sadly abandoned Lamplighter’s Pub, and you soon find yourself at the entrance to the marsh, a thin sliver of land wedged between the railway and the River Avon. One of Wild City’s flagship sites, Lamplighter’s Marsh is a mosaic of saltmarsh, grassland and scrub offering fine views across the river estuary.

Led by naturalist Rupert Higgins, with support from Wild City’s Helen Adshead and our trusty Bristol99 volunteers, we teamed up with a group of a dozen over 55s from LinkAge Shirehampton, led by the indefatigable Ricky, to explore the site and record as many species as we could find within a tight two-hour window. Setting off slowly, we snaked through the marsh on the well-used footpath as Rupert identified some of the rich variety of plants to be found on the site, from the everlasting pea to the sea aster.

However, the fun really started once the sweep nets and bug pots were handed out, and our participants were transformed into an army of committed invertebrate hunters, sweeping through the verges and beating tree branches with enthusiasm. Before long our species tally was shooting upwards, with multiple click beetles, a green shieldbug and dark bush crickets all recorded. Orange-tip butterflies abounded, their fluorescent wings catching everyone’s eye. Birds were also out in force, with a whitethroat flitting between the bushes, and numerous cormorants gliding downriver.

While the 79 species recorded was an impressive tally from a short walk through the site, the most memorable part of the morning was listening to people’s own stories of the site and their connections to nature. Many of the participants had lived in Shirehampton for most of their lives, and regularly walked through the site. Whilst some were able to impart their own local knowledge as to the best place to find certain species, others were delighted to discover that the marsh held such a diversity of species, and equipped with their new understanding felt able to appreciate the site anew. Perhaps most revealing were the stories of a post-war Shirehampton where nature was marked by its abundance; a place where finding adders on the doorstep was unremarkable, and the meadows were alive with insects.

Bristol City Council is currently reviewing the management plan for Lamplighter’s Marsh, with the eventual aim of securing its status as a Local Nature Reserve, ensuring the protection of this important site for future generations to enjoy.

Thanks to BNHC’s Ben Connor for this article.

Clifton College tick all the boxes for conservation, as part of Bristol99

I don’t know if I was more, or less worried when I turned up at Bristol Zoo for Bristol 99 on the Downs School Day – and the school turned out to be a load of sixth formers from Clifton College, rather than the ‘little people’ I was expecting!  I just remember what I was like as a teenager – if I wasn’t interested, I wasn’t interested, and that was that.  We were doing a wildflower transect on Clifton Downs, which, in my head, might not be an easy sell.  But then, it was an afternoon out of school!

The event had been organised by Mandy Leivers of the Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project, and for the first activity, we were being joined by wild flower expert Richard Bland, who had marked out areas of the Downs with white flags, within which we would use his now, well trialled ‘tick list’ system to record the plant species.  Richard explained why this was important, and how the data collected would be used by the City Environmental department to advise the Downs Committee on future management of the site.  I then gave some background information on Bristol99, and we walked out to the area.

On arrival, the first thing we needed to do was teach the students how to identify the different plants on their tick lists.  Some were really interesting to identify, like beaked hawksbeard, which has a number of distinguishing features, such as orange stripes on the underside of its petals, roughly hairy stems and leaves, and most importantly, a bract under each branch along the stem.  I have to say, I was very impressed by the interest they all showed in learning, and the questions they asked.  Eventually, they were confident enough to be set free with their own tick lists and off they went in little groups, to challenge their new found knowledge.  They discovered plenty that weren’t on the list, and rather than dismissing them, asked what they were.  Heads bowed in concentration, there was quiet chatter but no messing around, not even from the boys (who, I was surprised by now, weren’t wrapping the superfluous quadrats they were carrying, around each other’s heads!)

When more scarce species were found, like twayblade, the excitement was contagious, as they all gathered round to see this rarity that hadn’t made the tick list, and likewise, they all appreciated the beauty of the common spotted and southern marsh orchids.  Just when everyone seemed to be really getting into it, it was time to switch activities.  At this point, the weather, (as it had on almost every event on the Downs) let us down again, and a wind came out of nowhere and blew the rain in.  This was unfortunate, as the next activity was a butterfly transect with Martin Collins from the Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge group.  Martin seemed determined to go ahead, despite the darkening sky and shivering audience, talking at length about all the different butterflies that could be found on the Downs, none of which, unfortunately, were to be seen.  Eventually, and sadly, he had to admit failure and we scurried into the shelter of the gully, abandoning all hopes of seeing anything airborne.  Instead, we walked to see the goats and he explained their important role in keeping the scrub down, so that the wildflower rich grassland has a chance to re establish.

Sadly, by the time the squally shower had blown through, it was time to say goodbye to our lovely young group.   It was clear that their brief afternoon on the Downs, had left them with some new found knowledge, and a feeling of satisfaction, from having contributed something important for the conservation of this special site.  On my part,  I felt very encouraged by their enthusiasm, and it certainly demonstrated that engendering an interest in the natural world isn’t something that has to be done at birth!

Callington Road Nature Reserve gets a medical check up!

With all the recent publicity surrounding ash die back disease and acute oak decline, there is more than ever, a growing interest in the importance of monitoring our trees.  Opal (Open Air Laboratories) have devised an excellent and very comprehensive survey explaining exactly how to do this, results of which can be sent back to them, allowing a picture to be built up about the state of our natural environment.

Wild City and Friends of Callington Road Nature Reserve decided they wanted to do this as part of Bristol99, so on the evening of June 6th, I met a small group of members, together with Wild City’s Paula Spiers and Beth Garman, Bristol City Council Tree Officer, at the reserve’s Dew Pond to learn how to do a tree health survey.

We did a couple of trees together to get the hang of it.  The survey is very good and assumes no prior knowledge – which for a lot of people, including me, will be very important! It provides guidance on tree identification and explains how to measure its height, the girth of the trunk and what sort of crown it has (the spread of the branches and leaf canopy).  It then goes into all sorts of detail about the amount of dead wood in the crown, percentage of leaf cover, condition of the leaves, evidence of any wildlife using the tree as a home and evidence of bark or leaf damage through pests or diseases.

After a couple of examples, we were let loose in the reserve to do our own surveying.  I paired up with Pam, a retired lady (who I seem to recall was wearing bright, bright red lipstick!) and in her hands, was led off, away from the crowd, deep into the reserve to (for some reason) find the most difficult, inaccessible tree to survey!  Surrounded by nettles and brambles, and so intertwined with other trees, it was nearly impossible to discern which tree we were supposed to be surveying, but we managed, with some trouble (and a small amount of injury) to take all the measurements, identify that it was an ash and, apart from being completely eclipsed by its neighbours, was a perfectly healthy specimen with no incipient diseases.

Pam talked volubly about the history of the site, which was formerly a large area of surplus allotment land, part of which was sold off for the development of a hospital, not without some controversy.  However, the hospital developer did provide funds, as a condition of their planning approval, to establish the nature reserve, which was granted its status in 2009.  Pam really has no need to visit the reserve, living as she does in her own wildlife oasis in Knowle, where seemingly, the wildlife visits her, and together with her 30 guinea pigs and hobby of puppy fostering, it’s amazing she ever has time to leave the house!

Concerned about the time we had taken to walk out and find the ‘difficult tree’ we wondered back, where Pam chose an even more ‘difficult tree’ which was stuck in a corner, up a steep, windy path and therefore impossible to measure (at which point I decided Pam just didn’t like the measuring element of the exercise!)  We did the best we could, then joined up with the other members of the group, who had had a lovely time with ‘easy trees’ and no doubt felt a lot more confident about the accuracy of their surveys then we did!

It was a lovely evening out and I met some great people, including former chair of the Friends Group, Denis Stuckey and his wife Angela.  The overall conclusion seemed to be that the trees were a healthy lot in Callington Road, which was encouraging and I went away, happy, that once again, I had found another beautiful space on my doorstep, from which to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.

Out with the new and in with the old – welcome to FossilBlitz!!

Steve England and I came up with the idea of FossilBlitz over coffee, in Cookies Cafe, Lockleaze.  Borne out of the more familiar BioBlitz – where members of the public work with expert naturalists, to find as many species of wildlife in an allotted time, FossilBlitz aimed to do the same thing, only with ‘dead stuff!’  What a crazy idea!  I knew Steve was interested in fossils, and so was I, and he knew of an ideal spot on which to run it while I was game for something a bit out of the ordinary to showcase as part of Bristol99.  And so a date was set!

In preparation for the event, Steve, a keen fossil collector, took me on a walk through the lovely Frome valley at Snuff Mills, where he found many of his specimens, which are currently housed in the local Glenside hospital museum.  He had guaranteed I would find fossils, which I had to raise an eyebrow at.  Fossils, are notoriously difficult to find, we all know that!  However, within minutes of turning up, I had indeed found a fossil.  And another.  And another.  Steve was chuckling to himself, ‘I told you!’  There had to be a reason why they were so prolific?  So Steve explained how the whole area had previously been mined for coal.  Anything that was of no use, was discarded, thrown back and piled into slag heaps either side of the river, which remain to this day.  The slag heaps are now grown over with vegetation, but scratch the surface and you can unearth fossils galore, mainly plants and trees from the carboniferous period, 300 million years ago.

On June 8th, the most glorious, sunny day imaginable, we ran the event.  A gazebo was set up on the grass, and Steve brought along some of his fossil collection, together with photos and newspaper cuttings, telling the story of Bristol’s prehistoric past and how he has helped uncover it.  We met our group of about 12 in the car park at 11 am, and walked them down to the gazebo where Steve gave them an introductory talk and showed them his fossils, an indicator of what was to come.

The plan was to walk along the valley, allowing Steve to point out some large permanent fossil features in the rocks.  However, he didn’t count on the quality or enthusiasm of the participants!  2 young children were simply astonishing, in particular a 6 year old girl, who, with her long black plaits reminded me of Pocahontas!  Incredibly, she had been collecting fossils since she was 3 and seemed to be able to spot them from 20 yards away.  She tirelessly ran up and down the steep slag heaps, pulling fossil after fossil out of the ground, running back to hand them to her father, who fortunately was equipped with a rucksack large enough for the job.  The lad was the same.  I was curious about these 2 children, in an age of technology and instant gratification, who were doing something so, well old fashioned??

Steve showed the group huge fossils, squashed tree branches in great lumps of bedrock with clearly discernible features, and perfect examples of giant horsetail.  He talked about the geology of the area, describing in detail how different it would have looked all those millions of years ago.  Children and adults alike were engrossed, fascinated – and surprised – all this on their doorstep and so unpublicised?

The highlight for most, had to be of course, the chance to find their own fossils.  And when they were actually given permission to do so, the adults easily matched the enthusiasm as the children earlier.  Steve showed everyone the best places to go, and then they were off.  Specimens were brought back to the picnic bench, washed and placed in piles according to finder.  No one seemed to mind that the fossils they found were all vegetative, no one was disappointed they didn’t find a dinosaur, or at the very least, an ammonite.

And so, at the end of the event, it was a very satisfied group that left Snuff Mills, and another successful event for Steve England and Bristol99.  Everyone had learned something and everyone had a memento – a piece of Bristol’s incredible long history to take home with them.  Everyone bar me.  Do you know, I didn’t find a single fossil that day!!!!

Wildlife fun in the sun at Long Cross Tip (and excellent pizza too!)

I was excited about Long Cross Tip.  Matt Postles and I had done a reccy a couple of weeks earlier and it was a wildlife lovers’ paradise, with all sorts of unusual plants and insects.  I was secretly hoping that Funday Sunday might uncover a bee orchid or something similarly rare, and that by getting the expert naturalists in, who would know precisely where to look, I could shortcut having to find it myself!

The day, when it arrived, was a beautiful one in early June, warm and sunny.  Basing ourselves at Lawrence Weston Community Farm, in their fabulous new woodland area, we had set up a gazebo as base camp, with tables for microscopes, specimens and field guides.  Arriving at 11.30 am for a 1pm start, it was pleasing to see the clay pizza oven, fired up and ready to go, with Kerry Rowe, from the farm, who had been on site to light it at 8 am, looking fresh and rather dashing in an excellent cowboy hat.  At 12pm our volunteer naturalists arrived – Richard Bland and Tony Smith from Bristol Naturalists, Jeff Davey from UWE and Gill and David Brown, mammal and bat specialists respectively.  We were certainly well covered for expertise!

We had scheduled three, hourly walks onto the tip throughout the afternoon, starting at 1pm.  Running alongside these, were base camp activities like bug hunting and pond dipping.  1pm however, came and went, and nobody appeared.  I imagined the naturalists starting to look a bit edgy.  The odd person was wondering around the farm or eating pizza and I invited them to join in, but to no avail.  Time ticked on, and if I’m honest, I began to feel a bit worried.  However, I shouldn’t have been.  All it took, was for us to sit down and start tucking into our lovely pizzas, and suddenly droves of people turned up, a continuous stream of families with excited young children winding their way through the trees, aiming for our gazebo.

And so, about 25 people headed out for the first walk, which, in the end took place at 2pm and was led by both Richard and Tony.  The group split into 2, those wanting to walk faster and explore farther, who concentrated on wildflowers and those wanting to walk slower and explore less, who looked at invertebrates!  Both groups were accompanied by designated wildlife recorders, who wrote down everything that was found.

Meanwhile, back at base camp, all was not quiet, far from it.  There were children clambering to look through microscopes at the beetles and spiders Jeff had collected earlier, and the pond dipping, which I had delegated to Gill and David, had become so popular that David had had to relocate and set up another station on the little wooden bridge round the corner.  I was delighted to see some of the little girls I had met at the recent water vole event, back to have another go, and this time, there were plenty more things to catch, including a common newt and an absolutely colossal ‘toadpole’ which I mistook for a bullhead fish!  There were also tiny fry, leaches and flatworms (eww!) and all manner of larvae.  It was rich in wildlife indeed.

Just after 3pm, Matt was due to lead his ‘bees and the birds’ walk (see what we did there?!) but the children were a lot younger and it appeared they wouldn’t have the concentration for an hour long educational walk.  It took Matt an inordinately long time to shepherd the group off the farm, with so many distractions of ‘real animals,’ but when he did return, an hour later, he had wisely turned the walk into a bug hunt and the children had all thoroughly enjoyed themselves running around in the grass with sweep nets!

And so, for a 3 hour event, which started slowly, it ended up being pretty full on!  All in all, about 75 people joined in, making it one of our most popular public events of Bristol99.  In addition, our naturalists, when not engaging with the public, went off and did their own wildlife recording, amassing some 363 records, 167 of which were individual species.  In terms of data collected, it was second only to Bristol BioBlitz at Kings Weston, which took place over 2 days.  This little known brownfield site, had shown that there is indeed huge value in protecting and preserving these often ‘written off’ spaces, both for the benefit of wildlife and people.

By the way, I never did find that orchid.  Just so you know.  But then, nor did anyone else!

A medicinal meander along the Avon New Cut

Alternative medicine is undoubtedly gaining more interest in the modern world – we all want to know how to improve our health and well being – especially if it costs nothing and is freely available.  Welcome to herbalism!  I knew the medicinal herb walk organised by the Friends of Avon New Cut would go down a treat, not least because a riverside walk on a lovely June evening is pleasant in itself.

Our leader, was qualified herbalist Ian Stewart, (who looks alarmingly like Neil Oliver from Coast) and a large group of us met up with him on the Southville side of Gaol Ferry Bridge,  hoping to glean something beneficial from an evening in his company.  However, it was less of a walk, more of a sidestep, from plant to plant, as it seemed almost everything we passed, had some medicinal quality that was worth noting, and everyone who attended had more than just a passing interest!

From hawthorn, and its use as a cardiovascular tonic, to valerian, with its sedative qualities used to treat anxiety and insomnia; ribwort plantain, with its ability to cure respiratory problems and heal serious wounds (interestingly, also known as soldiers weed, due to its application during the war) to dandelion, used to stimulate digestion and alleviate constipation, it seemed the Avon New Cut was a mecca for herbal remedies – if only you could get past the fact that any plant on the side of this busy road was likely to be contaminated by diesel particles at the very least…..

Most members in the group were assiduously taking notes  (when there was enough of a gap in the heavy traffic to hear).  It was indeed fascinating to find out just how useful these plants we overlook on a day to day basis are, and how, in bygone years, they played a significant part in the treatment of some quite serious conditions and injuries.

Eventually, we gave up on our roadside jaunt, in favour of quieter conditions, and headed off down the chocolate track, which runs the opposite side of the river.  We finished in a little grassland area, near the Create Centre which was lit up in the dimming light by glowing violet allium flowers.  Ian showed us a couple more examples and told us how we can learn more about herbalism.

The event finished for many, with an interactive session at the Novia Scotia, to sample one of the herbs most widely in use today, with tonic, nervine, diuretic and anodyne properties.  It’s nice to think herbalism never really went away.  Beer anyone?!!