Langdon Hills Butterfly Surveys

My partner Natasha has been taking part in butterfly surveying at Langdon Hills Country Park since last Summer. This Country Park is part of the Langdon Living Landscape, one of the best areas for butterflies in whole of Essex. The survey route covers a number of species-rich meadows, interspersed with semi-natural woodland and hedge-lined rides. I accompanied Natasha on June 28th and made a note of interesting species, butterfly or otherwise! Cattle were present in Johnson's No.2 field, doing their bit for conservation.

Meadows can be incredibly rich habitats!

Martinhole Wood:
Other: Black Bryony, Scaly Male Fern, Bluebell, Wood Dock, Dog's Mercury, Wood Avens, Honeysuckle.

Johnson's No.1 (Meadow)
Butterflies: Meadow Brown, Marbled White, Common Blue (we think), Essex/Common Skipper, Comma.
Other: Meadowsweet, Birds-foot Trefoil, Red Clover, Tufted Vetch, Yellow Rattle, Ox-eye Daisy, Self-heal, Tragopogon seedhead (Goatsbeard or Salsify).

Horse Ride
Butterflies: Comma.

Johnson's No.2 (Meadow)
Butterflies: Large White, Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood.
Other: Field Rose, Pheasant, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Wild Carrot, Ox-eye Daisy, Self-heal, Cinquefoil, Shrew.

If you're interested in getting involved with butterfly surveying, Langdon Hills Country Park has a number of survey routes in both the One Tree Hill and Westley Heights areas of the park. Contact Langdon Hills Country Park for more information. If volunteering isn't your thing, then I'd still recommend taking a walk around the Country Park to see some of the brilliant butterflies!

Soprano Pipistrelle Roost Count

Twilight on Wednesday 24th June saw Natasha and I at Hanningfield Reservoir (EWT), sat on a picnic blanket, awaiting the emergence of over 500 bats. Essex Bat Group were running a Soprano Pipistrelle Roost Count, part of their work to map bats across Essex and track changes to their populations over time.

Hanningfield Reservoir.

Awaiting bats!

There are 10 species of bat found regularly in Essex, with Common and Soprano Pipistrelles being the two most common. Over 500 Soprano Pipistrelles were counted over the course of the emergence, which took just over an hour - Natasha and I personally counted 364 individual bats! There was also a large bat around, recorded on a bat detector and pegged as "noctule or leisler's or serotine".

Soprano Pipistrelle in blurry flight.

I got involved with the Roost Count at Hanningfield through my involvement with the Langdon Hills Bat Group, which formed last year through the Langdon Living Landscape (under the guidance of Essex Bat Group). We've been out to various sites across the Langdon Ridge to look for bats, and have discovered a number of different species in the area. If you're interested in getting involved with the Langdon Hills Bat Group, I'd recommend getting in touch with John Hunt (at Langdon Hills Country Park) at langdon.hills@btconnect.com. Please remember that all bat species and their roosts are legally protected in Britain.

Bioblitz Results

The One Tree Hill Bioblitz, at Langdon Hills Country Park, took place on 3rd May. A Bioblitz, for those who haven't come across one before, is a group effort to find as many species as possible in a given location. We also had over 30 people involved in the event, and for some this was their first experience of surveying for wildlife! It was great to see so much enthusiasm from so many people.

I was responsible for organising the event, and handling the records afterwards - a significant undertaking in itself! After I spent some time working on our species lists from the event (attempting to get identification down to species level, and eliminating duplicates) we had a list of over 136 different species from roughly 3 hours of surveying. That's a new species found for every 80 seconds! The information from this event is being passed on to local and national databases that monitor wildlife, increasing what we know about the wildlife in the area and thus helping us to protect it.

Prizes for the Best Guess (for guesses closes to the final species total) and Best Blitzer (for greatest overall contribution to the recording) have been decided, and Bioblitz t-shirts will be awarded to winners at the next big Country Park event, which is the Friends of Langdon Hills group's Curry & Glow-worm night on 3rd July. For more information about this event or the Friends group, you can contact Langdon Hills Country Park on langdon.hills@btconnect.com or 01268 542 066.

 

One Tree Hill Bioblitz

Sunday 3rd May 2015

1pm-4.30pm: Bioblitz!
5pm onwards: “Thank you” BBQ

Langdon Hills Country Park, One Tree Hill, Corringham, Essex. SS17 9NH.


An afternoon of surveying, a race to record as many species as possible! This will be a group effort open to experts, amateurs, and anyone with interest and enthusiasm. The Bioblitz will be a chance to find out more about the Country Park and try your hand at surveying for wildlife. Meet at One Tree Hill main car park (by Information Room), and base camp will be nearby.

The afternoon will finish with a free BBQ, providing a chance to socialise and to find out more about the Friends of Langdon Hills. This will also be a thank you to everyone for taking part! Food and soft drinks provided. Please get in touch with any special dietary requirements.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend the BBQ to ensure there will be food for you! Please get in touch with the Country Park on langdon.hills@btconnect.com or 01268 542 066 to RSVP or for more information.