Winter 2012

Life continues on. I have been keeping busy with volunteering, teaching Karate, and working some more on my photography in spare time. I have also been hunting for a full-time position in nature conservation, and I thought I should share some of the recent happenings, so here goes.

I have been looking for a new job for three months now, and have had three interviews so far. While I have been unsuccessful with these three applications, I received some very positive feedback. Employment is still slow at the moment generally, so although it could be disheartening to have been unsuccessful I am looking at the positives and taking the feedback as a good sign. Keeping busy with volunteering has kept me happy and motivated as well as adding to my experience, so I am trying to keep up my volunteering at various places.

Aigas House, Inverness-shire

The most recent interview I had was actually all the way up in Inverness-shire in Scotland, a fortnight back. Although it was a long way to travel, it was nevertheless a useful experience. The staff at the Aigas field centre were very welcoming, I had the chance to see some beautiful scenery and wildlife (even sat in a hide hoping to see pine martens for a few hours, although none obliged), and I also came away feeling I had performed well in the interview process. When I look back in time three years I can see I have come a long way since graduating from University, and the skills, knowledge and experiences I have gained make me a strong contender for some of these positions. The interview process up in Scotland was an all-day affair, which was a first for me, and included a walk/talk element that encouraged me to evince my identification skills as well as a panel interview and a test of my interpretation skills. Being tested in this way showed me that my own progress has been substantial. The interviewers also told me that I gave a very good interview, even though I didn't gain the position. This, and the high calibre of my fellow interviewees, made me feel proud to have reached the stage I am at now. Patience is a virtue, as I have learnt, in the often competitive environmental fields of work.

Sunrise views from the train, on the return journey through the Cairngorms

Over the past few months I have been devoting some time to volunteering at the Epping Forest field centre; with the extra time I have available, it has been a great pleasure to reacquaint myself with the centre, various duties, and the staff there. While working in my previous Ranger job I would stop by the centre from time to time, but the nature of my job didn't allow me to commit much time to volunteering so it was very sporadic during that period. The staff are so friendly, and very skilled environmental educators to boot, so it is a pleasure to work alongside them and assist them where possible in their teaching. I have also put some time into the Grounds Action team, helping to maintain the centre grounds. Most recently, I attended the "Seasonal Celebrations" to help visiting families with festive arts and crafts. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Natasha making a wreath

Wreath ready for decorating!

In other volunteering, I have also been back to Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park near the O2, a couple of times so far. I was volunteering there last year under the Volunteer Officer scheme through BTCV (now TCV), and being curious to see how the park has changed in a year I headed back for some volunteering. I helped out as part of a work party, maintaining the site habitats, as well as helping with Natasha at a festive event more recently. This "Winter Fair" event was fantastic fun, and very successful, attracting a large number of visitors. The two of us helped with the wreath-making activities in the afternoon, and helped to clear up after the event. The Ecology Park is looking really well, and there have been a number of improvements such as new habitat boxes around the place since this time last year.

Finally, I have been out to try volunteering with EFCV - Epping Forest Conservation Volunteers, who are a lovely bunch that provide some essential muscle in managing Epping Forest (including its tree, grasslands and ponds!). Hopefully I will find some more opportunities to get out with this group, and help to conserve the Forest that I grew up next to.

So, on reflection, since September I have been ranging far for job interviews as well as getting stuck in with volunteering close to home. Not a bad way to spend my days while I am looking for a full-time position, I feel.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year everybody!
T

Photography

Hi everyone,

I am still hunting for that next Conservation job, but have also been working on my Photography. If you'd like to find out how this develops (pun intended) and keep up to date with my photo-related happenings then you'll be interested to learn I have started a Photography blog - point yourself to this link. I will continue posting any bloggings that are Conservation/Countryside related (work, volunteering or other) or more general on this here page though :)

Hay hay hay

Dearest reader(s), it is now my desire to share with you some of the trials and tribulations of a summer season on a grassland nature reserve. I am leaving the reserve soon to look for new opportunities, and seeing as we finished the hay-making season there back on 1st September I can reflect on the 2012 hay-making at Roding Valley as I move forward into a new chapter.

We have had a very unpredictable summer this year, with wet weather jumping out unexpectedly on numerous occasions. Hay-making at Roding Valley Meadows LNR is a three day process, and requires good weather (to dry out the hay, and to avoid damaging the ground if it becomes too wet). The first day is when the field is cut using a tractor and mower, leaving suitable margins for wildlife of course. The second day of the process involves turning and fluffing the hay using a tedder so that it can dry out further. The third and final day usually sees the hay turned again before making bales out of it using the tractor with a large red baling machine attached.

The hay-making process removes biomass from the fields, preventing the rank species from dominating and then excluding the wildflowers (and also preventing succession which would lead to the field becoming a woodland!). The length of the process allows the wildflower seeds to drop out from the cut flowers, so the important species that are present can persist into future years.

 

Most of the fields are managed with a cut for hay at Roding Valley Meadows, although conditions and time constraints rarely allow for all of these fields to be cut each year. Fields which had to miss a cut the previous year, and fields which have problems with scrub or rank species, might be prioritised - this is often assessed by looking at which species are growing in the field. The same goes for those with higher level designations (Site of Special Scientific Interest); the first field we tackled was a SSSI field called Lower Mead, which is high up the priorities list due to its designation as well as the important plant species that led to that designation.

2012 saw the reserve sign up to the higher level stewardship scheme (HLS), which entailed stricter constraints on the management of the reserve. Requirements of the scheme, such as only cutting for hay between mid-July and the end of August, benefit wildlife and encourage managers to act in more wildlife-friendly ways in exchange for a fiscal incentive. The later start to the haymaking season allows more of the important wildflowers to be pollinated and to seed before being cut. It also makes for a briefer window in which to attempt the haymaking process on all of the fields! Sometimes we risked the hay in order to get the field cut, as even when the hay is spoiled by rainfall during the three-day process (as happened once or twice) the biomass is removed which can fulfil the conservation aims. The downside is that there isn't a final product to sell, which would help to recoup the costs of the process, but when there is so little time in the season it can be deemed worth it from a conservation perspective to go ahead with the cut from time to time.
Summer 2012 was apparently the wettest Summer in a hundred years according to Met Office data. This meant that, dodging the precipitation events, there were fewer windows of haymaking opportunity. The river Roding also flooded just a few weeks before haymaking could start due to sheer quantities of rainfall, and this meant that the lower fields were still very wet during the season, preventing access and the use of machinery for haymaking on perhaps half of the fields. The warden and I discovered the difficulties encountered when working on unfavourable ground: when we made hay on one of the top fields, we realised it was wetter than expected! Conditions seemed acceptable for making hay, and indeed the hay itself dried rather well, but the ground began to show signs of damage when driving machinery across the field. The land-rover eventually became stuck fast in a patch of wet ground, once the trailer was heavy with loaded haybales. Although we managed to extricate the land-rover using the tractor, this highlighted the impossibility of making hay on the fields lower down the valley where ground conditions were even worse.

Besides the weather and getting stuck in the mud, it was also necessary to contend with machinery breaking down and needing to be repaired. Making hay can be very hard on machinery, being stressful for the implements and not just the workers! Blades and tines on the machinery can get blunt or break when they hit stones, wood, or just plain tough vegetation. Bumps in the field can catch moving parts, although some machines have safety features that then engage - for example there is a shear bolt inside the bailer which, to prevent the important and expensive parts of the machine from breaking, will "shear" apart instead. The downside is that this bolt is right inside the machine behind the clutch and so is still quite tricky to replace!

Using a tractor and machinery makes the haymaking process much easier than it could be. One or two persons can carry out most of the process through use of the machinery, but when it gets to the third and final day it is all hands on deck at Roding Valley Meadows! On the baling day here may be hundreds and hundreds of hay bales to handle, throw onto the trailer by hand, stack properly and strap down. Even with the aid of helpful volunteers (and we had some very helpful volunteers indeed for most of the baling days) it can be a long day, for example running from 7 or 8am through til 9 or 10pm at night on occasion. Volunteers would normally join the reserve staff around the middle of the day however, after any turning of the hay and rowing up with the machinery. Once bales start popping out of the baler it then becomes a more labour-intensive day! Volunteers are free to leave when their other commitments (or their stomachs) require, often staying until dinnertime.

This year, although we did have some hiccups (such as getting stuck in the mud, or the shear bolt breaking), I don't think we ran past 9pm. Better than last year, where on one occasion we were out past 10pm! We were also fortunate to have some volunteers willing to give up part of their evening to stay out later with us on some of those baling days, which can make all the difference to how early or late the whole process finishes.
In the seven weeks of the haymaking season, we managed to get almost all of the upper hay fields cut; these are the fields which aren't flooded by the river, so these are perhaps all that could be expected with the flood meadows so wet from flooding. There was a section of 18 acre field which could have been cut, if the weather had provided another sufficiently-long window without rain before the end of the season. On the bright side, the section we did manage to cut from 18 acres was apparently the first haycut in that field in several years, so that should have a huge benefit for the finer grasses and the wildflowers which will have been struggling to survive in this area besides the coarse grasses and small shrubs.

The end of haymaking isn't the end of the story. The Autumn grazing programme is another chance to reduce biomass on the fields, so the warden will have the opportunity to "cut" the lower fields using the cattle this Autumn. The herd will be another group of cows from the same grazier that was used earlier in the year for the trial Spring graze. That herd was a very mixed bunch, so if the Autumn herd is anything like it then visitors to the reserve will have the chance to see cows of all different colours and patterns and sizes doing their bit for conservation!

Although making hay is quite a physically and mentally demanding process, it can be very satisfying. It has also been great to consider that all of the hard work benefits the grassland, and is carried out by a charity for conservation purposes rather than done for commercial reasons. At the end of a long hard day, with aching muscles and dust in my hair and engine oil in my clothes, at least I could look out in the twilight over the field that we'd managed to cut, or look at the sunset over the Roding river. Aaaaaahhhhh!

EuCAN and Kingcombe Meadows

Well, time has flown by and once again I need to make apologies for the radio silence. Work manages to keep me surprisingly busy, and we are in the middle of the hay-making season just now which is a whole different ballgame!

Anyway, I really wanted to write about the fantastic weekend I had down in Dorset with the European Conservation Action Network (EuCAN). For those who don't know of this organisation, they work hard to encourage partnerships across europe for the benefit of conservation, and help to train up budding environmentalists. I travelled with EuCAN to Hungary in 2010 to work with one of their partners, Aggtelek National Park, on a working conservation/training/cultural experience trip. I believe this experience helped me to gain my first paid, permanent job in conservation.

The organisation also run training events within the UK. The weekend I attended in May was a chance to learn some butterfly and moth Identification, catch up with Nigel Spring (who established EuCAN in 2007) and revisit a beautiful part of the country. For my girlfriend Tash, not previously involved with EuCAN but trying to gain employment in the conservation sector, it was an opportunity to gain some valuable skills and knowledge to that end.

Friday, May the 18th. Ensuring we had the last of our things packed, Tash and I hit the road for the journey from Essex to Dorset. Tash had wheels and elected to drive us there, so I did what I could in the way of petrol money, DJing and ebullient camaraderie to ease the burden. Our route took us near to Stonehenge, and as I'd not seen this national monument we chose to break up the journey with a sightseeing stop. It was fey and fascinating, and a choice spot to eat lunch!

Stonehenge, our choice of lunch stop

 We arrived at the Kingcombe centre in the afternoon, and after settling into our room there was tea and cakes in the conservatory which was a good chance to meet some of the other people attending the weekend. We also took a walk through the Kingcombe Meadows nature reserve (managed by Dorset Wildlife Trust) with some of the other attendees. This was lovely, as the meadows really are quite special and we were walking with some knowledgeable people. Some of the sightings included a number of orchids, and hayrattle, which I learnt is parasitic on grasses so it can open up the sward (hence farmers don't like it, and conservationists do!). We then proceeded to drinks and introductions in the barn, followed by supper in the conservatory. The food was a delight, as always when eating with EuCAN! To finish the evening, we had a presentation from Nigel about the previous trips and the other activities of EuCAN, featuring lots of photos. I even featured in one photo of the Hungary trip!

After a restful sleep in our pretty room within the barn building, Tash and I rose for an early walk to survey for breeding birds with Nigel and many of the weekend's participants, in spite of the 6.30am start. This was before breakfast, so there may have been a few stomach rumbles in addition to the birdsong that morning! Some members of the group were very keen birders so I managed to pick up a few identification tips even before breakfast. The early bird gets the worm indeed!

Breakfast was large and well-earned, and was followed up with an examination of the moth trap which had been set out the night before. For those who haven't used one, they are much friendlier than they sound! A trap entices moths in at night with light or food, and the cunning design means they have trouble flying out again so you can sample the local moth population at your convenience the next morning.

To someone starting out on moth studies, there is an extraordinary array of exotically-named species! Saturday morning saw us bandying about names such as "brimstone", "pebble prominent", "brindled beauty"; many of the moths were beautiful or outlandish in appearance too when closely examined, but even with the seemingly dull and inconspicuous varieties there can be a poetry in their naming.

Enthusiastic people gathered around the moth trap

At this point Tash and I parted ways; my lovely lady joined a group of brushcutter inductees who were to be trained and certified in the use of that noisy yet useful machine. In fact, they used their new-found skills on Alners Gorse later on in the day, which gave them added experience and helped to maintain this scenic area as an open and scrub-free habitat (to the benefit of butterflies!).

I attended brushcutter training on my previous visit to Kingcombe, a preparatory weekend before the Hungary trip over two years earlier. This meant I had time to visit another moth trap with other participants, so it was with a head full of moths and their eloquent english names that I headed out for the day's main activity. I elected to join the plant identification group on the saturday, which left butterfly identification for the last day of the weekend. Saturday's botanising was led by Dominic Price (who recently established the Species Recovery Trust) and also considered the role of the local flora as food plants for butterflies and moths.

I learnt that Devil's-bit Scabious, one of the wildflowers found at Roding Valley Meadows, is depended upon by the Marsh Fritillary butterfly. This plant likes two very different types of habitat: very wet acidic bogs, and very dry calcareous grasslands, two extremes of the wet/dry spectrum. I also discovered that "ale-hoof" is an alias for Ground Ivy as it has been used as a substitute for hops for making beer, and that the leaves of Meadowsweet smell rather like cucumber!

After a fruitful day of learning, the budding botanists were reunited with the lepidoptera learners and the brushcutter trainees back at the Kingcombe Centre. There soon followed a lively evening of barn dancing, in the barn naturally. In the interval everyone segued to the conservatory for a hearty meal of venison goulash, and a few toasts with the Hungarian fruit brandy 'Palinka'. After much arm-linking, twirling, and breathless laughter, I slept very soundly indeed!

Sunday dawned on the Kingcombe Centre and the final day of the training weekend was begun. We ate another slap-up breakfast, and then those who had attended the botany training the previous day had a chance to learn about lepidopteran identification and survey skills. Having completed her brushcutter training, Tash joined me for a roam around the Dorset hills in search of lepidopterans, with Nigel Spring and some butterfly nets.

Nigel led the lepidopteran group around two different upland grassland sites, one at Lankham Bottom and the other near the Cerne Abbas giant. I felt priveliged to see so many different butterflies (and daytime moths!) out in the field, and to be with knowledgeable people willing to share what they know. Findings on the transects ranged through the lifecycle, from a wood tiger moth caterpillar, to six-spot burnett moths in cocoons, through to adult marsh fritillaries, a green hairstreak, and a narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth. The later was a startling beast: a large bumble-bee at first glance, with a small moth-like face. A moth masquerading as a bee!

The narrow-bordered bee hawk moth!

The training weekend wound down later that day, with various individuals and groups of people departing as the afternoon went on and the evening came in. My lady and I had gained permission to stay an extra night, planning to travel back the following day as we had both obtained the day off from work. We were the only ones to stay the night however, so we were able to experience the centre and its surrounds in a more peaceful and introspective manner, reflecting on what we had learnt and discussing it with each other. As the training weekend had officially finished we repaired to a local pub for our evening meal, recommended by Nigel. So it was we spent a happy hour or two at the Marquis of Lorne in nearby Nettlecombe, a pretty and cosy pub tucked away in the middle of the Dorset countryside.

The remoteness of the pub had no detrimental effect on the quality of the food or the sheer numbers of people coming in through the door to eat that food! Tash ordered the Boudin Blanc, which was a white chicken sausage served on pearl barley and butternut squash risotto. I opted for the Roast Belly Pork, which was accompanied by creamed potato and a green apple puree. The portions were large, the dishes prepared with panache, and the side of vegetables were delicious and all locally sourced (or grown in the pub's own polytunnel!). I washed my meal down with a pint of Copper ale, and we discussed how amazing our weekend had been so far. Then we returned to the Kingcombe centre, where the centre manager Nick had invited us to join him on his bat count that evening.

Nick told us that the BBC were coming down the following week to film some footage for the new television series Secrets of Our Living Planet, and he wanted to check what types of bat were around and in what numbers beforehand. So we accompanied him and assisted the counting of pipistrelle bats emerging from Beech Cottage, and checked where they flew out from. We counted over 20 bats emerge between us, before heading off on a walk through the high moor and along a stream to find a possible Myotis bat using the bat detector. We went to bed very happy from our nocturnal experience, having seen and heard up close some exciting wildlife.

Monday morning, and we took one final walk on the meadows up above the centre. We heard blackbirds, songthrushes and wrens singing, saw birds of prey in the air, and took photos of the flowers. Then we ate a cooked breakfast, prepared very kindly by Nick himself, before packing our things into the car and hitting the road. Tash drove through Cerne Abbas on the way, and we stopped off to see the 180-foot 'ancient' naked giant, cut into the chalk hillside above the village - a very different kind of monument to Stonehenge!

We stopped to eat our lunch at Stonehenge again, as it was en route. While we parked up we saw an army tank with a learner sticker on it, doing manoeuvres next to us! We finally made it back that afternoon, tired but very contented after our weekend of learning and adventure. All in all, I would highly recommend EuCAN to anyone. If you can make it along to a training weekend, or even get involved in one of their trips abroad, jump at the chance! You can find their website at www.eucan.org.uk.