Conservation Volunteers and Other Animals

Today I've been with the East Yorkshire Bat Group, checking bat boxes in Allerthorpe Woods. Six species have been recorded there in the past. Checking bat boxes The first few boxes we checked contained only spiders. Then we found boxes with bat droppings inside and finally one with two bats. They were Soprano pipistrelles, one male and one female. I'd assumed the sub-species of Pipistrelle could only be distinguished by the frequency of their echo-location calls, but apparently there are physical differences too. The Sopranos have yellow colouring around the mouth, a distinct pattern of veins in the wings and they smell different from Common pipistrelles. Soprano pipistrelle The boxes were clustered together in groups of pine trees, with two or three boxes on a single tree in some places. After checking a group, we realised we'd missed a box out, which was easily done. Going back to it was well worthwhile, because it contained nine Natterer's bats. They we...

After a two week break in the Greek islands, which was lovely, I returned to my local patch last week. On Friday I went to a conservation work day at Poppleton Ings, on the north side of York. This is part of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's River Ouse Floodplains project. While I was away, the volunteer group started building stock-proof enclosures which will be planted up with 600 of my home-grown tansy plants. This will provide additional safe habitat for the endangered tansy beetles which, in the UK, live only along a 30km stretch of the river Ouse around York and on one site in Cambridgeshire. Judy and Emily hard at work (while I wander around taking photos) These enclosures are an odd shape, to better divert flood waters, and the posts and rails are wired together to deter vandals (who will try to use them for firewood). We completed building the second enclosure and got some of the plants in. Wiring the framework together A completed enclosure Mating tansy b...

Yesterday we had our monthly work day at Allerthorpe Common, controlling the birch regrowth which threatens to turn this increasingly rare lowland heath habitat into a birch woodland. We soon disturbed a wasps' nest, so had to avoid that area for the rest of the day. I was stung by a wasp last week and didn't want to repeat the experience - I react badly. Pellets from the Barn owl box We stopped for a coffee break and checked the barn owl box, which we were sure had not been occupied this summer. In fact, it contained a heap of pine 'cuttings', presumably nesting material for a grey squirrel, together with a number of barn owl pellets. It appears that neither species has actually nested there. Red-veined darter on a matching shirt Common lizard on a daypack  A not so Common lizard Red admiral on an oak tree At lunchtime, we were visited first by a Red-veined darter dragonfly, which landed on a volunteer's shirt, and then by a Common l...

I got permission to plant out 600 of my home grown tansy plants along the river bank at Acomb Landing in York. The stretch was once a good area for tansy beetles, with plenty of tansy, but the floodbank had been rebuilt and most of the tansy was lost. Just one good clump remained, and last week I counted 32 tansy beetles on it. Himalayan balsam and willowherb The floodbank had the best vegetation on it and the area within was covered in Himalayan balsam, so it made sense to clear some of the balsam and replace it with tansy. I started last Monday and spent the whole day pulling balsam and clearing the ground for the first tansy clump. The first planting area prepared On Tuesday it was wet from the outset, but I managed to clear a bit more ground and plant out two clumps of about 100 plants each. By lunchtime it was raining hard and my 'waterproofs' were soaked right through, so I had to call it a day. I went back on Thursday and Friday, cleared a huge area of ba...

In mid-August, the new generation of tansy beetles emerge from pupation and an army of volunteers start surveying the banks of the River Ouse around York, recording the location of every tansy clump and the number of beetles on each. Last Saturday I took my friend Meg to Naburn Lock and then drove round to Cawood Bridge, further down river. She walks south and I walk north, and we meet up around Stillingfleet. Tansy amongst the Himalayan balsam After half an hour of recording tansy plants, I stopped for a coffee break on the flood bank. A roe deer came out of the Himalayan balsam that lines the river bank here, stopped to look at me, and then bounded away over the flood bank and into the wheat field behind. I then walked a long stretch with nothing but Himalayan balsam about 10m deep, before reaching an area of 'waste' ground covered in nettles 2m high, willowherb, bindweed, and hidden in the middle, some clumps of tansy. Here there are beetles, and after an hour of fi...

Himalayan balsam is in flower and will be going to seed in the next few weeks, so the time to get it pulled is now! I've just spent the day at Fulford Ings, clearing along the bank of the River Ouse. It's tragic that balsam is coming up in the middle of tansy clumps, destroying the habitat of the endangered tansy beetle, known as the 'Jewel of York'. Where there is such precious vegetation, I pull out the balsam by hand, but in other places where it has reached saturation point, it can more quickly be removed with a long-handled slasher. Himalayan balsam on the river bank I'm trying to clear a half-mile stretch, just to the south of York. Further down river, the balsam has already reached saturation point along large stretches of the banks. It's not only displacing the native vegetation, but also damaging the river banks themselves. In winter, when the balsam dies down, it leaves bare earth which is easily eroded away. It's an environmental disaster,...

For a few weeks now, the badgers have ignored the peanuts I've put out for them. I've seen them emerging and setting off across the wood or into the fields, but there has been no social activity around the sett, which is so great to watch.  Badger approaches the peanuts Over the last few evenings, I've tried adding some sultanas to the peanuts and whether that has tempted them, or the dry weather has made natural food harder to come by, I'm not sure, but last night they came over to feed. The whole clan spent much more time around the sett than they have done recently. It was a cold night and I could hear them collecting bedding, dragging bundles of dry leaves along their paths through the brambles. Spring pheasant Badger food? In the spring a couple of pheasants regularly turned up to pinch the badgers' peanuts. Now they've been replaced by a small rabbit. It has been around for the last three nights and comes a little closer to me each time....