Category Archives: Birds

Blackberry Week

As a kid growing up in the north-east of England in the 1970s, the half-term school holiday that occurred early in October was always referred to as “Blackberry Week”. A quick on-line search suggests that the phrase goes back to at least the 1930s (can anyone trace it earlier than this?) and it refers to the time when blackberries (Rubus fruticosus agg.) were ready for picking. The local kids would spend hours at our favourite blackberry patches, picking bags full of dark, luscious berries to take home for our mothers to cook into pies and crumbles, or stewed to eat with cream. As much fruit was scoffed as was collected (“one for the bag, one for me, one for the bag, one for me…”) and over-ripe ones were pelted at one another until we looked like road casualties.

All of this has been brought to mind recently, since we began to pick blackberries in our garden – at the end of July. That’s at least two months earlier than I recall doing as a youngster. Part of this difference can be attributed to latitude; I now live more than 200 miles further south than I did, with a concomitant advance in relative dates of flowering and fruiting, amongst other phenological indicators. But that can’t be the only answer, the difference is too extreme, though I have not (and I doubt if anyone has) assessed it systematically.

The main reason for the difference, it seems to me, is that our seasons are shifting. We know that spring is generally earlier now in the UK than it was 20 years ago, and with that shift, autumn has likewise been brought forward and is lasting longer, as shown by changes in fungi fruiting patterns. There’s a lot of research interest in these changes, for example the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology’s collaborative project. Whilst phenology scientists usually express these changes quantitatively, as number of days difference between events, such as bird migration dates or plant flower times, across a period of years, any person with an interest in the natural world can see these changes for themselves, even in gardens.

Without realising it, as kids we were also making decisions about where to pick blackberries that go directly to the heart of biodiversity, which is essentially about variation and difference in the natural world. As part of our own knowledge of the local (and very personal) biodiversity of the area in which we played and explored, we would know the best bushes from which to pick fruit, and the ones to avoid because the plants produced berries that were small, or had a poor flavour. Blackberries are hugely variable in all manner of ways, including leaf shape, number and size of prickles, flower size and colour and, most importantly for us, characteristics of fruit quality.

Much of this variation is genetic rather than environmental and reflects the complex biology of the species, or should I say group of species. Let’s go back to the scientific name of blackberries: Rubus fruticosus agg. I’ve posted in the past about the formalities of writing scientific names of species, and the “agg.” element is an unusual addition not often seen. It’s an abbreviation of “aggregate”, which in its taxonomic sense means a collection of species that are very similar to, and may even be synonymous with, that species. The plant that we know and love as the blackberry is actually an aggregate of many hundreds of “microspecies”, at least according to some plant taxonomists. This is because of the variable sexual behaviour of blackberries and their tendency to hybridise.

Blackberries are often taken for granted and dismissed as invasive woodland dominators that need to be kept in check. But they are important for their cultural significance, have a fascinating biology, attract a wide range of insects to their flowers, and provide both fruit and habitat for birds and mammals. Blackberries are worth making space for if your garden is large enough.

How do YOU value the Nene Valley?

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Following on from my recent post about how contrasting ways in which to value nature, today sees the launch of a new interactive web site that is asking people which areas of the Nene Valley they value, and why. There is also a photography competition with a chance to win pairs of binoculars. The website link is:

www.nenevalleynia.org

Here’s the text from today’s joint University of Northampton/Wildlife Trust press release:

The Nene Valley Nature Improvement Area (NIA) project has today launched a new interactive website, which aims to encourage people to share their views on the local natural environment.

Covering over 41,000 hectares across Northamptonshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough, the Nene Valley Nature Improvement Area features a variety of natural habitats, including wildflower meadows, wetlands, marshes, woodlands and wet grasslands. With fishing lakes, bird watching opportunities and children’s adventure playgrounds, the NIA is an attractive area for animals – such as otters, kingfishers and grass snakes – to call home.

Researchers from the University of Northampton have joined forces with conservation organisations and the national Sciencewise initiative to launch the new NIA website, which features a wealth of information, a virtual tour and a discussion forum.

The website provides an opportunity for local people to share their thoughts on the Nene Valley, and an online mapping survey has been developed to identify areas of the valley that are particularly valued and why these areas are important to visitors. This will provide University researchers with valuable data that can be used to inform future plans for the valley.

A photo competition has also been launched to find some of the best images of the Nene Valley and to encourage people to explore the area over the summer. Judges are looking for images of wildlife, landscapes, people, heritage, water, and the built environment taken in the Nene Valley. There are separate categories for children so everyone can enter. Images should be submitted through the NIA website, and the winners will be selected through an online vote. The most popular photos will be displayed in the Autumn as part of the Nene Valley Festival, and the photographers of the top two images will each win a pair of Opticron binoculars. The competition closes for entries and voting at 5pm on 30 September.

Project co-ordinator Heather Ball from the Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust commented: “The new website is a great way to have your say about what goes on in the Nene Valley and share some fabulous images.”

University of Northampton researcher Dr Jim Rouquette added: “We need to gather information on the local places that people particularly value and the benefits that people gain from visiting. By better understanding what is important to different people, we can start to target conservation efforts and ensure that local knowledge and values are incorporated into decision-making.”

If you would like to contribute to this important project or take part in the photo competition please go to: www.nenevalleynia.org

Fleet on foot

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A few weeks ago my sons Patrick and James and I spent a very enjoyable day walking the full length of the River Fleet at the invitation of my colleague Ian Livingstone, together with his wife Jane, her Australian colleague Matt Butler and his partner Kate. “Walking the River Fleet” sounds like it should involve a gentle, rural amble along willow fringed banks, accompanied by clouds of damselflies and the occasional splash of a water vole sliding into the shallows. And that’s exactly what it was like – two hundred years ago. Nowadays “walking the River Fleet” is an urban hike through heavily built up areas in one of the largest cities in the world, for the Fleet is a “Lost River” of London, commemorated only by the names of streets and businesses:

Our 7 mile walk started on Hampstead Heath where the Fleet rises and feeds a series of 18th Century ponds, originally reservoirs and now used for bathing and recreation. As we walked I began to list the birds that we saw and, of course, these ponds added considerably to the list as diversity of habitats = diversity of species. In fact one of these water bodies is known as Bird Sanctuary Pond and in less than a minute yielded coot, mallard, black-headed gull, common gull, mute swan and tufted duck. None of which you can see in the following photograph:

From Hampstead we walked through winding streets that occasionally name-checked the river we were following (see the top photo on this post) down into Camden, where we stopped beside the canal to eat lunch and tick off another water-associated bird, Canada goose. Then on to St Pancras where we paused at St Pancras Old Church and imagined the Fleet running past it in the early 19th century, before pollution and the need for more land on which to build had submerged it beneath the surrounding infrastructure:

The churchyard is a green oasis in this part of London and we looked at the Thomas Hardy gravestones, which are being slowly absorbed by the bole of an impressive ash tree:

We continued through St Pancras, where the river runs under the attractively refurbished railway station (a huge contrast to the horrors of Birmingham New Street), and on to Holborn, past Fleet Street (of course)…..

….to our final destination at Blackfriars. All the while we were following subtle changes in the geography of the urban landscape, often obvious only to a physical geographer such as Ian, because the river is wholly covered and has been confined to pipes and sewers. The Fleet emerges into the Thames beneath Blackfriars Bridge where it is visible at low tide, part-hidden in the shadows of this image which could only be taken by hanging precariously over the river (where I also ticked herring gull):

When ecologists think about the environmental changes associated with “urbanisation” we’re often considering processes that are modest in scale and impact, perhaps the building of a new housing development on what was once farmland. Sometimes such urbanisation can have positive effects for biodiversity, for example gardens increasing local populations of birds and beneficial insects such as pollinators. But in the case of metropolises like London, the effect of urban development has been to wholly remodel the physical geography of the landscape, covering or filling in features such as open rivers, ponds and valleys that would once have harboured wildlife, replacing them with stone and steel and concrete, and the occasional London Plane tree to provide shade on a hot day. Restoring these culverted rivers has become an important focus for research and action. While doing some reading for this post I came across Adam Broadhead’s blog about Sheffield’s rivers and the work he is doing on “daylighting” water courses that have been hidden. It’s exciting stuff and has great potential for both urban biodiversity and the quality of life of city dwellers.On the way back to the tube station we passed through the surrounding gardens of St Paul’s Cathedral and encountered the Robert Hooke Biodiversity Bell:

This is part of the Mass Extinction Monitoring Observatory project and marked a fitting end to our trip, a reminder of the populations of organisms that were displaced as the River Fleet was first polluted then enclosed. Perhaps opening up the Fleet and regaining this biodiversity is too much of a task in a city with some of the highest real estate prices in the world, but as I’ve said before, we can always dream a river.The final total of birds for the day was a paltry 14* – how many might it have been if the Fleet was still a visible, viable water course?

*carrion crow, woodpigeon, robin, coot, mallard, feral pigeon, black-headed gull, mute swan, tufted duck, magpie, swift, Canada goose, herring gull.

7 minutes is a long time in science, 7 goals is a big win in football (BES Macroecology meeting day 2)

Rational explanations

Nature as gardener (Darwin’s Unrequited Isle part 5)

Disturbed birds? Results of a visitor access study to the Upper Nene Valley

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Human activities can have significant impacts on wildlife in quite subtle ways that are not always appreciated by those of us who enjoy going out to look at nature. For example, simply walking close to sensitive areas such as bird nesting or roosting sites has the potential to drive those birds from an area. This was the theme of a workshop we attended yesterday afternoon, hosted by the local Wildlife Trust as part of the Nene Valley Nature Improvement Area (NIA) Project.

During the afternoon Colin Wilkinson from the RSPB presented the results of a survey that had been commissioned to assess the level of public access and usage of the Upper Nene Valley gravel pits. These pits have Special Protected Area status due to the numbers of migratory over-wintering birds that use them. They are also well used by the public but at the moment we have no idea what impact this is having on the birds, though there is anecdotal evidence that it is considerable at some sites.

The consultants who conducted the study used a combination of face-to-face interviews, site surveys, etc. There’s too much in the report to go into all of the detail – you can access the full text here – but I’ve copied the highlights from the summary below:

The majority (98%) of visitors were on a short visit from their home
Group size for interviewed groups ranged from 1-8; 51% of interviewees were visiting on their own. Stanwick Lakes was notable in that group size tended to be larger here.
Half of the 939 interviewees had dogs with them (636 dogs in total).
Across all sites and survey periods, dog walking was the most common main activity (48% of interviewees).
During the winter, a higher proportion of people interviewed were dog walking (48% of interviews during the winter compared to 36% in the spring at the 6 locations surveyed in both seasons).
Over the winter, the main activities given by interviewees were: dog walking (53%), walking (26%), and wildlife watching (6%).
Most (77%) interviewees had arrived by car to the survey point
Most interviewees were frequent visitors (60% indicated that they visited at least once a week).
Most visits were short: 50% of visitors stated that they spent less than one hour on site and, in total, 88% spent less than two hours at the survey location.
The quality of the site was the most common reason for choice of site (61% interviewees), but was not the most common ‘main’ reason’; 32% interviewees gave proximity to home as the main factor underpinning their choice of site. Proximity to home seemed particularly important for dog walkers (44%) and those fishing (40%).
A total of 863 visitor routes were collected, either through lines on paper maps during the interview or via GPS units which were given out.
There were significant differences between sites in the lengths of routes taken by visitors. There were also differences between activities. The mean route length for dog walkers was 3.1km. For cyclists the average route was 7.3km while those fishing tended to have the shortest routes (0.6km average).
At three of the six sites that were surveyed in the winter and the spring/summer, the median route length increased in the spring/summer when compared to the winter, stayed the same at two and fell at one, suggesting no real pattern of people walking further in the summer .
A relatively high proportion (78% of interviewees) indicated that they were aware of the importance of the area for wintering birds. Around a quarter (24%) of all interviewees responded that they were aware that of the international importance of the area for nature conservation.
908 postcodes were mapped reflecting the home postcodes of visitors. The two main settlements were Northampton (137 postcodes from the winter interviews fell within the settlement) and Wellingborough (88 postcodes from the winter interviews).
Dog walkers and joggers lived closest to the site at which they were visiting, with median values of 2.3 and 2.9km respectively
Visitor rates (visits per household) declined rapidly with distance such that a relatively small proportion of people visit from distances beyond 3km of the surveyed access points.

The challenge now will be to understand if and how these visitors are impacting on the abundance and diversity of birds in the Upper Nene Valley, and what can be done to minimise any disturbance. Clearly there’s a balance to be struck between public recreation and wildlife protection, and this will be the theme of future work by the Nene Valley NIA Project.

Who protects our biodiversity? The public does!

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In a post back in February I asked the question “Who protects our biodiversity?” and highlighted the disgraceful behaviour of Derby Council in wanting to build a cycle track that would destroy a large proportion of The Sanctuary Local Nature Reserve. Despite petitions and strong public protest, the Council voted to go ahead with the development and site clearance work quickly began. However a High Court injunction was taken out, forcing them to pause the work until the legal ramifications of using Lottery funding for such a project were investigated.

Well, despite the odds and a seemingly bloody minded council determined to push ahead with the project, all of these efforts have worked: Derby Council has abandoned its plans for the site – it’s been saved! I learned the good news this morning in an email from Nick Moyes from the Save Our Sanctuary coalition. Nick writes:

“I am delighted to tell you that very late yesterday afternoon we were stunned and delighted to learn that Derby City Council had announced it was abandoning plans to build a cycle race track on top of The Sanctuary Bird Reserve and LNR at Pride Park in Derby.

This vindicates all the reasoned arguments and effort that everyone in our coalition of wildlife groups has put in over the last few months, and shows we can all work together to make a difference, and affect decisions that harm the environment. It’s just such a shame that a lot of damage has already been done to the LNR, though this should recover in time, if managed correctly.

I think we all believed this was a flawed project from the start. Well, everyone that is, except for one deputy chief executive and one councillor responsible for Leisure who made it their objective to push through this ill-conceived scheme at almost any cost (plus a Labour leader who publicly gave his support, too). In statements in the press, Derby Council now appears to be trying to blame its sudden decision to pull out on the delays and additional costs caused by the successful granting of a Judicial Review following brave action in the High Court by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. Perhaps this is to be expected – it’s easier than admitting it was a flawed project with dubious funding sources which could so easily have been built elsewhere in the city. But they only have themselves to blame for creating this mess by choosing to ignore all the advice and objections offered to them right from 2011 – with inevitable consequences.

It would be a shame if Derby Council cannot admit it simply ‘got it wrong’. It certainly needs to quickly put right the damage it has already done to the LNR. There are so many people to thank, as everyone played their part in one way or another. Over 1000 people wrote letters and lodged online objections, lobbied councillors, flew aerial drones, published blog posts, wrote to the papers, emailed people, wrote press releases, sent tweets, attended consultation events, made placards, organised demonstrations, lobbied people in the streets, joined a coalition, wrote to the papers and so very much more.

No doubt there is still much more of this story to play out. But for now we can all celebrate the fact that a coalition of wildlife groups came together for the first time in this way, mobilised its arguments and its supporters, and collectively managed to defeat a Labour-controlled local authority which was determined to go back on its public commitment to protect a Local Nature Reserve that it once declared as of great importance to biodiversity. Not only that – but there are no doubt many other LNR support groups around the country that will now breathe a collective sigh of relief that this terrible precedent of a council so easily choosing to vote itself powers to destroy and develop a large part of its own LNR has been lifted.”

This is such good news to receive on a beautiful early spring morning! I’d like to think that Tony Benn, who died this week, would have approved of this example of people power in action.

There were hummingbirds over the White Cliffs of Dover

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Biogeography has been on my mind of late, in part stimulated by thinking about the work we’re writing up on the frequency of wind versus animal pollination in plant communities in different parts of the world that I mentioned in one of my earlier Brazil posts. André has added more communities to the data set following some field work in Uruguay, and we are collaborating with Bo Dalsgaard and his colleagues in Denmark on analysing how historical and contemporary climates may have shaped the patterns we’re seeing. It follows on neatly from the previous work Bo has done on climate and hummingbird-flower interactions. I’ll report back when we have more to say.

The other reason for thinking about biogeography is that a couple of recent scientific reports have captured my attention. The first dealt with new fossil discoveries of species related to that enigmatic South American bird the hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin). The report can be read here but in summary, the evidence suggests that the bird family to which hoatzins belong was once much more widespread and may have originated in Europe. Hoatzins are not the only such example: hummingbirds, which are also currently restricted to the Americas, were found in Europe in earlier times, according to reports from back in 2004 and more recently in 2007. It appears that contemporary biogeography may not reflect past biogeography for some (perhaps most?) groups of species.

As a lesson in contemporary biogeography, it’s often been pointed out that the famous Vera Lynn song The White Cliffs of Dover falls short in its scientific accuracy:

There’ll be bluebirds over
The White Cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see

Bluebirds are members of the genus Sialia, a group of three species which do not naturally occur in Britain, in fact are not present in Europe at all. So you’re not likely to hear them singing in southern England. But perhaps the genus was present in the distant past? Who knows? In the meantime we may have to change the lyrics to the song. Unless the writer was predicting what might happen in the future when continental drift means that Europe and the Americas will be much closer together.

The other report that caught my eye was of an interesting study that has compared plants and birds in cities across the globe, and looked at how urbanisation reduced the diversity of the native species compared to non-urban areas nearby. However I do hope that the lead author was being misquoted when she said that: “Owing to the fact that cities around the world share similar structural characteristics – buildings, roads etc – it is thought that cities share a similar biota no matter where they are in the world”. She goes on to say that they had discovered that some species: “are shared across cities, such as pigeons and annual meadow grass, but overall, the composition of cities reflects the unique biotic heritage of their geographic location”. Well yes, of course: any of our undergraduate students taking the second year module in biogeography could have told you that! As a serious hypothesis to test it lacked rigour: few tropical birds and plants could survive in temperate-zone cities, for example. There’s more to the study than just this, of course, as you can see from the abstract. Nonetheless it was an odd statement to make in my view.

The Wikipedia definition of biogeography that I linked to at the beginning of this post is perhaps a little limited in its scope: “the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time” doesn’t cover the species interactions that have been a focus of my research, for instance. Perhaps “macroecology” fits it better, though (as I’ve mentioned before) there’s been a lot of debate in the scientific literature about where biogeography ends and macroecology begins, or whether the two are synonymous. My own view is that the two overlap considerably, but that macroecology is bringing a lot of new tools and approaches to the study of organisms at large spatial scales. Whether that warrants the definition of a different discipline is debatable, but like all such debates (e.g. the difference between ecology and natural history as recently discussed on the Dynamic Ecology blog) it provides us with a way of reassessing our own views on the work we do, which is always a good thing.

Who protects our biodiversity?

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Our elected politicians and councillors regularly pay lip service to the environment, to the need to be “sustainable”, and to the importance of conserving biodiversity. How many of them really believe this?

Fewer than half, if Derby Council is a representative sample. Last night they decided (by one vote) to destroy almost fifty percent of The Sanctuary Local Nature Reserve, to build a cycle track. Whilst not the most critical area for nature conservation in the country, The Sanctuary is nonetheless an important local urban site for a wide range of nesting birds, some of them rare and declining in the UK. There’s a great video from a drone flight over the Reserve that gives a sense of the place, which I’ve never visited but nonetheless feel aggrieved at losing. It diminishes us all when decisions such as this are made.

The fact that this was designated as a Local Nature Reserve by Derby Council in 2006, following a much-trumpeted opening ceremony, presided over by the then-Home Secretary Margaret Beckett MP in 2004, shows what a shower of hypocrites some of our local politicians really are. I was first made aware of the campaign to save The Sanctuary by a guest post over on Mark Avery’s blog. As requested, I wrote to Derby Council as follows:

To whom it may concern,

Following recent national publicity about the proposed development of The Sanctuary Local Nature Reserve (LNR) at Pride Park in Derby, I wish to object in the strongest possible terms about this initiative.

The Sanctuary LNR is a site of county-level importance for nature conservation and its disturbance would be a sad indictment of the council’s attitude towards the environment. It would also set a disturbing precedent for other councils to ignore nature conservation designations purely for economic development.

I look forward to hearing in the national media that this development will not go ahead.

I also posted links on all of the Facebook groups of which I’m a member, sent it to students, and so on. And despite strong objections to the Council from local and national sources, councillors decided that it was better to follow the money rather than listen to the people.

So much for democracy. But as I said above, it also sets a precedent for the loss of Local Nature Reserves nationally: apparently they are dispensable. In a recent post I gave an indication of how I feel about biodiversity offsetting and the mind set of politicians who support it. The events of Derby don’t give me any more confidence that our elected representatives really care about nature, beyond sound bites and posturing. Protection of sites for nature conservation seems to be as much a throw of the dice as any rational strategy in the UK.