What is this?

Read on to find out what this is and why the humble twig is one of the tools in the conservationists armoury.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have spent a lot of time doing conservation stuff. I have built stick wigwams over tree stumps, scythed and raked thistles, picked up litter on nature reserves, surveyed butterflies, summarised survey data on birds and butterflies, written about a possible new nature reserve, discussed greening a local park and agreed actions to make sure that developers deliver on their biodiversity promises. Most of this has been great fun and has given me the opportunity to both enjoy nature on my own and to share it companionably with others (in a physically distanced way). As more opportunities come my way, I want to focus on those activities that are actually having the most impact.

Over the winter we had the contractors in on a heath-land reserve where I volunteer to remove trees and hence extend the area of heath. Heath-land species have already started to use the new tree-free areas. The trees removed were of several species, but all were of a similar age (mostly 60 to 80 years old, reflecting the history of the site). To increase biodiversity in the wooded parts of the reserve, and improve the effectiveness of the trees in screening the road and bridleway that run either side of the site, we want to encourage the re-growth of younger trees.

Some of the cut trees will re-grow from the stumps. Saplings will also grow from seed dropped by the cut trees taking advantage of the light and space that is available now their parent has been cut down. However, the local fallow, roe and muntjac deer find these fresh green sprouts irresistible. In granting permission to cut down the trees, Natural England told us to cover a proportion of the new growth with stick wigwams (twigwams?), because these encourage the deer to go and snack somewhere else.

The twigwams are working as new growth, that we have protected, is growing more strongly than growth that the deer can reach. We also hope that this intervention will help change the mix of trees in favour of those that are longer living and encourage more biodiversity. We are aiming to protect oak and beech rather than silver birch, and to protect goat willow only where we need a quick growing screen. Silver birch are one of the first tree species to colonise heath. They grow quickly, but the combination of tall trees and poor soil means that they blow over blocking paths and roads and damaging telephone lines.

On another nature reserve I have spent a hot few weeks scything thistles and pulling ragwort. Scything the thistles felt wrong as the flowers were attracting butterflies and bees, and grasshoppers were scattering before the scythe blade. This reserve is a river-side flood meadow and is home to an incredible array of grassland plants and insects. It is grazed by cattle, but there are certain species that the cattle choose not to eat and both ragwort and certain thistles will proliferate unless something is done to manage them.

On this site machinery is used to cut the thistles in certain areas, but volunteer labour is used in other areas because machinery isn’t very good at removing ragwort, dealing with historic monuments, or leaving certain plants untouched. Some parts of the site are shrub-land and leaving them this way could benefit insects and birds (Jones, 2020)

Both the heath-land and the flood meadow are lovely places to visit on a warm summer’s day, but they take a bit of getting to and are largely visited by local people. Some of the other activities that I mentioned at the start are better ways of engaging people who do not have easy access to these lovely sites. Both the potential nature reserve and the park are close to existing communities and could attract more biodiversity than they do now.

The various surveying projects that I am involved in are providing data on what is actually in particular places now, and hence what could be done to protect and enhance the nature using those locations. It feels to me that the best of these surveys are ones where the data can be used to get people enthused by nature and perhaps taking action to benefit it. For example, the information that we are gathering on the current location of swift nests in my local area is giving us some ideas about where to place additional nest boxes to bridge across from existing colonies to nest boxes being put up in new developments.

I have found myself thinking about my friend John (Dear John) and wondering what he would have made of some of these tasks. I suspect that part of the answer comes from a fantastic podcast that I have been listening to (Richardson, et al., 2020) where one of their recurring responses to different problems is “Get involved in taking action and talking about it”. Another part of the answer, and something that John understood, is the enjoyment of the company of the different people that you meet through these tasks. Go on, give conservation volunteering a go!

References

Jones, S., 2020. Emerging grassy-shrublands. [Online]
Available at: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/54435660/posts/2838442080
[Accessed 12 August 2020].

Richardson, J., Stevenson, M. & Gillespie, E., 2020. Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts: How to survive the apocalypse. [Online]
Available at: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9wb2RjYXN0Lmdsb2JhbC5jb20vc2hvdy80NDY3ODczL2VwaXNvZGVzL2ZlZWQ=
[Accessed 12 August 2020].