After a trial period posting on this blog we have now created an all new official The Ecology Consultancy blog here http://blog.ecologyconsultancy.co.uk/
We already have some great new stories about bats, more tales from the M25 and the day we had a kitten in the office. So please head over there to hear more useful, interesting ecology stuff and a few jokes thrown in for good measure.
Father Christmas has again fallen foul of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations. A serial offender responsible for previous breaches he has been caught intentionally, deliberately and recklessly disturbing bats, as well as damaging their roosts, in a chimney near Tunbridge Wells. The offence was discovered by police officers who had stopped his sleigh for dangerous driving. ‘We asked the gentleman to climb out of his vehicle. He was unsteady on his feet and as he stumbled several drowsy bats fell from the hood of his red furry suit. On further questioning it appeared he had disturbed them while attempting to enter a nearby house from the roof’.
New European Protected species
The European elf population has declined to such low levels that they have been awarded special protection by the EU. It is now an offence to kill or injure elves, transport them for breeding purposes, or damage their habitats. Angus MacDougall of Scottish Unnatural Heritage commented ‘we are delighted with this news. Elves have long been a priority BAP species in Scotland so any protection offered by the EU helps us in our goal of a 50% increase in elf numbers in the Highlands’.
Lobbyists for the pixie are hopeful that they will receive similar status early in 2011.
Christmas tree praised for biodiversity
A recent Phase 1 habitat survey of the Christmas tree at Dunroamin, Acacia Avenue, revealed a wide range of flora and fauna including geese, reindeer, several rare angels and, unusually for South London, oranges. The tree will be a major contributor to the proposed new extension’s achievement of a BREEAM excellent rating.
Recipe Corner
In preparation for this year’s Christmas meal The Ecology Consultancy has reinvented the three bird roast to consist of Schedule 1 species only. After trying several variations our tasters preferred a hen harrier stuffed with a king fisher stuffed with a black redstart. The dish is best accompanied by a starter of sautéed white clawed crayfish and a great crested newt spawn sorbet for dessert.
Best wishes for Christmas, we will be back in the New Year with some more serious stories.
The Ecology Consultancy sent a thorough response to the questions posed by the Department for Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in its latest consultation, “An Invitation to Shape the Nature of England” prior to the publication of a new Environment White Paper next year.
Our main concerns are:
Bluebell & early purple orchids
Let us know what you think and leave a comment below.
Checking site plans
Moonlight
I went to Surrey last night as part of a team from The Ecology Consultancy that had been commissioned to carry out protected species surveys to determine if bats are likely to be roosting or not, and to assess the value of the site for bats in terms of foraging and commuting habitat. We arrived on site, , in plenty of time for sunset – bat surveys should start around 15 minutes before – , and got in position to detect any bats emerging from the house. Each of us had a bat detector and a hand-held MP3 recorder to assist with the observation of bats and to record their calls for later analysis and species identification. I was stationed behind the house away from lighting, with a long section of barn roof to watch. I waited, with eyes peeled, to see if anything emerged. Initially I had a pipistrelle fly high up overhead and then make a couple of passes along the side of the building looking for food. After that very little was detected or observed until just before the survey ended when a brown long eared bat flew overhead.
The team
Talking to the others afterwards I was quite unlucky, Catherine spotted several pipistrelle bats emerging from their roost in the roof and then saw noctule bats coming in to forage from the nearby woodland and then finally brown long eared bats were noted circling the roof of the house. So a successful bat survey that identified bat roosts and a number of UK Biodiversity Action Plan species. The developer will be able to plan their work accordingly and ensure they comply fully with wildlife regulations and the bats will remain safe.
As you may know The Ecology Consultancy have been doing a lot of work on the M25 widening project in Essex and elsewhere, protecting lizards, snakes, slow worms and Great Crested Newts from the impact of this project. A case study is available on our main website. Something about the job, long hours in the sun or rain, constant traffic noise, relative isolation seems to bring out the fanciful in the people working on it. Here are a few of the stories I have been told by Ecology Consultancy staff and others.
Kareem and the king slow worm
According to Kareem one of our seasonal staff last year each section of the M25 has a king slow worm who rules the roost over all the other slow worms in that area. This mighty worm is the toughest and most wily of all the slow worms. One day on the embankment he turned over a reptile mat and uncovered this king slow worm. Apparently it looked at him with a mixture of shock and affront that Kareem
King slow worm?
should dare to uncover it. Kareem stared back for a moment before tackling the mighty beast, all of a foot long and as thick as a rope. He managed to catch hold of it but the slow worm wasn’t going to give in easily. After a brief struggle the slow worm dismissed Kareem with a flick of the tail and made off into the undergrowth.
Another ecologist claims to have captured the ‘king’ later in the week but their reports are unconfirmed. I like to think that thanks to our efforts he is still out there safe from the machines and untamed by the hand of man
Tree surgeon Crusoe
On another section of the motorway I got chatting to a tree surgeon. These people spend long periods of time alone in the woods and develop some pretty strage ideas. He felt that working on the embankment was particularly lonely. I can understand this isolation feeling, event though thousands of people are travelling just next to you they are sealed in their vehicles and feel distant. There is also no entrance or exit to the workplace, you are usually fenced in with access from the hard shoulder only, a few workmates and the silent man who drives the traffic cushion lorry.
Anyway my tree surgeon friend described the elation of seeing the traffic management workers arriving and beginning to remove the cones.
Waiting for their ship to come.
‘You feel like you have been trapped on a desert island and after months of waiting a ship has finally appeared on the horizon and is coming to rescue you’
I am sure there will be plenty more stories to come as the project continues and I will do my best to keep you up to date with them all.
Alex Woodcraft
In late August a team of 20 volunteer ecologists undertook the first ever comprehensive habitat mapping of the Brede Valley. The data from the 
survey will be written up and presented in the form of a map and made widely available. The volunteers were all staff from The Ecology Consultancy, Local landowners were helpful in facilitating access for the project and providing camping accommodation. The team covered the majority of the land between Doleham and Winchelsea Station below the 5 m contour.
Whilst in general the grazing meadows proved to be of restricted interest, some of the ditches, of which there is an abundance, and other wetland areas were of more interest. Seven species of pond weed Potamogeton spp were found including flat stalked pond weed, which is uncommon nationally and with no other recent records in East Sussex, along with rootless duckweed Wolffia arrhiza the UKs smallest flowering plant and a local specialty.
Invertebrates were surveyed in the extreme west and in the central part of the valley. In the west the tall fen habitats ‘tick the right boxes’ for several groups of flies including the snail killing flies (Sciomyzidae). In the central areas the main interest was the ditches and their water beetles. Samples from both sites are currently being identified but invertebrate ecologist Graham Hopkins has high hopes of some very interesting discoveries.
The Ecology Consultancy team plan to visit the area again in 2010 and subsequent years in order to extend the mapping to as much of the valley as possible. Consultation with interested parties will take place over the winter to ensure that local naturalists are involved and help guide the process. Important wildlife features will be highlighted with the general aim being to provide guidance to landowners as to where nature conservation benefit can be best and most easily achieved.
Oenanthe fistulosa – relatively common in the ditches of the Brede valley
Sparganium erectum a common plant in the Brede Valley ditches
The Brede Valley comprises miles of valuable ditch habitat
As Ecology Consultancy’s office manager I spend most of my time tied to the desk. I sometimes hanker for the great outdoors, mostly in the summer when the sun is shining, but when it’s pouring down I’m happy to be staring at the computer screen.
This doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in the environment, I just like it when I can experience it with minimum effort, so it is always a joy on my walks to and from work when I encounter nature in the raw.
Walking along the southbank of the Thames in the early morning recently I watched two peregrines swooping and diving around the Tate Modern chimney, before one went off up river, no doubt in search of breakfast. The river is a constant source of natural entertainment, from the starlings roosting under Westminster Bridge or on the London Eye, to crows stealing eels from the beaks of gulls and being mobbed as a result and the cormorants posing for photos on the numerous mooring posts.
There is also the rogue fox seen slipping out of the Savoy Hotel in the early morning, no doubt having dined in style, on his way to the park to sleep off the excess.
My journey home from the tube in east London is no less eventful, an enterprising sparrowhawk has worked out that there are numerous takeaway opportunities in the front garden hedges and shrubs and can often be seen hedge hopping its way up the road.
I could go on about doing press-ups in the park nose to nose with earthworms or being ‘buzzed’ by bats when running round the Serpentine, but then you might start to think I never do any work…….
“When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning – how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse.” Lord Byron
It wasn’t only Byron that captured the essence of the hazel or common dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius. Immortalised by Lewis Carroll in ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ the hazel dormouse is one of our most elusive yet recognisable mammal species. In reality, it may not reside in a teapot, or recite poems about bats and tea trays, but Lewis Carroll did bring to the fore one of the dormouse’s most famous behavioural traits – it’s propensity to sleep. In fact the dormouse sleeps, or rather hibernates, for up to seven months of the year, which explains many of its local English names – ‘seven-sleeper’, ‘dozing-mouse’ and ‘sleep meece’. Even the word ‘dormouse’ is said to derive from the Norman French for sleepy – ‘dormeus’. In woven nests of leaves and moss just beneath the ground surface, or under a log pile, the dormouse whiles away the colder days, its body temperature barely above that
of its surroundings, its heart and breathing rate reduced by up to 90%. In this way, the dormouse can avoid wasting vast amounts
of energy keeping warm and searching for food during the most unproductive time of year. It may also explain why the dormouse
can live to a grand old age of five when its cousin, the wood mouse may only live to 18 months.
However, spending so much of the year tucked up in bed means that summer is a busy time for the dormouse. Within the space of five months it must find a mate, breed and fatten up again before the big sleep resumes in October or November.Unlike other species of mouse, the dormouse produces only one, sometimes two litters a year. These are born in beautifully woven nests typically composed of fresh green leaves and stripped honeysuckle bark though the dormouse may utilise a range of materials depending on their availability. Summer nests are most commonly found in dense under-storey vegetation such as bramble, or in hedgerows, usually about
1.5-2m above the ground.The active dormouse requires a rich, continuous supply of food, from flowers and pollen in the spring, to fruits, hazelnuts, aphids and other small insects in the summer and autumn. Diverse coppiced and mixed deciduous woodland is generally regarded as core dormouse habitat, providing the necessary supply of food sources throughout the year. However, increasingly, dormice are being found to utilise less ‘traditional’ habitats, for example coniferous woodland, birch stands on heathland, and even back gardens. Dense, species-rich hedgerows are also known to support resident populations and, additionally, play an important role in maintaining habitat connectivity, acting as wildlife corridors along which transient animals can move between otherwise isolated blocks of woodland. Even in ideal habitat, dormice live at low densities, perhaps at a maximum of 10
animals per hectare. Except to hibernate,they rarely descend to ground level and, as a rule, are unlikely to travel more than
75m from the nests, actively avoiding crossing open areas. Whilst this may be an excellent predator avoidance strategy, the dormouse’s relatively sedentary nature may also, ultimately, be its downfall. As woodlands become fragmented through
changes in land use or unsympathetic management, and wildlife corridors linking remaining fragments are severed, the
gene flow between dormouse populations dwindles and populations eventually die out.
Already, within the last 100 years, dormice have become extinct in six English counties, representing half the species’ former range. The legal protection afforded this species and its habitat may go some way to halting this decline but it will take a co-ordinated approach to land management, by woodland managers, planners, developers and conservationists alike, to secure its
long-term survival and prevent the sleepy dormouse becoming confined solely to the literary archives.
Welcome to the new Ecology Consultancy Blog. Here you will find information on our work, rest and play. Each member of staff will be contributing something of ecological interest over the coming months.
Please let us know what you think and feel free to start a discussion.
