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Sunday 13th June. Very warm and sticky. Part 1. Sadly no one had booked to come on our bird ringing demonstration walk. So we reorganised and had a wander around with a chap (and his wife) who had expressed an interest in the project and who is the Director of the Wildland Research Institute. FindContinue reading “Bird ringing demonstration…nah another walk around.”

Saturday 12th June. Saturday was the first day of our BioBlitz (or BioSkirmish as is my preferred name). We had arranged to meet a group of folk, many local, to show them around the cluster and explain what we are attempting to do, how we will attempt to do it and why we will probablyContinue reading “A good mooch around.”

I can now confirm we will be running a bird ringing demonstration on Sunday 13th June, 10am start. More details on our ‘events page’.

“Wood-pasture and parkland are mosaic habitats valued for their trees, especially veteran and ancient trees , and the plants and animals that they support. Grazing animals are fundamental to the existence of this habitat. Specialised and varied habitats within wood- pasture and parkland provide a home for a wide range of species, many of whichContinue reading “Wood Pasture.”

A clear blue sky and the first warm Sunday of the year. Reeth was very busy as I drove up to the peace that is the Heggs Castle Cluster for a wander, or a ‘peregrination’ as some would have it. The last couple of days has seen a large arrival of swallows in the dale,Continue reading “Sunday peregrination.”

24th May: The Plantlife cowslip survey was done on the cluster. They are not particularly abundant but many won’t have been noticed as the flower spikes are nibbled off by grazers and I was only looking for flower spikes. Just over a hundred were found. Some couldn’t be recorded as the flowers were not ‘out’.Continue reading “Plantlife Cowslip Survey completed”

Details are here of our mothing event.

We are hoping to run some moth traps over one night of the BioBlitz with the VC65 recorder Dr Charlie Fletcher (that’s the Vice County and ours in number 65 explanation here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice-county). We are in a very under recorded area, not just for moths. I run one now and then in Fremington and haveContinue reading “Moth Trapping.”

On part of the area where we are hoping to re-establish trees, both the issue of breeding waders with the associated calcarious grassland, and blanket bog have been flagged up as a possible concern. I was confident that we were not compromising any breeding waders as I did a fairly detailed survey a few yearsContinue reading “Nesting waders, trees and blanket bog.”

This morning we learned how to survey bumblebees for the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme run by The Bumblebee Conservation Trust https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org. The Cluster survey involves walking a 1km ‘transect’ every week for 6 weeks, which is easy enough. The tricky bit is identifying the species of bumblebee. Luckily we have some very willing volunteers helpingContinue reading “Bumbling about”