Badgers, wildlife crime, and being a good citizen

Well it’s been a roller-coaster of a fortnight for me! I’m now back in gainful employment, working as a Research Assistant for the RSPB where amongst other things I realised how much fitness I’ve lost over the winter (the answer: a lot!). Today I heard the angering news that the vote to end spring hunting in Malta had failed, 51% of the voting public said ‘Yes’ the wanted to keep spring hunting and thus consigning the Turtle Dove to the annals of history. Malta is very dear to my heart and I spend two weeks volunteering every September monitoring the illegal hunting and bird migration.

However what I want to write about today is the subject of badgers. A few days before I started my new contract I decided to go birding at a local heronry, where herons have nested in trees since time immemorial. I got lost though, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong road. To get on to the correct road I turned onto the next country lane which I knew would take me to the right place. However not long after I had taken this road I came across a dead badger on the side of the road. Actually hold on a minute, it was two dead badgers of the side of the road. I quickly double checked my mirror and it was confirmed. Two dead badgers at the side of the road. I stuck my car in reverse and parked just behind the two brocks.

Two dead Badgers at Langley, Cheshire. 27/3/15

So what a curious sight. The two badgers had clearly been placed next to each other, nose to tail and facing each other. There was no sign of them being run over, no obvious broken limbs and they were obviously not squished. It was clear that crows had got to them before I had. It looked terribly suspicious. I had some idea about what to do, being both an amateur and now a professional conservationist I tried to get in contact with as many channels as possible. First, the Badger Trust who told me to ring the local Cheshire representative. I did so but it just rang out but I left a message. Next I rang the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, again it just rang out. I then rang a friend who works for the Wildlife Trust who was eager to help. She told me that the Wildlife Crime Officer from Cheshire Police was eager for people to report any suspected wildlife crime, badgers in particular. I rang the police. I got put through to Nantwich station, no use, Nantwich is 50 miles away. I tried again. I got through to Macclesfield (bingo! 3 miles). They said it wasn’t a police matter and I try the RSPCA. I’ll write that again. It wasn’t a police matter. The police who are keen for people to report wildlife crime. It wasn’t a police matter.

In the meantime the Badger Trust rep had left a message. She lived in Warrington so could do little to help. I explained the situation, she agreed it sounded suspicious, was hacked off at the police but said it was typical. She did give a more local member of the Badger Trust who lived close by, I rang her, she wasn’t in but left a message telling her where the badgers were. The RSPCA were really helpful. They wanted all the details, including my location, the description of the badgers etc etc. They said an officer would be out shortly. I got a call 20 minutes later. The officer probably wouldn’t be there until after dark. I reluctantly left the scene having promised to give copies of the photographs I took to the RSPCA.

And that’s where the trail runs cold. Not heard a thing since. Not from the RSPCA, the police, the local Badger Trust member. Nothing. No idea what happened to the badgers, whether it was foul play or just a really odd coincidence that two badgers died at the same spot at the same time. It seems that everyone is working against each other.

So we are told to do our bit for wildlife crime. Volunteer our time if we see something awry. We are told that if we see a dead badger report it to the Badger Trust so they can remove it and thus remove clues to the nearest sett. We are told to report any suspected crime to authorities. On my experience it seems like we’re crying against the wind. At the moment I’m not entirely sure if me calling the authorities made a blind bit of difference.

Joys of Spring

This week started out seriously tough. The old black dog bit me again on Sunday and then bit harder on Monday and Tuesday. Really was in a hole. I needed to climb out of it badly. So what did I do to help? I visited my local nature reserve of course. I actually tried this on Tuesday too but to no avail, my head was in the wrong place so I just wandered round seeing nothing but my own thoughts.

So on Wednesday I tried again, this time it was different, the air was fresh and spring-like, the resident birds were singing, some early flowers were in bloom (Marsh Marigold and Lesser Celandine to name two), and two dozen or so frogs were getting amorous.

Lesser Celandine at JBW.               Photo: Author

My local reserve, Jackson’s Brickworks in Poynton, is never going to be on any national websites or feature in any magazines but I love the place, especially at this time of year, as spring springs into life very obviously here. Wednesday was spring-like at Jackson’s and certainly helped me start to return to normal, but Thursday was when spring started and I felt a lot better. Why? Two notes repeated over and over.

What are the signs of spring? It could be when the first Blackbird starts to sing (in my case on the 22nd of February). Or maybe the Song Thrush (the 6th of Feb)? How about when Snowdrops start to bloom, or when crocuses take their place? Maybe it should be frogspawn, or the first bumblebee seen? Personally I love the blackbirds singing and it is a strong contender, song thrushes are a tad too early, as are snowdrops and crocuses, maybe they should be harbingers rather than signs perhaps? Frogspawn and bumblebees are definitely signs of spring but they don’t quite cut it on a visceral level for me. No, my definitive start of spring is the sound of the Chiffchaff singing, two notes repeated endlessly. Not the flutey melodious blackbird but two disyllabic sounds. Why? Because chiffchaffs are to me the first visable (and more importantly, audible) spring and summer migrants that appear at my local nature reserve. This chiffy on Thursday would have overwintered in Spain or France and migrated here last week (OK I know some overwinter on the south coast of England now as I saw on St. Agnes). It had just begun to claim its territory amongst the local wrens robins blackbirds et al.

Jackson’s Brickworks came to life on Thursday, I now eagerly await the rest of the spring migrants, swallows, house martins, willow warblers, blackcaps, and eventually swifts. Ring Ouzels will also begin to appear in the hills in the coming weeks, which is the direction I will also go as I again change from volunteer to employee. Once more I will be surveying these secretive thrushes and their habitat this spring and summer, it should be fantastic again! Wildlife really is a great anti-depressant!

Common Micro-moths of Berkshire – a review

I’ve decided in 2015 to try and learn a different taxon group. I may even put birds on the back burner (in a non-professional sense) to concentrate on something else. A bit drastic I know but I don’t really want to be a one trick pony (who lets face it can’t always get the trick right!) and would love to broaden my naturalist horizon. Fungi appealed to me towards the end of last year and is a group I’ll take more interest in for sure. How about molluscs? More specifically slugs and snails, it’s niche and I’ve got two excellent books on them but they don’t really get me going if I’m honest. Now I’ve had a moth trap for coming up to five years which I’ve used most weeks in the summer months. Bingo! Moths it is, I’ve got the gear, I’ve some field guides, the local county recorder lives in my town, and the moths can come to you, not the other way around!

My local county recorder is Steve Hind (more specifically, the micro-moth recorder) and I paid him a visit before Christmas. He is a font of knowledge and provided great help, put me in contact with a local forum, and recommended me a load of books and journals. One of which was the ‘Common Micro-moths of Berkshire.’ This is slightly odd as I live in Cheshire, but I was assured only 6 of the moths in the book don’t occur in Cheshire at the moment. I had a quick flick through it and thought it looked great, so a month and £10 later I bought it.

Now micro-moths haven’t had a dedicated field-guide to them for one very good reason, there are literally thousands of them! And most of them don’t have an English name, instead most have scientific two part names. So they haven’t been all that accessible to the budding moth enthusiast (should they be called mothers perhaps? Maybe not.). This was rectified a couple of years ago with the publication of a dedicated field guide by Stirling and Parsons. But still the sheer number of them can be overwhelming; which is where ‘Common Micro-moths of Berkshire’ comes in.

I have to say the book is excellent, it covers 103 species of moth which are the most commonly recorded in Berkshire. There is an easy access thumbnail selection to quickly narrow down a potential moth at the start of the book and then a full page description of each moth, along with hinting at other moths your selection may be similar to. For example one of my favourite micro-moths is Emmelina monodactyla or ‘Common Plume,’ which I think looks like one of these:

Common Plume

Fiesler Storch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a brief description of the habitat of the Common Plume which is stated as a ‘variety of different habitats’ and whose status is ‘Common’ and then gives a detailed description of what it looks like highlighting important features to look out for, hopefully leading to an easy ID. If not than my potential Common Plume could, according to the similar species given, be a Stenopyilia bipunctidactyla or a S. pterodactyla. There is also a handy graph giving the flight seasons (when are you likely to see an adult flying moth?) although this is less helpful in more northern Cheshire than it would be if I lived in Berkshire. The guide does this pretty well for every moth, most of which are far less distinctive than the Common Plume. Because it is limited to common micro-moths which are you are more likely to catch in a light trap or whilst on a walk it doesn’t overwhelm you with hundreds of options to choose from. I definitely think you can use it in conjunction with the comprehensive Stirling and Parsons guide though, especially as not every description gives clues as to whether the moths are attracted to light or sugar, or are day-flying for instance.

The other thing to remark upon is that the production values of the book are superb. The book looks like it could have come from a major publishing house. It hasn’t. It comes from a local enthusiast group, the Berkshire Moth Group. It is incredibly professional looking, well laid out, glossy pages, a good index, and an appendix which goes into more detail with more alternative species similar to ones found in the main body of the book. There are a few errors which are highlighted in an Errata print-out loosely included at the beginning of the book, including a few mislabelled photographs which would unfortunately confuse IDs. But on the whole these shouldn’t distract from this fantastic book which I would recommend to any naturalist.

So I think I’ve got it. Moths it is for the year (OK maybe I can begin to look at slugs and snails too, and perhaps fungi, and maybe lichen. Perhaps also bryophytes, or perhaps beetles, or hoverflies, spiders even? Possibly.)

Book available from http://www.nhbs.com for £9.99.

Both photos from Wikicommons.

Natural History Societies on the Red-List?

Natural History Societies on the Red-List?

I have been a member of the Cheshire and Wirral Ornithological Society since 2010. I recently went to an indoor meeting of theirs for the first time. The format was an ornithological talk with a break for tea or coffee and a chance for a chinwag in between. I’ve been encouraged to get more involved in the society and am in the process of helping them modernise and simplify the recording side of the society. At the meeting there was a giveaway of old Cheshire county Bird Reports and newsletters. I picked a Bird Report up from 1983 (the year of my birth) and a society newsletter from July 1990 (the time in my life when I was first into birds).

I’ve been reading the Bird Report in particular with great interest, for one thing it’s a great historic document now. The thing that grabbed my attention however was a simple list of local associated natural history and ornithological societies. There are 23 listed in 1983. It left me wondering, how many of them are still with us in 2014? Here are a list of the societies listed..

Altrincham & District Natural History Society

Chadkirk & District Natural History Society

Chester & District Ornithological Society

Hale Ornithologists

Heald Green Naturalists

Hilbre Island Ringing Group

High Peak RSPB Group

Knutsford Ornithological Society

Liverpool Ornithological Society

Lymm Ornithological Society

Cheshire Wildlife Trust Macclesfield branch (listed as Cheshire Conservation Trust)

Macclesfield RSPB Group

Manchester Ornithological Society

Merseyside Naturalists Association

Merseyside RSPB Group

Merseyside Ringing Group

Mid-Cheshire Ornithological Society

Nantwich Natural History Society

South East Cheshire Ornithological Society

Stockport RSPB Group

Wilmslow Guild Ornithological Society

Wirral Bird Club

Wirral RSPB Group

So after a quick session of googling all the societies listed it seems more are still around then I thought with 15 still going out of 23. I was expecting the majority of them to be gone in all honesty.

However it seems to me a lot of societies are stuck in the past, for instance it struck me as odd in 2014 that at least 3 of the 15 active societies don’t have a website to promote themselves. How are they expected to attract new membership in this day and age? This brings me to my next point on societies, which is the average age of membership. I have been to a couple of meetings in the last few months, one with the RSPB group in Macclesfield and the aforementioned CAWOS meeting. It struck me quite obviously that I was the youngest at either meeting by some considerable distance, I was pretty certain at the RSPB meeting I was the only person present not drawing a state pension.

Two local RSPB groups meet in Senior Citizens halls, whilst Macclesfield recently moved from the Macclesfield Senior Citizens Hall. What hope of attracting new younger (even slightly younger) members if you meet at a Senior Citizens Hall? If the trend I’ve noticed in the east of Cheshire for a mature membership is replicated in the rest of the county and indeed the rest of the country then most of the aforementioned societies will be no more within 20 years or so.

So how do these clubs and societies attract new membership? Social Media could be one answer. Only one of the 15 active societies currently has a Facebook page, the Macclesfield branch of the RSPB Explorers. Yet birding and natural history has a strong presence on Facebook, but not from traditional societies. For instance there is an active group on Facebook called Cheshire and Wirral Birders who are an active group that discusses local birds and share photos of birds that they have seen, the information is up to date; there is no need to wait for a quarterly newsletter to find out which birds you’ve missed! The group isn’t (as far as I can tell) associated with any of the traditional societies yet there is nothing in this group that a society can’t do if it were to set up its own Facebook group. A society’s Facebook group can share photos, information and can also promote indoor meetings more effectively.

I think there is definitely a place for the traditional Ornithological or Natural History Society, they are great places to meet like minded individuals and the talks given to society meeting are of the highest quality, however they need to move with the times or else they are in danger of becoming an endangered species.

 

Source: Hunter, J.S.A (ed.) (1985) Cheshire Bird Report 1983 Cheshire Ornithological Association, Cheshire