Wandering without purpose

I’ve decided to try and keep up with my nature blog. I’ve had a major health scare this year and it’s taken me a long time to fall back in love with nature. Barely walked my local patch, not gone further afield, barely read around the subject, barely worked on my dissertation project (all about dealing with bad biological recording data).

I’m starting to slowly get back into it, and writing has helped me out in the past so I shall give it another go.

Yesterday I had a wander round Jackson’s Brickworks, a local nature reserve, in my  home village/town. I have written about the place before, a little gem filled with all sorts of wildlife. Expecting to find not a lot, owing to windy conditions I was just expecting a pleasant stroll. And I was right, no real highlights. Was half hoping for an early Chiffchaff  Phylloscopus collybita but alas I heard nothing. This is a partial migrant bird, in some parts of the UK you can find them all year round, but here they are still a migrant and turn up about nowish (my earliest record for the site is 13th March).

I did see a Buff-tailed Bumblebee Bombus terrestris which was a bonus given the

 strong winds and low temperature. I actually saw several more of these 3 weeks ago when the UK had unseasonably mild February weather.

Marsh Marigolds Caltha palustris were in full bloom, pretty normal for this time of year, granted, but they are a great sign that things are changing and it can only be getting better from now on.

FULL LIST OF BIRDS SEEN/HEARD (GEEKY, I KNOW, BUT HEY)

Canada Goose (2, maybe checking out a nesting site)

Woodpigeon

Moorhen (2)

Grey Heron

Common Buzzard

Jackdaw

Carrion Crow

Great Tit

Nuthatch

Wren

Robin

Song Thrush

Blackbird

Starling

Dunnock

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Lesser Redpoll

Goldfinch

Siskin

House Sparrow

 

 

Depressed into Nature

I was completely shocked yesterday (5th February) about an interview with the former footballer Clarke Carlisle. I won’t go into too much detail about the interview as I think it’s largely irrelevant to what I write about here. Basically in the interview he admitted he had attempted suicide and suffered severely from depression. What shocked me however was the reaction from a ‘celebrity’ who accused Carlisle of being selfish and needing to ‘buck up’ and not be so attention seeking. This has prompted me to write again.

Here’s the thing. I suffer from depression. There I said it. I’ll say it again. I suffer from depression. Most people who know me know this fact but it may come to a shock to others. I’m pretty open about it.

I’m at a position where I can write about it clearly thanks to months of therapy and treatment. But what has seriously helped me to tame the Ole’ Black Dog has been to embrace the natural world.

I’ll give you the start of the story (OK the start of the recent story). At the back end of 2009 I had a serious breakdown caused by an incident at work, I saw my doctor about this and he got me to see a therapist. In the following few weeks the therapist suggested things I could do to turn my life around, things like restarting a hobby or interest which you previously enjoyed. Which led me to rediscovering bird watching (I was a keen birdwatcher between the ages of 6ish and 10ish). So I found myself at the RSPB’s Marshside and Hesketh Out Marsh reserves near Southport. Luckily it was late September so the air was full of Pink-footed Geese, thousands of them! It was such a fantastic and awe-inspiring spectacle that I was immediately hooked and wanted to explore more. I rejoined the RSPB, visited more reserves, and eventually asked about volunteering.

I made an incredibly bold move in January 2010 when I spent two weeks residential volunteering at the RSPB’s Lake Vyrnwy reserve in Mid-Wales. I took two weeks unpaid leave from work to do something I never dreamt I’d ever do, working outdoors in a picturesque nature reserve – a bit different from bar work! Looking back the experience wasn’t that great in all honesty, the coldest winter in my own living memory meant there wasn’t a lot that could be done work-wise, and my depression was still quite prominent so it reared it’s ugly head at times too. However I had a wonderful conversation with one of the long term residential volunteers who told me I should think about wildlife conservation as a career as it would help my depression (and give me confidence) by being outdoors a lot of the time. So thanks Cleo wherever you are!

I filled in a feedback form after Vyrnwy which included the question (paraphrased) ‘Would you be interested in volunteering for a RSPB reserve in your local area?’ Which I replied yes. At the time there was no local reserve to me but lo and behold I received a letter in the post in April of 2010 asking if I wanted to volunteer at the newly opened Dove Stone reserve 24 miles away from my house. I said yes and the rest is history to quote a cliché.

So all this resulted from a moment of low low depression. I made the first step to dig myself out of a hole which resulted in me eventually securing a career in wildlife conservation. I’ve not attention seeked, I’ve not ‘bucked up’ and I’ve certainly not been selfish. One of the lowest moments of my life has led me to the highest; something I know others, such as Clarke Carlisle, can aspire too. Admitting you have depression and then seeking help can quite literally turn your life round for the positive. I still get low (and occasionally really low) moments but I now have the tools to come out the other side.

Anywho, that was a rather serious and confessional rambling blog post. I’ll try be a bit more light-hearted next time, or at least less personal!

Back on the bog

The team arriving at the site, a bit on the cold side today!

On Wedenesday it was back with the RSPB on Saddleworth Moor spreading more sphagnum seeds onto potentially boggy areas.  I’m not going to repeat what I wrote a couple of weeks ago as the task was just the same, I’ll go into a tad more detail tho maybe.

The weather was a lot nicer than last time, the snow was on the ground forming mini glaciers rather than falling horizontally across my face! By and large the moor was good to start spreading again. The sun was out, the birds were singing to write a cliche! (specifically Meadow Pipits Anthus pratensis were singing, Red Grouse Lapogus lapogus scotica were calling and a Snipe Gallinago gallinago flew over).

It was a lot more noticeable this time (mainly due to a lack of snow blowing into my eyes at 40mph!) that the areas we were spreading the sphagnum bead were largely devoid of sustaining vegetation, there was just a mono-culture-like spread of grass and the odd clump of heather. The areas of bare ground were more noticeable too; the bare ground up here is a very dark brown, almost black, soil and it dries very quickly, some areas I walked across had the consistency of cheap instant coffee granules. Well managed moorlands act as a brilliant carbon capture store and the dark soil is an indicator of this, so the eroding soil is a direct visual example of carbon escaping into the air. The addition of the sphagnum will help to stop the erosion and restart a carbon capture process (sphagnum is the major component of peat, a large source of carbon).

The sphapgnum beads in my hand, they have the consistency of silica. (Photo by me)

In other news, I did a recce of a site for a Woodcock survey I will be doing in May. The rather eerie Alderley Edge (near the Wizard pub!). More on this in May…