What gets my goat (moth)

I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of a new blog post. Basically nothing interesting has happened since my last post. Sure spring is in the air now, although to me it hasn’t started until I hear my first singing Chiffchaff, so it is now the vague period in my mind before spring and after winter. It’s also the vague period for me in between job searching and employment. I’m going to be an RSPB employee again in just under a month but I’ve still got to look for work (that’s the government’s ‘wonderful’ Universal Credit scheme for you!). So what to write?

How about a tongue in cheek not-at-all-serious look at the things I find irritating or infuriating about wildlife conservation and volunteering? Yeah I think that’ll do, to amuse myself perhaps.. No moths involved..

OK number one: Cliques: I found this highly irritating when I was starting out doing voluntary work. There’s nothing worse than turning up on your first day as a volunteer for a new organisation or at a new site to find there are a bunch of middle-aged men who have volunteered there for decades who treat any newcomers with suspicion and like to do things a certain way thank you very much. Add to this the paid staff who treat these cliques with kid gloves and try little as possible to assimilate any new volunteer into the group.

Two: Plurals or singular? : Let me explain by paraphrasing a tweet I read yesterday. “Nice news piece on how a woodland reserve is helping willow tit.” What? Is the woodland reserve helping just one willow tit? Or many willow tits? It should read either “Nice news piece on how a woodland reserve is helping willow tits,” or “Nice piece on how a woodland reserve is helping a willow tit.” You see it all the time, especially in bird magazines “come to this nice coastal reserve to see Avocet” it might say. OK I know what it means but gods it irritates me!

Three: Bandwagons: As nature conservationists we should be concerned about all native wildlife, big little common or endangered. The little stuff feeds the big stuff (in general) and the common could become endangered if we carry on the way we are going (again, in general). But, as conservationists we like to have flavours of the month, all very worthy I may add. Be it whales, tigers, giant pandas, hen harriers etc. Now as I was involved with Hen Harrier conservation last year and am heavily aware of their persecution, but other raptors are also persecuted, Golden Eagles, White-tailed Eagles, Merlins etc. Kestrels are also in decline but I don’t see kestrel twibbons on twitter adorning profile pics, where’s the high profile Pearl-bordered Fritillary campaigns? Swifts are rapidly declining. I’m aware of the vagaries of money and prioritising but it is true in my mind that certain species feature prominently for a while before the next big things come along to take over the twitterspace.

Four: Blog posts that don’t go anywhere and are only there to keep the blog active in between more meaningful posts! (See here for details!)

Five: The ‘I know best’ volunteer: We all must have seen these. Volunteers (usually within the clique) who have their own set way of doing things and have the greatest ideas about what and more importantly (in their mind) what not to do. For instance a work party leader will organise a work party and the said ‘I know best vol’ wants to do it his/her way, and if they can’t do it won’t do it or will do it their way.

Six: We’re all a bit weird really. You never get any cool kids signing up to be conservation volunteers. We’re all a bit left field, all like a woolly jumper, we all have a political or green-organisation car sticker, fashion consists of free t-shirt acquired from various projects, we’re all a bit too geeky for our own good. How can we appeal to the general public and get everyone enthused about the world we inhabit when we appear to be in a specialist niche and proud of it?!

Seven: Pay. When you finish volunteering and decide to get a career in wildlife conservation you soon start to realise you get paid a relative pittance to do one of the most important jobs in the planet. I know people who have gone down the academic route, paid thousands for undergrads, masters, and even PHDs to then apply for a far less than £20k job. I know we do the job for love not money but the money sure helps to live off!

Anyway, rants over. I’ll add again that none of this is serious, I quite like high profile campaigns that grabs people’s attention and can provide a focus for wider areas if done properly. Also none of this is in a particular order, just the order in which it came into my head than down onto the keyboard.

Wading Inspiration

A couple of weeks ago I attended a talk at CAWOS, my local ornithological society (see an earlier post about my take on traditional societies) and my mind was opened, again! The talk was by Rick and Elis Simpson on the subject of wading birds (or shorebirds depending on where you live!).

Now, I’ve attended a few talks in this winter season already, one was about Derbyshire wildlife, another was about Oystercatchers, but I missed one on my specialist subject of upland Pennine wildlife (D’oh!). None of my attended talks, though very well researched and presented particularly inspired me to further action. Until now.

Ringed Plovers, Leasowe, Merseyside. Photo: Alex Cropper

Rick and Elis, to cut a long story short, decided to take a round the world trip to see as many wading birds as possible for charity. This was done initially to raise money for the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) to help the fortunes of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. The focus soon changed however. They began realising that many species of wader they were seeing were in trouble and were in need of help. Again to cut the story down again they then saw that many organisations and individuals were putting in a lot of effort into reversing population declines by running low-cost conservation programs. For instance, to help protect some beach breeding waders in Australia leaflets were printed out along with some larger posters to create awareness within the beach using public. This cost less than £1000. Other projects include providing farmers with training and the means to work around breeding waders in their crop fields (for instance getting marker flags/poles to mark the nests out to avoid destroying them), and purchasing mist nets to assist local research projects, both projects that wouldn’t cost a lot of money. An idea for a charity was born – Wader Quest. A charity that helps fund small and cheap to run shorebird projects, and raises funds for wader conservation. A wonderful idea, many conservation charities spent tens of thousands of pounds/dollars on gargantuan and intensive research projects and nature reserve running costs; which is fantastic but doesn’t leave much room for the little guy. I joined the charity as a sponsor almost immediately.

A mixed wader flock at Leasowe, Merseyside (Look hard, they’re there believe me!). Photo: Alex Cropper

Now, I have a confession, my knowledge of waders is pretty poor and I prefer birds of prey and seabirds, but don’t tell anyone! But I love the idea of funding grass-roots projects – I firmly believe that if the grass roots are sorted out than the people and organisations further up the ladder will have a lot easier job ahead of them (like in the rest of life). I’d definitely urge everyone to think about joining Wader Quest as a sponsor, they’re fantastic! (And no, I don’t work for them I’m just completely inspired by them!). Now, I’m going to stop writing at start swatting up on wading birds…..

Here’s their website: http://www.waderquest.org/

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!

2014, the year it finally happened! (part 3)

Hen Harriers Circus cyaneus have had a lot of publicity in 2014. In 2013 there were no reported successfully breeding pairs in England at all. Nada, nowt, diddely squat. I won’t go into the reasons for the failures but they mostly involve shotguns and vested interests. But 2014 was a different matter there were 3 reported pairs who successfully bred which was a vast improvement. It was a great surprise therefore when not long after I finished my Ring Ouzel contract I was asked if I wanted to assist in protecting a breeding pair of Hen Harriers in the Peak District. Half of me thought it was a wind-up as it was August and the breeding season was over; especially as I got the phone call when I was at a friend’s wedding, but no it was true. So a day later I found myself on a hill in the Dark Peak area with a National Trust staff member watching England’s 4th breeding pair of Hen Harriers! An incredibly late breeding pair whose nest was discovered on the 1st of August.

It was my job simply to watch the nest and record every movement of both adult birds and eventually the youngsters once they fledged. I also had to record any potential human disturbance or interference. The watch over the nest was conducted with absolute secrecy with no knowledge of it outside conservation organisations and the shooting tenant.

Male Hen Harrier from Peak District pair 2014. Photo: Alex Cropper

One of my outstanding memories of my watches would be on August 10th 2014. The day in question was Hen Harrier Day, a protest about illegal raptor persecution on driven grouse moors that took place at Ladybower Reservoir. The event was attended by 100s of people and organised by Mark Avery and the Birders Against Wildlife Crime (BAWC). But what was I doing that day? I was a mile away up a hill watching my pair of Harriers which no one could know about. Yes on Hen Harrier Day I was watching Hen Harriers almost within sight of the gathering! A pretty decent claim to fame to be honest. (To tell the truth the weather was horrible, and I saw them briefly just after dawn in a brief window of good weather before the heavens opened – and remained open for the rest of the day). I may have missed the opportunity though to show unity with my fellow conservationists and wildlife lovers, but I think I had a pretty decent excuse!

Male Hen Harrier from Peak District pair. Photo: Alex Cropper

The pair successfully fledged 5 chicks but unfortunately 3 perished not long after fledging leaving two, a male and a female, left. This was a pretty normal tally for breeding birds of prey, but frustrating when there are so few so every fatality hurts the national population.

The job was great, I was surrounded by great countryside watching magnificent birds. Besides the Hen Harriers there were Short-eared Owls, Peregrines, Buzzards, Merlins, Kestrels, a Hobby, Tawny Owls, Marsh Harriers, Ravens, and I even saw my old friend the Ring Ouzel again.

Alas all good things come to an end and after a month my contract was up and I’ve been looking for more paid work ever since. So I’m back as a volunteer now! It does go to show though if you put in enough time and effort as a volunteer though you will get a paid job in this wonderful job sector working with some wonderful wildlife.

Odds and ends

It has been a week of less spectacular and less important jobs at RSPB Dove Stone. To be honest this isn’t the awe inspiring work that takes place up on the boggy moorland. The task in hand this week was taking out an old stock fence which was no longer needed, and then scarifying a bit of grassland and then replanting with wildflower seeds.

The old stock fence was located near the picnic benches at the foot of Ashway Gap. It was rendered useless by a brand new stock-proof fence that now borders the whole of the picnic site. The old fence was used to protect a formerly new bit of woodland planted some years ago. Funnily enough the area of the woodland was where I did my very first bit of voluntary work at Dove Stone in April 2010 which involved digging up Rhododendron ponticum bushes.

Wonder where the fence ran?!

Taking out an old fence is simple enough, just remove the wire with special fencing pliers and use brute force and ignorance in removing the fence posts. (Actually removing the larger turning posts requires A LOT of brute force and less of the ignorance!)

The meadow creation was a lot nicer task and was very much in the public eye; the main footpath around Dovestone reservoir is immediately adjacent to where we were working. We had several people asking, ‘what are you doing’, ‘what a nice day it was’, and ‘my isn’t it windy.’ It was nice to chat with them and promote the RSPB a little bit and tell them part of the grand plan for the area. The actual task involved breaking up the ground a bit with mattocks, removing the turf, turning the newly exposed soil, raking, then spreading a wildflower mix before stamping it in with your feet. Gardening basically!

Take this turf off, throw your seeds in and job’s a good ‘un (ish)

Hopefully this summer there will be a nice wildflower area besides the picnic area where people can enjoy and appreciate the wild spaces around them.

Sphagnum and Surveys

Bit of deja-vu again this time. As, yet again, I’ve been up on Saddleworth Moor restoring blanket bog with the guys from RSPB Dove Stone. This time was slightly different, it was still spreading sphagnum to areas which are currently sphagnum-free zones, but this time it was the actual plant I was planting rather than chucking beads around.

The areas targeted this week were areas previously restored about five years ago by the local water authority. These areas have seen gullies blocked by heather bales and stone dams to create soaking wet areas. The only element missing from these areas are sphagnum, hence planting sphagnum plants rather than beads.

The task itself is relatively easy, first remove the lump of sphagnum from its sack, then break the frozen solid lump of plant matter up with a spade (!), then get a fist size lump, make a hole with your heal in a damp area and place the lump of sphagnum in said hole. And repeat.

Pretty enjoyable, although the weather over the last month has made the ground ultra frozen places so damp areas were at a premium.

The real plant in the hand!

Task two this week was to begin a Dipper Cinclus cinclus survey, again for the guys at RSPB Dove Stone (I think you can gather I do most of my volunteering there!). My survey patch was Crowden Little Brook, a small fast moving stream which begins on the moors and ends in the Longdendale Valley.

Ideal Dipper country (tho none on this particular stretch!)

The terrain was pretty tough, tussocky grass and numerous crossings of a fast moving stream made for a difficult walk. This is ideal Dipper territory, but not ideal human territory! Two Dippers were seen by me and my colleague (both of which were early on, before the terrain got difficult!)

I said surveys in the title, not survey, as I’ve done two this week. I’ve just got back from surveying a part of The Roaches for the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust. This is a four part survey  so I shall report in this in the coming weeks.