Ben Locke

FWAG SW Gloucestershire are hosting a river-fly monitoring workshop on 27^th September 2023 at the Coln Valley Village Hall and are looking for help; any volunteers interested in attending can learn the identification and other skills required and potentially commit to taking on a location to carry out river-fly monitoring in future.

The workshop is fully funded, full details are on the attachment which you can download using the link below, participants do need to take a packed lunch with them on the day.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE WORKSHOP IS NOW FULLY BOOKED!

https://mcusercontent.com/d8d7c73050a59df6c06c8f6e6/files/54cebc59-c8d2-afe6-8c76-6697cbc910d8/Riverfly_Workshop_Information_Agenda_River_Coln_27th_Sept_23_.pdf

Please DO NOT contact GNS about this event, if you need any more information, contact Robert Moore, Assistant Farm Environment Adviser, FWAG SW Gloucestershire by e-mail to robert.moore@fwagsw.org.uk.

For those who do not already know, FWAG is the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, more details here – www.fwagsw.org.uk

The GNS walk on 16 July at Gawcombe near Bourton on the Water was notable for the range of species encountered and the occasional intense shower. 
With an unpromising start in heavy rain, the sky suddenly cleared as we descended the lawns, where a group of some 50 swallows put on an entrancing display skimming low over the grass, then jinking back, swarming over an insect prey that we could not see. A little further on, hornets were nesting in an old owl box high in a tree, but they took no notice of us. There were lots of little frogs in the grass, no bigger than a thumbnail, which must just have emerged from the lakes. Following the stream course (and treading carefully) we saw five species of dragonfly, and about a dozen kinds of butterfly particularly in the sunny glades were the bramble and hogweed were in full bloom.
Out into the farmland, where the hay had yet to be cut, there were the flowers of meadows, waysides and limestone grassland. An intense shower struck again as we headed back to the start via the shelter of woodland, but the rain passed as quickly as it had arrived so it was sunny again by the time we got to the cars.
This site was chosen as one of three finalists of the Gloucestershire  Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group’s annual Silver Pintail Award for the farm which had done most for biodiversity in the last year. The birdlife is known to be varied  but this visit proved interesting to many different natural history interests and merits further recording visits from specialists. Thanks to Andy Lewis for leading the party, and Mr and Mrs T Morris for letting us walk the estate.

The GNS field meeting at Hyde Mill, Stow on the Wold, on 3 July examined the superb flower meadow there.

Hugh and Rosie Tollemache, the landowners, met us and explained some of its history. It had previously been used as a school playing-field and was tight-grazed horse-pasture when they took over the farm 12 years ago. To their knowledge it had never been ploughed or had any agricultural inputs. After seeing how orchids appeared on their adjacent lawns once mowing was reduced they altered the management of this field to a meadow regime with an annual hay cut in late July or early August, but it took five years to become the spectacularly rich meadow we see today.

The haze of flowers and grass resolves into the cream of meadowsweet, maroon of great burnet, yellow of trefoils, blue of vetch and devil’s bit scabious, purple of orchids and knapweed and much much more. In the brief evening meeting Anna Field, the leader, showed us some 90 plant species, none of which had been deliberately introduced, but had come from natural spread of propagules from within the field and its surrounds.

This field is accessible to the public and can be visited throughout the year, grid reference SP177243. It is one of the outstanding wildflower meadows round the country, at least one per county, on the  Coronation Meadows register. A bridleway runs through it, and permissive paths have been mown allowing access to other parts. See https://coronationmeadows.org.uk/meadow/hyde-mill-meadow-stow-on-the-wold for more detail.

To see it in full flower you will need to get there within the month as soon the essential annual hay cut will take place. All credit to farmers who maintain such lovely places.

We chose a (fairly) early start time of 7am for the Tewkesbury Goes Wild search for Curlews on the Severn Ham, in conjunction with Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Severn and Avon Vales Curlew project has been monitoring Curlews on the Ham since February and has found two pairs of Curlews on the Ham this year. We hoped that there might still be Curlews present in early July but failed to find any today; it looks as though they have not succeeded in producing young there this year, and have already left for their wintering grounds, probably on the Severn estuary or the Bristol Channel. They nest on the ground in the long grass, and are very sensitive to disturbance, so it is very important for visitors to keep to the footpaths, and for dogs to be kept on leads.

However, we found plenty of other birds on the Ham: a family of recently fledged young Swallows, just able to fly, sitting on the Abbey Mill; fair numbers of Swifts and House Martins (which nest in old buildings in the town) hawking insects over the uncut grassland; lots of Skylarks (which also nest on the ground) singing their hearts out; several Reed Buntings singing from song posts on tall plants; and round the edges of the Ham, in the denser vegetation, a variety of warblers which have come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa to nest during our insect-rich summer: Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Blackcap, Chiffchaff. Perhaps the highlight was an elegant Common Tern fishing over the weir on the Severn, probably one of those that nests on former gravel pits along the Severn and Avon.

These Pop-up Botany meetings were first organised last year in recognition of the work of Clive Lovatt, whose sudden death was a shock to all who knew him. Clive was an indefatigable botanist, and a generous giver of his time and knowledge to local botany. He is still very much missed.

Getting started in botany can be daunting, so these meetings are for beginners, or near beginners. They will last around one-and-a-half hours and will finish in a pub or café where we can discuss further what we have been looking at, or anything else that comes to mind.

The meetings have themes which could be: characteristic plants of a particular habitat (e.g. wetlands, floodplain meadows, acid grasslands, hedgerows), or particular groups/families of plants (e.g. sedges, rushes, yellow dandelion look-alikes, thistles, vetches) or plants that are in flower at the time, types of seeds, etc.

It is hoped that Habimap volunteers might also find these events useful as they will cover some of the key indicator species for ‘Habimapping’. There are four events planned, and members and non-members are welcome to attend.

Tuesday 27 June. 17.30–19.00. Limestone Grasses. Selsey Common. Meet at the far end of the Common near Pen Wood. SO 825 024. After at The Old Crown, Uley. Leaders Clare and Mark Kitchen 07840 468856.

Tuesday 8 August. 17.30–19.00. Common Urban Plants. Honeybourne Cycle track, Cheltenham. Meet at the Cheltenham Waitrose car park, top storey, west side. After at The Railway Inn, New Street (nearby). Leader Steve Little.

Wednesday 16 August. 17.30–19.00. Hedgerow shrubs. Rough Bank Butterfly Reserve, 3 km north of Bisley. Park and meet in the reserve car park, SO 9139 0871, a sharp turn off the road between The Camp and Bisley. After at The Carpenters Arms, Miserden. Leader Paul Masters 07500 336545.

Thursday 24 August. 17.30–19.00. Flowers of limestone turf. Longwood Common, Nottingham Hill, Cheltenham. Park and meet in the car park on Bushcombe lane. Turn north-east off the B4632 on the top of Cleeve Hill (right takes you to the golf club and Quarry Car Park). After 400 m the road narrows and descends steeply; go past Longwood Farms and find the CP just beyond the cattle grid. After at The Rising Sun Inn, Cleeve Hill. Leader Des Marshall (see below).

For any changes to the list, or more information about these events, please check the website or contact Des Marshall (desjmarshall@gmail.com 07968 419813).

Larry Bellamy, the National and Gloucestershire Freshwater Triclad (Flatworm) recorder died in March 2023. There is a tribute to him in the June 2023 edition of GNS News, and we reproduce here the article he wrote for The Gloucestershire Naturalist in 1984 with information on the ecology and distribution of flatworms in the county.

The Stroud Valleys Project has let us know about a bioblitz that they will be carrying out at Stratford Park on Monday 12th June. Further information below…

Young people applying for jobs in the environmental sector face a significant hurdle: they start with no practical experience.

To help with this, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust started their Wild Trainees scheme in 2022, in which young people work three days a week for a year supervised by a land manager or similar.

They gain experience in practical skills such as chain-sawing, driving all-terrain vehicles and wildlife surveying.

But the scheme is unpaid, to avoid any issues with employment law or minimum wage which would make it unviable, and so the trainees have to use the other half of the week to support themselves.

The Society has made £10,000 available to support their training, equipment and travel – technically we cannot pay living expenses.

Our aim is that there will be more trainees completing their year, and that a broader and more diverse range of young people will be able to consider applying for the scheme.