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GNS were at the Stroud Festival of Nature event in Stratford Park, Stroud on Saturday 7th September.

This remarkable gathering of Nature and Wildlife oriented individuals and societies largely driven and organised by local interpretive artist Steve Roberts, was held for the sixth time in Stratford Park close to the Leisure Centre and Museum in the Park and attracted a record crowd of some 5,000 visitors on a day of mainly bright if not excessively warm weather.

The Gloucestershire Naturalists Society stand was there primarily to promote the GNS and the forthcoming Birds of Gloucestershire, (due for publication in early November), and was manned by Andrew Bluett and Juliet Bailey. We spoke to many potential new members and were visited by several existing members, not least our president, Mrs Anna Jones.

Other societies were the RSPB, WWT, GWT, Butterfly Conservation, Gloucestershire Bee Keepers, Natural England and the National Trust together with a number of wildlife artists and other craft displays.

For more information on the festival, visit http://www.stroudnature.co.uk/

Juliet Bailey entertains visitors with an identification “quiz” and talks to visitors.

GNS President Mrs Anna Jones offers encouragement and support…!

On Saturday 7th September, Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society will be at the Stroud Festival of Nature in Stratford Park, Stroud – this is an event for all things connected with Nature and the Environment; Exhibitors and Contributors include The Stroud Valleys Project, RSPB, WWT, GWT, National Trust, Natural England, Butterfly Conservation and many others. Come along and visit, you are sure to find something of interest in the Nature Zone, or have a bite to eat and a drink in the Food Village.

On Sunday 8th September, Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society together with Dursley Bird Watching & Preservation Society and others will be at the Frampton Country Fair in Frampton promoting the Birds of Gloucestershire avifauna (to be published in November). This excellent event is for all things “country” – conservation,  country related pursuits, animal husbandry, crafts, food and sports etc. Come along and visit, have a great day out for all the family, try your hand at something new, try some of the excellent food and meet your natural history & environment connected organisations both local and national.

Dear Members

In the Letter from the Chair in the last issue of GNS NEWS, I drew attention to the new subscription rates approved at the 2013 Annual General Meeting of the Society (incidentally, the first increase for about 20 years!). I’m delighted to say that most members who have renewed their subscriptions in the last couple of months have done so at the new rates. May I thank them for this sign of support for the Society. I hope that other members will follow suit in adopting the new rates, thus ensuring that the Society’s finances remain on a sound basis.

And now, a date for your diaries: Saturday 16 November 2013, when the launch of the “Birds of Gloucestershire” takes place at the Nature in Art centre at Wallsworth Hall, Twigworth, on the main road between Gloucester and Tewkesbury. The volume, edited by Gordon Kirk and John Phillips, reflects a huge amount of field work by volunteer bird watchers, including members of GNS and of the other bird clubs in the county, between 2007 and 2011; it is a local distillation and refinement of the national Bird Atlas which will be published at the same time. I have seen proofs, and can assure you that it is a high quality production, with authoritative texts by local authors, maps of summer and winter bird distribution, and high quality artwork and photographs. Do come along on 16 November, when the original artwork will be on show, and when you can meet the authors, artists and the production team. The GNS Committee agreed at the outset to make a grant towards the cost of publication, so we have been closely involved at all stages. The whole week-end of 16 November is being is coordinated with GWT, (the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust), whose Annual General Meeting is being held nearby in Apperley Village Hall, and whose reserve at Coombe Hill will be hosting bird watching tours and visits, based on the new hide, over the weekend.

A recent issue of GNS NEWS carried on its cover a striking photograph of the wreckage of the old Grundon Hide at Coombe Hill; the boardwalk through the old osier bed at Broad Mere as well as the hide itself were completely destroyed last winter by the pressure of floodwater pushed by the prevailing wind. Plans for a new hide have been under active discussion, and the new one is already in place, thanks to much hard work by the Jackie Birch, the Reserve Manager, and her volunteers over the summer. It transpires that very few, if any, other hides are built within river floodplains: most are on eminences overlooking the flood area and offer only distant views; the Coombe Hill hide is therefore unusual in permitting access into the core of the flooded area, and giving observers a real sense of being surrounded by water birds, plants and insects. The new building is more sturdily built its predecessor, with the hide more strongly attached to its base, and the supporting pillars more firmly anchored; it is also a metre or so higher than the previous model, which should not only keep it out of the water, but allow better views of the scrapes and wetland area. Of course such hides cost money: part of the cost of replacement is covered by insurance, but if any GNS members would like to show their appreciation of this splendid and unique facility, they can make a personal contribution through the GWT website.

In the last Letter from the Chair, I also noted that GNS and GWT were looking into ways of cooperating more closely. Personally, I have always felt that the opportunities of working together are legion: GNS’s concentration on recording natural history in the county, and its network of Species Recorders and experienced naturalists make it a natural partner for GWT, with its wide membership (over 25,000 members) and broad portfolio of nature reserves. So, shortly after I was elected as GNS Chairman, I became a Trustee of GWT, with a view to promoting exchanges and joint operations. GNS members have taken part in recent GWT events, notably the “bio-blitz” at GWT’s Siccaridge Wood reserve, where the aim was to identify 600 different species, of any taxa, in a day. The planned get-together of GNS Committee and GWT staff has taken place, and there is general agreement that we will work together much more closely in future. The next meeting of the GNS Executive Committee will be looking at precise ways of doing this, including joint events, training courses at different levels of expertise, and in particular the training of young naturalists, a theme which GNS has always aspired to promote, as yet with very limited success. So, as I said in my last Letter, keep watching this space!

Best wishes

Mike Smart
Hon Chairman

Ingrid Twissell, the county Dragonfly recorder led a walk on Saturday 10^th August at Woorgreens in the Forest of Dean. Ingrid was joined by her husband, Colin, recently retired Amphibian and Reptile recorder, Tony & Tiz Butler and Andrew Bluett.

The key location was the clear felled area to the west of Woorgreens Lake where rough grassland has developed and a number of small scrape ponds and drainage channels have been created, forming an ideal habitat for a number of Dragonfly and Damselfly species, 20 have been recorded to date.

Nine species were noted on this visit, Emperor, Common Darter, Common Hawker, Four Spotted Chaser, Common Blue, Azure, Blue Tailed and Emerald Damselflies. The highlight of the morning was a male Black Darter. Several of these species were seen to be mating and/or laying eggs. The cool morning with patches of sunshine and shade were ideal, keeping the insects active but not so much that they could not be seen easily.

Bird life was good for this time of year; Raven & Carrion Crow, Tree Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Siskin, Great Spotted Woodpecker, two Willow Warblers singing, Reed Bunting, Buzzards (adults and calling young), House Martin & Swallow hawking for insects. 20 Crossbills were feeding and flying to and fro, mainly around the Larches to the west and a solitary Green Sandpiper flew from one of the scrapes.

Photos by Andrew Bluett

Blue Tailed and Azure Damselflies

Emerald Damselfly and Common Darter

Emperor eating a Common Darter

Black Darter

Nine GNS members joined Andrew Bluett for a summer walk in the Forest of Dean on Saturday morning, the 27^th July.

The hoped for Wild Boar did not appear, it seems the hot dry weather of late has driven them to the cooler depths of the forest although there was some evidence of their having been foraging amongst the trees possibly as recently as the night before.

The party walked across to the avenue from the Kensley Lodge car park to view the stained glass “Cathedral Window” suspended on a timber frame between the fir trees, a spectacular visual representation of the forest and part of the Sculpture Trail. Along the way a speculative turning over of a section of tree trunk by Colin Twissell led to the discovery of a female Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus). Meanwhile, along the path there were several young Common Toads (Bufo bufo; 10mm long) to be seen wandering here and there together with a number of Dor Beetles (Geotrupes stercorarius).

At Kensley lagoon there were Dragonflies and Damsel Flies to be seen, including several Sympetra and a bright blue Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator). Further up the track towards Crabtree Hill a Golden Ringed Dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii) appeared overhead. On the way down to Woorgreens the party came across Richard Baatsen, the county bird recorder searching for the Keeled Skimmer (Orthetrun coerulescens) that has been reported from the area recently.

Birds were pretty thin on the ground and in the trees but Goldcrest (R regulus), Tree Creeper (Certhia familiaris), Blue Tit (Parus caerulius), Coal Tit (Parus ater), Robin (Erithracus rubecula), Wren (T troglodytes), Raven (Corvus corax) and Willow Warbler (Pylloscopus trochilus) put in an appearance. A small Common Lizard (Lacerta vivipara) was sunning itself on a log.

At Woorgreens Lake there were Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis), Moorhen (Gallinula chloropis), Coot Fulica atra), Canada (Branta Canadensis) and Greylag Geese (Anser anser), Green Veined White (Pieris napi) and Small White (Pieris raepae) butterflies were “mud-puddling” in a small are of exposed peat close to the lake edge; Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris), Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus), Peacock (Inachis io), Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina), Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) and Small Heath (Coenonynpha pamphilus)  were noted. Once again Damselflies were in evidence with Common Blue (Enallagma cyathigerum) and Emerald (Lestes sponsa) in the grasses and sedges.

On the way back to the car park at the corner of Woorgreens Lake the attention of the party was drawn to the mass of yellow flowering plants covering parts of the banks of the pool, Juliet Bailey took a sample and later identified it as Marsh St John’s-wort (Hypericum elodes).

The group watching Dragonflies, Kensley Lagoon

Female Great Crested Newt in the expert (and licensed) hands of Colin Twissell – note the yellow stripe for the full length of the tail

A Toadlet (Bufo bufo) approx. 10mm long on the forest track

Emerald Damselfly

Linda Moore of GCER led a field meeting on 30th June 2013 mainly to look at flowers of the limestone grassland. Edge Common is an area of undisturbed and unimproved grassland that forms part of the chain of Cotswold Commons on the scarp edge overlooking the Severn vale to the west and the Cotswold plateau to the east. It is well known for its flowers and to a lesser degree for the butterflies it supports.

A wide variety of flowers were in flower, notably several species of Orchids which are at their best at this time of year. Due to the stiff breeze, butterflies were not so numerous but Common Blue, Brown Argus, Skippers and a solitary Marbled White were seen. Mny other invertebrates were apparent, not least quite large numbers of Garden Chafers.

Garden Chafer

Meadow Pipit

Bee Orchid

The Cotswold Commons and Beechwoods Bio-Blitz takes place on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th July 2013 at the Cranham Scouting Centre. Details of the Bio-Blitz below or refer to www.cotswoldnnrbioblitz.weebly.com for more information. Anyone can take part, all that is required is a enthusiasm and a desire to seek out and learn something about the wildlife and natural history of the Cranham Common and Buckholt Wood areas.

Friday 5th is primarily for knowledgeable naturalists, Saturday 6th is open to everyone, especially families from 10 am to 2 pm with guided walks, events and refreshments available.

Cranham Scouting Centre can be found at the lowest point in Cranham village at SO 895 131

Have you seen any colour ringed Tree Pipits in the Forest of Dean?

Local ringer Rob Husbands is carrying out an RAS (Re-trapping Adults for Survival) study over at least the next 5 years. Tree Pipits have been Red-listed due to a steep national decline and projects of this sort will, it is hoped, help to determine how many birds survive to return to their home ground and for how long.

Rob has trapped and ringed a number of adult birds and so far, 25 pulli (five broods) in the core of the Forest at the following sites – Woorgreens/Crabtree Hill, Staple Edge, Moseley Green, Lightmoor, Edge Hills, Drybrook Road Station and Steam Mills.

Rob needs help primarily with sightings of birds like the one illustrated above, but also with nest finding if anyone is suitably qualified, confident and careful enough to be able to do so.

Contact Andrew Bluett at gnsmembership@btinternet.com with sightings or offers of help which will be passed on to Rob for attention.

Dear Members

It was good to see many members at the Annual General Meeting, back (after an interval of nearly ten years) at the venue of the GNS Cirencester branch, with the Society’s President, Mrs. Anna Jones, in the Chair. As you will see from the draft Minutes included in this issue of GNS NEWS, there was a full review of the Society’s activities over the past year, together with a series of presentations from Butterfly Conservation on Rough Bank, the new Cotswold grassland reserve to whose purchase GNS made a contribution. The Special General Meeting held alongside the AGM approved an increase in subscriptions to £15 per annum (the first rise in about 20 years, and yet GNS membership remains a real bargain); I hope you will all amend instructions to your bank in line with the new rates, and sign the Gift Aid form. In this way, the Society will be able to maintain its healthy financial situation, without eating into its reserves.

A while ago, I paid tribute in one of these Letters to the outgoing Chief Executive Officer of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, Gordon McGlone; it’s now a pleasure to welcome his successor, Roger Mortlock, who has recently started work. GNS is looking into ways of working even more closely with GWT, and a get-together between GWT staff and Trustees and GNS Executive Committee and Recorders is planned for late May. Watch this space for details of new initiatives!

In the meantime the GNS Executive Committee has made a series of grants for conservation projects: the new county moth recording team have received lap-tops to facilitate and standardise moth recording easier; new moth trapping equipment has been purchased; a Dipper ringing project in the Forest of Dean has been supported, as well as a project for Dormouse boxes. One of our recent grants is near to bearing fruit: the Red Data Book on the county’s bryophytes looks like being a landmark volume in many ways: as a compilation of historic and recent records, as an identification aid, as a guide to conservation of this group; and as a wake-up call to other counties.

This issue of GNS NEWS has a something of a birdy flavour. In a way this is very appropriate, as the current issue is accompanied by a flier allowing members to take advantage of a pre-publication offer for purchase of the new “Birds of Gloucestershire”, to be published later in the year, shortly after the latest national bird Atlas. GNS members have contributed, with other bird-watchers in the county, to the fieldwork for the Gloucestershire publication (the first book on the county’s birds since Chris Swaine’s 1982 volume, now well out of date); GNS has made a substantial financial contribution to the new county avifauna. I am sure Chris would have approved: I looked up to him as the ultimate authority when I was a boy birdwatcher, and used to phone him to report on my most recent observations, in fear and trembling as to whether he would approve my sightings.

In conclusion, another piece of good news: in recent years, that typical element of Severn Vale culture and cuisine, the elver, has declined steeply in numbers, just as its price has taken it well beyond the pockets of most people in the area. This spring has seen the best numbers of elvers in decades, carried upriver on high tide cycles; quite why is not clear, but it is a phenomenon observed throughout western Europe, as may be seen from the Sustainable Eel Group’s website. Perhaps coincidentally (but probably not), the birdwatchers among us have noted much larger numbers of passing Arctic Terns than usual along the river; they don’t seem to be feeding on elvers, nor on the tiny shrimps that have also been present in large numbers. As usual there are hidden links across different fields of natural history and ecology, which we must use our time and ingenuity to fathom out. I wish you all a fascinating summer delving into these cross connections.

Yours sincerely

Mike Smart
Hon Chairman

On a bright sunny morning Andrew Bluett was joined by eight GNS members for a field meeting of general interest looking at the Cinderford Northern Quarter site and the CinderfordLinearPark (north). The group met opposite the Winner (Skoda) Garage in the Forest Vale Industrial Estate and looked at maps illustrating the relationship of Cinderford Northern Quarter development site with the Linear Park and surrounding areas, then at some historical photographs of the area illustrating the very different landscape that prevailed in the 1950s and early 1960s so that it could be appreciated just how much the environment had changed over the intervening 50 years or so.

Historically the valley was an industrial landscape based on coal extraction, both deep mine and opencast, clay extraction (for Coleford Brick & Tile Co) and railway and colliery dram tracks. Large areas in between were either bare where waste material was accumulated or clothed in thin Sheep-cropped grass. This provided an ideal habitat for Woodlark, a few pairs of Wheatear, Chats & Pipits. In the years after World War 2 R J B Christian found some 28 pairs of Woodlark in the valley and adjacent ridges, Snipe and Reed Bunting breeding in the boggy areas and Red Backed Shrike in the plantation edges (Sketches of Dean’s Birds, Christian, 1999).

The group first walked up to the Steam Mills Lake past Dam Green in the Northern Quarter area viewing two very recent, and therefore bare and undeveloped ponds along the way. Whilst there was much fishing activity, a number of water birds were evident including Greylag Goose, Coot, Mallard, Tufted Duck and Lesser Black Backed Gull. From there the party walked down the track towards the central area of the Linear Park as far as Laymore Quag and the large open meadow beyond Lennetshill Plantation. The return was via a secondary track leading to the Forest Vale Industrial Estate road and back to Winner Garage.

This walk which follows the lines of forestry and old railway tracks took in a variety of habitat types, conifer plantation, deciduous and mixed woodland, open scrubby grassland, industrial buildings, the lake and ponds, boggy areas (Laymore Quag) etc and produced a respectable list of species.

Fresh-water or Swan Mussel shells (Anodatea cygnea) were discovered by the lake, the largest being some 10cm long, Pond Skaters were evident on all the water bodies especially in the ditches and puddles, Butterflies were represented only by Small Tortoiseshell. Birds were more abundant with Tree Pipit, Willow Warbler and Chiff Chaff, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Robin, Great, Blue, Long Tailed and Coal Tits, Blackbird and Song Thrush, Buzzard, Wren, Dunnock, Swallow, Blackcap, Lesser Redpoll, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Jay, Wood Pigeon, Pied Wagtail, Green and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Neither Raven nor hoped for Goshawk appeared but towards the end of the walk, a solitary Hawfinch flew over towards the Crump Meadow Inclosure.

Juliet Bailey identified a series of flowering plants – Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense), Pussy Willows (Salix sp), Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna), Colt’s-foot (Tussilago farfara), Dandelion (Taraxacum aggregate), Field Wood-rush (Luzula campestris), Daisy (Bellis perennis), and Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis). Some remnant Heather was also noted at one point.

It was considered that flowers are very late this year – at least a couple of weeks behind normal, and that the flowers seen on this walk were later than in the Vale by about a week, presumably because of the altitude (approx 140 metres / 450 feet above sea level).