june 2016 bristol naturalist news · bulletin no. 551 june 2016 . 2 contents ... clifton &...
TRANSCRIPT
Contents / Diary of events
JUNE 2016
Bristol Naturalist News
Photo © Gill Brown
Discover Your Natural World
Bristol Naturalists’ Society
BULLETIN NO. 551 JUNE 2016
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CONTENTS
3 Diary of Events
4 Walks: ‘Mid-week’; Roger’s Notes; Phenology ;
5 BNS/University in association
Welcome to new members
6 Richard Bland’s walks – and reports
7 GEOLOGY SECTION Geology blog moved
8 BOTANY SECTION
9 Indoor meetings – views wanted
Botanical notes; Meeting Reports
13 LIBRARY New: Dragonflies &
Damselflies of Gloucestershire
14 INVERTEBRATE SECTION
Notes for June, Reading Group
Items of Interest
16 MAMMAL SECTION
Meeting Report; New Recorder wanted
Facebook group
17 MISCELLANY
Botanic Garden; Arnos Vale event;
Clifton & Hotwells Open Gardens ;
Badock’s Wood
Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project
18 ORNITHOLOGY SECTION
New Book: Birds of Exmoor;
Meeting Reports; Recent News;
20 Bristol Swift Group;
New book: Migrant Waders; Dormouse !
Cover picture: Water Vole, taken by Gill
Brown in Gloucestershire, March 2016. Thanks
to Gill for a remarkable shot.
HON. PRESIDENT: David Hill,
BSc (Sheff), DPhil (Oxon).
HON. CHAIRMAN: VACANT
HON. PROCEEDINGS RECEIVING EDITOR:
Dee Holladay, 15 Lower Linden Rd., Clevedon,
BS21 7SU [email protected]
HON. SEC.: Lesley Cox 07786 437 528
HON. MEM'SHIP SEC.: Mrs. Margaret Fay
81 Cumberland Rd., BS1 6UG. 0117 921 4280
HON. TREASURER: Mr Stephen Fay,
81 Cumberland Rd., BS1 6UG. 0117 921 4280
BULLETIN DISTRIBUTION Hand deliveries save about £800 a year, so help
is much appreciated. Offers please to:
HON. CIRCULATION SEC.: Brian Frost, 60 Purdy
Court, New Station Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16
3RT. 0117 9651242. [email protected] He will
be pleased to supply further details. Also
contact him about problems with (non-)delivery.
BULLETIN COPY DEADLINE: 7th of month before
publication to the editor: David B Davies, The Summer House, 51a Dial Hill Rd., Clevedon, BS21
7EW. 01275 873167 [email protected]
Grants: The society makes grants of around
£500 for projects that meet the Society’s
charitable aims of promoting research &
education in natural history & its conservation in
the Bristol region. Information and an application
form can be downloaded from:
http://bns.myspecies.info/search/site/Grants
(and bristolnats.org.uk) Email completed
applications to [email protected].
Health & Safety on walks: Members
participate at their own risk. They are
responsible for being properly clothed and shod.
Dogs may only be brought on a walk with prior
agreement of the leader.
BULLETIN NO. 551 JUNE 2016
Bristol Naturalists’ Society Discover Your Natural World
Registered Charity No: 235494
www.bristolnats.org.uk
Bristol Naturalists’ Society Discover Your Natural World
Registered Charity No: 235494
www.bristolnats.org.uk
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Diary of events Back to contents Council usually meets on the first Wednesday of each month (please
confirm the date with the Hon. Sec. if you plan to attend). Any member can attend, but
must give advance notice if wishing to speak.
Visitors & guests are very welcome at any of our meetings. If contact details are given,
please contact the leader beforehand, and make yourself known on arrival. We hope that
you will enjoy the meeting, and consider joining the Society. To find out how to join, visit
http://bns.myspecies.info and click on membership.
JUNE 2016 Thu 2 Mid-week Walk Society 10:00 page 4
Sat 4 Westhay Ornithology 10:00 page 18
Sun 5 Bugs & Beasties (with Bristol University) Society 14:00 page 5
Sun 5 Netcott’s Meadow LNR Invertebrate 14:00 page 14
Sat/Sun 11/12 BNS at Festival of Nature. See call for volunteers in Roger’s Notes p4
Thu 16 RBland walk – Downs Meadows Society 19:00 page 6
Sat 18 Uphill & Axe Estuary Ornithology 10:00 page 18
Sun 19 Towerhouse Wood Invertebrate 14:00 page 14
Sun 19 Urban Garden (with Bristol University) Society 15:00 page 5
Tue 21 St. George’s Flower Bank LNR Botany 18:30 page 9
Sat 25 Watchet Geology 11:00 page 7 Sun 26 Clapton Moor, Gordano Valley NNR Invertebrate 14:00 page 14
JULY 2016 Sat 16 Avonmouth Saltmarsh Invertebrate 11:00 page 14
Thu 21 RBland walk – The Ash Wood Society 19:00 page 6
AUGUST 2016 Thu 18 RBland walk – St Vincent’s Rocks Society 19:00 page 6
OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST: Richard Bland’s Walks – listed in full on page 6 – NB Booking essential Richard Bland offers a series of two-hour Downs walks. All must be booked direct with him:
(0117 968 1061 [email protected] ).
JUNE
Thu 2 Get to Grips with Grasses Gorge & Downs 10:00 page 17
Thu-Sat 9-11 National Moth Nights page 14 Fri 10 6 Fridays painting moths/butterflies Botanic Garden 09:45 page 17 Sat11-Sun 12 Festival of Nature, Bristol Harbourside (see Roger’s Notes) page 4 Sat11-Sun 12 Open Gardens, Clifton & Hotwells CHIS page 17 Sat 11 Intro to Grass Identification Arnos Vale 10:00 page 16 Sun 12 Evercreech Som. Rare Plants 11:00 page 8 Thu 16 Shepperdine Glos. Nats. 11:00 page 8 Sat 25 Painting Pollinators Botanic Garden 10:00 page 17 Thu 30 Midsummer Night’s Dream Botanic Garden 19:30 page 17 JULY
Sat 2 Dyrham BioBlitz: with BNS Various times page 14
Sun 3 Flower Walk Badock’s Wood 14:00 page 17
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SOCIETY ITEMS Back to contents / Back to Diary
SOCIETY MID-WEEK WALK Thursday 2nd June, Chequers Inn, Hanham. Approx. 3miles Meet 10am. Avon riverside at the Chequers, Ferry Road, off Abbots Road, Hanham Green. ST648701, BS15 3NU.
The walk takes us from Hanham Court and along and above Cleeve Wood until we get down to the river at Mill Clack Bridge where there is a quay, a sign of previous shipping activity and the lower end of the dramway from the coal mines at Siston and Rodway. We return along the riverside. At this time of the year foliage of the different trees is gloriously kaleidoscopic. The Chequers is a popular hostelry overlooking the river, and has a large car park. When we came to it one chilly autumn lunchtime we were treated as VIPs, seated in great pomp as the only customers round a large table.
Tony Smith, 0117 965 6566
ROGER’S NOTES
s I write, Spring is in full swing (or is it just another false start?). I hope that you will take the opportunity to take part in one of the interesting field trips that we have organised in the next few months. We are very lucky in the level of expertise that
we have available in the society, and there is always the chance to better your knowledge, or to share it with others. I always advise that you should try something new. If you are a botanist, see how the plant life is affected by the geology, if you are a geologist then knowing what plants occur in certain geologies, allows you a head-start in working out what is under the soil.
Saturday 11th
and Sunday 12th
June we are at the Festival of Nature in Millennium Square. This time we are not in the crowded Green Forum tent, but in a smaller one, shared with the University of Bristol, an earthworm project and a reptile group. Our tent is no.9 and is to the left of the Square as you look towards the water, with your back to @Bristol. We are looking for volunteers to man the stand, and can offer a great development this time – chairs! If you think that you can help, please get in touch as soon as you can. By the time you read this, time will be short.
Roger Steer
PHENOLOGY hat a strange spring we are having. I write this on May 5
th and the Lime trees and
Ash trees are still quite bare, Hawthorn is not in bloom, and yet Oak is covered in catkins. Some Beech have been in leaf for a fortnight, some are still bare - and
they have almost no flowers. April, like March, was cool and dry. It was four degrees cooler than last year, and had half the normal rainfall. There were 21 days with no rain, and five frost nights, the last on the 29
th . It has been the most wonderful spring ever for Magnolias;
stimulated into flower in late January, they have kept their flowers right until the end of April without any leaves developing, and no frost strong enough to wreck the flowers.
Richard Bland
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BIODIVERSITY TOURS Back to contents / Back to Diary
The new University/BNS Biodiversity Tours of Historic Gardens, etc., led by BNS experts continue this month with two more dates for your diary. Although each tour has a theme, all matters of interest will be noted. FIVE free places are available for BNS members on each of the events, which are sited in a variety of venues, some of which are not normally open to the public. Those wishing to attend must book with the Hon. Sec. on 07786 437428 or [email protected] This new venture is proving to be very popular and we are hoping that the events being offered for the coming month will, once again, highlight the range and importance of biodiversity to a new audience. For us in the BNS, there are new venues to explore.
TWO events are offered in JUNE, both within Goldney Hall, as follows: -
Sunday, 5th June: BUGS AND BEASTIES Goldney Garden – 2:00 p.m. Goldney Hall in Clifton is not normally open to the public and is considered to be quite a special place in terms of its history, features and gardens that boast quite contrasting characteristics, such as manicured lawns and open grassland; formal orchards, specimen trees and little copses; a water feature, an orangery, quirky buildings and a grotto. In other words quite a lot!
Sunday, 19th June: Flora & Fauna of an Urban Garden Goldney Garden - 3:00 p.m.
Report on UNI/BNS Biodiversity Event, Early Morning Birdsong: 9th
April 2016 his event was popular to the point of being oversubscribed; the full complement of 25 people gathered for the event, which gave privileged views of the grounds of various Halls of Residence that, in themselves, offered diverse habitat attractions and some
glorious views across north-west Bristol. Mike Johnson, whose skilled, expert delivery charmed everyone present, led the event on a chilly morning that was not entirely conducive to bird song. Despite this, the birds didn’t disappoint with most of the species one would expect to hear in a mixed woodland and open grassland setting, such as Wrens, Blackbirds, Chiffchaffs and various members of the Tit family performing well. There were also some highlights among which was the intermittent but very confident song of the Nuthatch, a fascinating display of nest building by two Magpies as they wove their untidy dome and, perhaps best of all, the sighting of a Goldcrest (who very obligingly then sang to us) by the most inexperienced ‘birdwatcher’ of all within the group. Although chilly, the sun shone, the birds sang and we all went home happy.
Welcome to membership of BNS to those who’ve joined recently: Mrs. Lucy Wallis-Smith (Interests: General)
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DOWNS WALKS WITH RICHARD BLAND Back to contents / Back to Diary
Booking essential: via 0117 968 1061 or [email protected] June: Thursday 16
th 7:00-9:00. An evening walk through the Meadows, which should be
at their best. We will look at plants and trees and birds. Meet at the Peregrine Watch Point - ST563 741. A joint BNS and Friends of the Downs walk. July Thursday 21
st 7.00-9.00 The Ash Wood. The Ash Wood is little visited, and in parts
inaccessible. Meet at Sea Walls, ST560 746, for an exploration of this area. August Thursday 18
th 7.00-9.00 St Vincent’s Rocks. The Observatory is one of the most
famous botanical sites in Britain, and we will explore the plants of this area, as well as looking at Clifton camp. Meet at the Observatory entrance, ST565 742. Walk reports
here have been four walks on the Downs so far advertised to both the Friends of the Downs and the BNS. On April 18
th a small group looked at the trees in Westbury
Park, noting veteran ashes, self-sown plums, and Horse Chestnut trees being replaced by Indian Chestnuts. We examined the pond area, which may be the last remains of the original clay pit, couldn’t find the site of the Wessex water main across the site, and were surprised that a company had been allowed to write their name in croci on the Downs.
On Sunday 1 May, the start of the Bristol walking festival, we met on Clifton Green and looked at Turkey Oaks and Norway Maples, and a Horse Chestnut that had died, and The Resistant Elms that had suffered collapse and Silver Maple that should have flowered two months earlier.
On the 3rd
of May we met at the water tower and looked at the Holm Oaks, a Wych Elm that had survived, an ancient pollard Beech, the multiplicity of Limes on Ladies Mile, and the way scrub had overtaken the Tumps. We also took in a lot of history on the way.
On May 5th
we strode down the Roman road to London, looked at the Beeches that WG Grace planted to define the Gloucester county ground, marvelled at the Erman’s Birches by the Stoke Road lights, took in two Black Poplars on a road closed in 1750, and found an ancient Hawthorn that had suffered terminal collapse.
And I was continually frustrated by the late spring that prevented my being able to show the people details of leaves to help identify the trees.
Richard Bland
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GEOLOGY SECTION
Back to contents / Back to Diary
PRESIDENT: David Clegg [email protected] 01275 878699
HON. SEC.: Richard Ashley [email protected] 01934 838850
FIELD MEETINGS WATCHET AREA WEST SOMERSET Saturday 25th June, 11am Leader: Richard Ashley An excursion that will look at Triassic and Liassic Rocks in this interesting Area. Full details will be posted on the BNS website as soon as possible.
If you are interested in coming please let Richard Ashley know. Email address and telephone as above.
ADVANCE NOTICES: FROME MUSEUM AND BROWNES HOLE Saturday 24 September Leader: Simon Carpenter Meeting to visit Frome Museum to look at Pleistocene Mammal fossils from Brownes Hole near Frome and visit the cave where they were found.
WEGA FIELD MEETING Alfred Gillett Trust collection of ICHTHYOSAURA and the new extension to WOOKEY HOLE Show Cave Weekday September 2016 Leader: Dr Doug Robinson The ichthyosaurs are housed in the Grange on the Clarks Village retail site, and although not on
formal display, arrangement can be made for groups to visit. Details of the collection are posted at https://alfredgilletttrust.wordpress.com/collections/geological-collection/
A morning visit will be made to the Gillett Ichthyosaurs with an afternoon visit to Wookey Hole
where recently dug tunnels have opened up new chambers to the public. Date is to be arranged following confirmation with the collection archivist . Email place requests to [email protected].
The Alfred Gillett Trust holds an internationally significant geology collection, including Ichthyosaurs that were collected during the late 19th century, and collated and curated by Alfred Gillett. The collection rivals those at the Natural History Museum and the Universities of Cambridge
and Oxford. The fossils are from the Lower Lias of the Street area and were collected from many small quarries in the Street area that no longer exist.
Please contact Dr Doug Robinson direct if you are interested in attending
Geology Section Blog: The Geology Section blog has moved. You will now find it at: http://bristolnats.org.uk/geology/geology-blog/
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BOTANY SECTION PRESIDENT:- Vacant
HON. SEC:- Clive Lovatt 07 851 433 920 ([email protected]) Back to contents / Back to Diary
FIELD MEETINGS – Discovering the wild plants of the Bristol Region On average, we hold two field meetings of our own each month in the Bristol region from April to September. Our meetings concentrate on Bristol’s green spaces and with an occasional foray into urban botany. We also hold meetings in conjunction with the Somerset Rare Plants Group and the
Plant Group of the Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society and those meetings are more likely to include botanical recording for Atlas 2020, organised by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.
For the sake of completeness, the list below includes in diary format a list of meetings of various
groups at which BNS members will be welcome. The committee have made every effort to avoid clashes with meetings organised by other BNS sections and the other main local botanical groups. Please email the Secretary if there is any primarily botanical event or an event where BNS botanists
would be welcome, as we may be able to volunteer our expertise. Events organised other than by the Botany Section Committee or by its Secretary are headed up in italics.
Send me an email with BNS Botany in the subject line if you would like to be on a mailing list
about BNS Botany meetings (advance notices, reports etc).
EVERCREECH WITH THE SOMERSET RARE PLANTS GROUP Liz McDonnell & Gill Read Sunday 12 June, 11 am This will be a general recording day in a very under-recorded area, covering streets and lanes, grassland and hedgerows. If numbers suffice, the group will be split in order to cover more ground. Meet at the parking place beside the wide road by the Methodist Church in Weymouth Road, Evercreech BA4 6JB (ST647386). Tea and cake will be available at the end of the day.
BNS members not belonging to SRPG should please contact Liz McDonnell by phone 07732 689703 or email [email protected] for an invitation.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE BOTANICAL RECORDING Clare and Mark Kitchen Thursday 16 June, 11.00 am This meeting of the Plant Group of the Gloucestershire Naturalists Society will replace my ‘third Thursday’ June pot-luck meeting, provisionally planned for the same day. Clare and Mark Kitchen are leading a full day meeting for GNS beside the River Severn at Shepperdine to record populations of the nationally scarce Sea Clover, Trifolium squamosum and to record plants in general. Meet at ST614961, by the site of the Windbound Inn. Contact Clive Lovatt for lift sharing from Bristol and any updates during the week before.
THE DOWNS Richard Bland Thursday 16 June, 7 pm Richard is leading further meetings on and about Clifton and Durdham Downs on 16 June, 21 July and 18 August, all being Thursday evenings from 7pm to 9 pm. These meetings need to be pre-booked with Richard Bland at [email protected] as they are joint meetings with other groups and numbers may be limited. During the June meeting Richard will be looking at the Downs meadows.
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ST GEORGE’S FLOWER BANK LNR, PORTBURY Bob Buck Tuesday 21 June, 6.30 pm Following Bob’s inspiring talk to the Botany Section in February we are delighted to make a twenty-five years celebration visit to St George’s Flower Bank. It will be necessary to limit numbers attending this meeting both to preserve and not damage the marvels of the site and due to the problems of traffic rushing by and little parking space. Please let Tony Smith know as soon as possible and but before Friday 17 June if you would like to attend. Tel.: 0117 965 6566 or email: [email protected].
Back to contents / Back to Diary
INDOOR MEETINGS Indoor meetings are normally held from October to March, on the 4th Monday in the month at 7.30pm -9.30 pm. As the Guide Hall is in the process of being sold, we will have a new venue for the 2016-7 indoor meetings. We are likely to use the Westbury-on-Trym Methodist Church hall (where the BNS AGM was held on 17 March), but that would require a change of meeting date to a Wednesday. Unlike the Guide Hall at Westbury Park, this venue is on a bus route and has an adjacent car park. If anyone has strong views, please let the Secretary know.
BOTANICAL NOTES
FIELD MEETING REPORTS The Gully, Bristol Downs, Libby Houston, Saturday 9 April 2016 The meeting planned for the Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project was cancelled as due to the late season there was not a lot in flower. Several members had however contacted us by email or phone and seven of us met at Sea Walls at 1 pm. We had three hours looking at the plants between there and the Gully and in the Gully itself, under Libby’s expert and gentle guidance with occasional interpolations from Clive. Thus at Sea Walls true to form Clive looked at the weeds where maintenance equipment had been parked (Field Pansy and some sort of beet) and then Libby jumped over the cliff fence, reporting the local specialities Bristol Rock-cress and Dwarf Mouse-ear to be present in good order. As well as pointing out Sorbus porrigentiformis on the cliff and explaining its part in generating the extraordinary range of whitebeam species in the Avon Gorge, Libby (by now back on level ground, bemoaned the dense shade caused by Alexanders and its fecundity – there can be an average of 1600 of those big black seeds on each plant.
Passing by the aliens Spanish Bluebell, Grape Hyacinth and Perennial Candytuft on the cliff edge, we moved to the top of the Gully, learning to distinguish three Allium species by their leaves. On the scree, a classic site for it we failed to find any annual Rock Hutchinsia at all. The Fingered Sedge was in much better order and Libby explained that the population had dropped to only three (against well over 50 in the late 70s) until the site was opened up again. We saw the Dwarf Sedge in flower and Bristol Rock-cress infected with a white rust fungus as it sometimes is. Several of the party (one from Stroud) hadn't visited the site before and parted with deep thanks to Libby.
Spring Flower Power: Bringing the Outside Into the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Saturday 16 April 2016 Victoria Purewal, the acting Senior Curator of Natural Science at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, recently organised an event at the Museum with support from the museum staff and Bristol Naturalists’ Society. She has kindly provided the following paragraphs and wishes to thank (alphabetically by surname) the BNS Members for their time and incredible
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support on the day: David Hawkins, Libby Houston, Alex Morss, John Mortin, Sheila Quin and Tony Smith.
It was a really great day teaching the public about what is in flower at this time of year, but also how to incorporate flowers into craft activities such as cards, cross stitching, face masks and learning how to undertake botanical art. Victoria was also able to network with a group and a region she was hitherto unfamiliar with, having worked and lived in Cardiff for 20 years.
Wild flowers have not been displayed in the main hall for many years now and they really had an impact on the staff and public. Bringing the outdoors in can be inspiring and it is something museums have been doing for decades. Compare the image of the Wild Flower Table ‘on the day’ (above) with the one from over 50 years ago which shows Ivor Evans, President of the BNS Botanical Section at the time (left). (The Museum has his herbarium.) It was in 1911 that another prominent BNS
Member, Ida Roper, “the lady botanist of Bristol Museum” first established the weekly display, a “revelation and pleasure to visitors to the Museum” according to one witness, even throughout the dark days of the First World War, and Ivor Evans is known to have helped her back in the 1920s. An accomplished needlewoman herself, Miss Roper would also have appreciated the art activities (right)
Victoria suggests that BNS members might like to have another tour of the herbarium, which we last did about 4 years ago. So we can gauge interest, email Clive Lovatt if you would like to come. Back to contents / Back to Diary
Westerleigh Common, Yate, Clive Lovatt, Thursday 21 April 2016 Six recorders met at the south edge of the common, first examining the roadside halophytes close to the roundabout. To Clive’s consternation, the Mouse-ear was determined as Cerastium semidecandrum, Little Mouse-ear whereas he recalled there being C. diffusum, Sea Mouse-ear there last year. (Hopefully a further check will reveal both, since they do occur together on verges.)
The pond was full at this time of year, but we found the site specialities, Lythrum portula, Water-purslane and Juncus bulbosus, Bulbous Rush. There is a curious ‘blind’ dual carriageway across the common and totally blocking a drain was a yet to unfurl Scaly Male-fern – which one we will have to find out later. After looking at a second pond – a bit early again for certain identifications – the party split into two. “Fritillary” shouted Mark Kitchen and indeed there was one flowering in a small plantation. The other group were walking back and wondering how the common grassland became so species-poor (for the answer see below) and got to talking about Adder’s-tongue Fern which John Rees knew some distance away. “This thing!”, said Clive as we walked over it. Later delving revealed a 21
st century record in a different 1km square on the common in BRERC’s database.
The second group went on to record one of W. Gloucestershire’s ‘white tetrads’ east of Old Sodbury and came back with a modest card of records to enter up.
A cross stitch design of a Celandine created by the Friends of Bristol Museum Sewing Group, displayed at the Spring Flower Power event
The Flower Identification Table at Bristol Museum during the Spring Flower
Power event Bristol Culture BMAG Ivor Evans at Bristol Museum during
the late 1950s or early 1960s with the Wild Flower Table he helped to develop. From CM Lovatt, original source believed to be Bristol
Museum and Art Gallery
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Gorge Garlick, a botanist living in Yate from the early 50s as well as surveying the Avon Gorge in some detail made a number of site records of various ponds and ditches (record books in the possession of CML). It had puzzled me that he seemed (the site names are written in abbreviated form vertically and are heartbreakingly difficult to identify) to have no records for the ponds on Westerleigh Common, and particularly that there seemed to be no recent record of the Water-purslane there at all. In fact, it is mentioned in Bristol Botany in 1978 - in the introduction only - where there is a brief account of the recent management history of the common. The original letter from Garlick to Professor Willis (1 March 1979) survives in his Bristol Botany archive housed in the BNS Library and is worth quoting in full, with additions in square brackets.
“Yate (now usually called Westerleigh) Common was ploughed up during the War and all plant records declared null. Half the common is [now] fenced off and the other stands as meadow grass until haymaking time and as cow pasture until winter. In the middle of the latter half there is now a small pond which I am sure was not there in the 50s. On July 4
th [1978] this pond was dry mud and bare; on July 13
th it was almost covered with tiny
plants of Rorippa islandica [Marsh Yellow-cress] and Peplis [now Lythrum] portula. On July 18
th all was bare again. I would have said years ago that the Peplis [mentioned in White’s
Flora of 1912] had gone for ever. Part of the railway on the common that supported Hieracium umbellatum in huge quantity was torn up – little of the Hawkweed remains. [What appears to be that microspecies still grows beside the road bridge at Yate station.] The same alteration upset the draining system and swamped the area where Genista anglica [Petty Whin] used to grow. I feel it is lost unless it has Peplis’ power of survival.” [Extraordinarily, it did, as the Flora of the Bristol Region relates. It was rediscovered accidentally ‘under foot’ here in 2000; meanwhile Garlick’s own site record tables from the 1950s have it ‘Nr Hall End’ which corresponds to Yate Lower Common, 5 km to the north and a known site of the Adder’s-tongue fern a century ago.] Back to contents / Back to Diary
Lamplighters Marsh LNR, Clive Lovatt, Saturday 7 May 2016 This joint meeting with the Friends of Lamplighters Marsh was attended by about a dozen Friends and several BNS members (there having been a BNS walk there a couple of years ago). For the bird report I thank Lesley Cox.
We started outside the reserve where on the made ground by the Shirehampton Sailing Club Sagina maritima, Sea Pearlwort continues to do well – and this year it is on the top of the slipway too. On a heap of mud at the riverside here are the broad leaves of an Allium species, whether a Wild or a Garden Leek it remains to be seen when and if it flowers. The Sea-purslane was pointed out on the muddy banks with English Scurvy-grass flowering sparsely nearby. FOLM members then tested the leader’s knowledge of the English names of plants as well as of the plants themselves – Teasel versus Prickly Ox-tongue, Bargeman’s Cabbage as opposed to the Oilseed Rape on roadsides and so on.
The leader was pleased to learn that the waste ground by the Wessex Water outfall lies within the Reserve (designated 15 Sept. 2015) so that the surviving Marsh Dock, Rumex palustris, at its currently only known site in Gloucestershire (though one turned up with all the weeds near Lawrence Hill late last year) and what seems to be one of its hybrids may be subject to some sympathetic management before brambles overwhelm them.
When we entered the reserve gateway Jenny Brooks proudly pointed out that the display board included several of her wild plant paintings. Further along, we looked at the riverbank where Long-bracted Sedge, Carex extensa occurs, before reaching the rather stony rabbit-grazed pathside turf in which Lesser Chickweed, Stellaria pallida was still very apparent. Eventually the leader was able to pick out Early Meadow-grass Poa infirma, otherwise known in Gloucestershire only beside the New Cut and near the Hotwells Lock.
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Again its extent (including by the riverside under the M5 Bridge) seems to be entirely within the reserve. After we learned to distinguish the grey-green rosettes of Viper’s Bugloss and Blue Fleabane we looked (generally rather than particularly) at the decaying concrete where one of the FOLM members explained that Fyffe’s used to unload their bananas, and where now a rare moss occurs. Thus satisfied and after two hours (and a bit) of botany the meeting ended, with four of us returning for a late lunch at Lamplighters.
Of birds seen, only the Herring Gull, Wood Pigeon and dust bathing Sparrows remained silent on this warm midday meander but there was copious birdsong, emanating from the areas of scrubby habitat, to accompany us as we progressed through the Reserve with the cut-glass tones of the Wren being the most common. The mellifluous tones of the Blackbird took up the lead when the Wren completed ‘her’ phrase with the Tit sisters, Blue, Great and Coal providing the backing vocals. The Robin seemed to be unusually subdued but the star of the show was undoubtedly the Song Thrush whose crystal clear melodic piping was, at one stage, the sole accompaniment to Clive’s erudite tutorial. Back to contents / Back to Diary
Plant records As I write, I look back on a month of Mouse-ears (Cerastium species). Other than as mentioned above, I found C. diffusum, and C. semidecandrum on the verge of the A4019 at Kingsditch,
Cheltenham, - with Sea Pearlwort, Sagina maritima, new to East Gloucestershire as it continues its inland invasion. C. glomeratum, Sticky Mouse-ear is common and highly visible at roadsides (even at speed) and C. fontanum, Common Mouse-ear is just that, in grassy places.
Of more local interest is C. pumilum, Dwarf Mouse-ear (sometimes Curtis’s Mouse-eared Chickweed), illustrated in this plate from the rare last part of the original English Botany, issued in 1866. Liz McDonnell and I found it rather sparingly on Axbridge and Shute
Shelve Hills in the Mendips, the former last on MapMate in 2009, the latter 1985. Taking into account the online BRERC records (http://brerc.dyndns.org:8080/geoserver/www/imaps.html; use the + sign on the right to bring out the map search by species menu) and the BSBI database, I then realised that there were no 20
th century
records ‘on system’ for the coastal sites north of Brean Down, namely
Sand Point, Wain’s Hill, Clevedon and Portishead Point, all places oft-frequented by local botanists.
I was unsuccessful on the rocky slopes at Wain’s Hill (ST 3970) and although the terrain looks adequate and the sources are reliable, but I only found the other species mentioned above. Sand Point (ST3265, right on the boundary with ST3165) was easy – a few plants of C pumilum growing with Honewort, Trinia glauca just below the path, but no trace of more. Portishead Point (ST4677) wasn’t too hard either as there is so little south-facing open rocky grassland left, but again there were only a dozen plants or so.
There is every indication that this little plant is indeed becoming locally scarce as the turf becomes closed or overgrown, and not merely at the site level because all three places mentioned represent the only post-2000 records for their 10km squares. More
checking of old records is needed – N Somerset and E Gloucestershire have several inland sites needing a visit at the right time of year out whilst my own W Gloucestershire has but one MapMate site outside the Avon Gorge record - a square metre of Selsey Common, Stroud, 1993 - where I hope to look in the next week or so.
If you've found some interesting plants in the Bristol area, let me know.
Clive Lovatt, Shirehampton, 7 May 2016
Cerastium pumilum, Dwarf
Mouse-ear, drawn for the 5th
Supplement to Sowerby’s English Botany, 1866. From CM Lovatt’s personal collection
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LIBRARY
Back to contents / Back to Diary
HON. LIBRARIAN: Jim Webster [email protected].
BNS Library at Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery, BS8 1RL.
Open: Wed. 1.15pm-2.15pm, Sat. 10.15am-12.15pm.
Committee member on duty: 0117 922 3651 (library opening hours).
Access to the Society’s Proceedings and Nature in Avon online We are very grateful to the Biodiversity Heritage Library and its participating institutions (Harvard and the Natural History Museum in particular) for digitising our Proceedings and Nature in Avon without charge and making them publicly available. To access them you can google “Biodiversity Heritage Library” and use the search facilities, or you can go direct to our own index pages at: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/98898#/summary (for the Proceedings, i.e. up to 1993); and http://biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/99328#/summary (for Nature in Avon, from 1994 to date)
Just received - a Gloucestershire Naturalist Special Issue,
"DRAGONFLIES and DAMSELFLIES of GLOUCESTERSHIRE"
It covers 35 species with distribution maps and some colour photographs.
Mammal Section Visit
The recent Mammal
Section visit to the
Museum also made a
highly successful visit to
the BNS Library – and
came away with several
books.
Mammal Section visitors - Photo © Jim Webster
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INVERTEBRATE SECTION Back to contents / Back to Diary
PRESIDENT: Robert Muston 0117 924 3352
SECRETARY: Tony Smith 0117 965 6566 [email protected]
FIELD MEETINGS NETCOTT’S MEADOW LNR, Station Rd, Nailsea Sunday, 5 June Leaders: Gill Brown and Tony Smith 2 pm Meet at the car park for Backwell Lake, ST478694. This is an interesting Avon Wildlife Trust site of flower-rich meadow, also well known for a good number of records of butterflies and dragonflies.
TOWERHOUSE WOOD, Woodland Trust Reserve Sunday, 19th June Leader: Tony Smith 2 to 4.30 pm Meet at Jacklands Lake on Clevedon Road, ST470716. This is an interesting woodland with bubbling ponds and steep woods with open and dense areas and scrub.
CLAPTON MOOR, Gordano Valley NNR, for aquatic invertebrates Leaders: Tony Smith and Robert Muston 2 to 4.30pm, Sun. 26 June Meet at AWT car park ST461733. This meeting will take place where long-term monitoring of invertebrates at specific sites occurs.
Advance notices for July: Saturday, 2nd July Dyrham Park BioBlitz, Anytime but esp. between 12noon &
4pm. Coordinators: Beth Weston and Tony Smith. This is a meadow area (actually outside the area for which one pays at the turnstile) at the A46 entrance ST749758. As an encouragement to carry out this scientific work on National Meadows Day for the National Trust we will be given a stick-on badge and access to the grounds and House.
Sat. 16 July Avonmouth Salt Marsh, 11am-4.30pm (NB Security, see below)
Leader: John Martin. The site has salt marsh, pools, scrub and broken ballast-covered ground and may interest others besides just butterfly and bug specialists. For security purposes it is necessary to give names and car registrations to the Port Authority beforehand. Ray Barnett will coordinate this, so please ring him on 0117 352 5896 or email [email protected] by 5th July if you intend coming.
INVERTEBRATE NOTES FOR JUNE 2016 ome of you with long memories may recall a little book entitled A Bird Book for the Pocket, by Edmund Sandars. I was given my father’s copy when just 5 years old (he had bought it new in 1943, 22 years previously). Every time I saw a species of bird
new to me I would put a tick in that book, gradually building up what today would be called a ‘lifer’ list by twitchers, I suppose. It wasn’t until in my 20s and frequenting second hand bookshops that I realised there was a whole set, a series, of these books and so I acquired them all including An Insect Book for the Pocket. Glancing through that little volume today I am struck by one particular observation. Most insects do not have English names, just the scientific binomial. There have been many attempts to make up new names as a way to try and encourage those daunted by this terminology to take up entomology but most
S
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READING GROUP / BOOK CLUB The Reading Group welcomes new members
The reading group welcomes new members Contact: Tony Smith 0117 965 6566 [email protected]
The reading group normally meets in the evening at 4 to 6 week intervals; please contact the above for dates, places and times. Our current book is Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare’ by Paul Collinvaux, Penguin (1988); we are continuing with this.
The library service issues sets of books for the use of book clubs and we are availing ourselves of this free facility.
have proven to be a complete waste of time. However, what Sandars does in his book is provide a translation of the scientific name. Hence we learn that the midge Chironomus plumosus could be called the Feathery Shepherd-hand or the caddisfly Philopotamus montanus the Mountain River-lover. Perhaps this is something we could adopt again?
I feel cheated by the spring of 2016. The cold winds and cold nights that have lasted to the end of April have deterred insects and (perhaps more so) insect recording. The month of May though, has opened with warm weather and the promise of Saharan dust (I remember the locust which landed on someone’s back under similar conditions as they walked down a street in Coventry when I worked in that museum in the 1980s). So it feels like we have lost 2 months of insect recording and are straight into the mid and late spring species. May and June are great months for the variety of insects that can be found so I hope to be able to report some more exciting finds in the next Bulletin compared to the dearth from the first half of spring.
Ray Barnett 07/05/16
Naming the beasties – controversy! Tony Smith writes: with regard to introducing and popularising English names, I quite agree …purely from the point of view of communication and familiarisation. … I have edited as full a list as possible of the Leaf-hoppers, plant-hoppers, Spittle-bugs, etc. based on German names and I use these and the scientific names whenever I send records to BRERC. However, J. Cooter, in A Coleopterist’s Handbook disagrees since to him it means having to exactly double the number of names to learn. There are two … problems. One is to do with authorising these so-called ‘trivial names’ … so that the next problem, ‘Whose list of names do you use?’ doesn’t create confusion. … But it must be admitted that it is fun to get people looking at an assembly of white-spot wing-waving flies on lily pads on a pond and getting them all to speak the name Poecilobothrus nobilitatus in unison: it sounds like a line of poetry.
ITEMS OF INTEREST: National Moth Nights are 9, 10, 11 June contact Ray Barnett if you would like to attend Bristol Moth Group meetings. Festival of Nature 11/12 June Bristol, 19 June Keynsham and 25 June Bath.
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MAMMAL SECTION Back to contents / Back to Diary
PRESIDENT: Gill Brown [email protected] 01275 810420
SECRETARY: Mike Meechem [email protected]
MAMMAL RECORDER: Roger Symes [email protected]
MEETING REPORT Museum Visit, Wednesday 20
th April
The Mammal Section had a very enjoyable meeting at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. First we were escorted to the BNS Library by Jim Webster the Honorary Librarian, who gave us a brief overview of the range of publications available to all members. We then had time to browse the shelves at our leisure, and several of us left clutching items that we had borrowed.
After our visit to the Library, Bonnie Griffin the museum’s Natural History Curator gave us a guided behind the scenes tour of the collection. We saw many specimens not on view to the public
and learnt about some of the uses they were put to, from television appearances to scientific research. It’s a real treasure trove down there and Bonnie was an enthusiastic and entertaining guide. She stressed that the collection is there to be used, and
that BNS members would be welcome, by appointment, if they wanted to study the specimens.
I would thoroughly recommend this visit to other sections. It’s a superb introduction to two important resources available for us all to use. Gill Brown
Mammal Recording Changes Roger Symes writes:- I have produced a report on Mammals in the Bristol District in 2015 which is being published in Nature in Avon, but I am now standing down as BNS Mammal Recorder. The surge in interest in mammals inevitably means that there will be an increase in numbers of records for 2016. I struggled to process and review the 1000+ records for 2015 and it is unrealistic to think I would be able to produce a report in future in the timescale allowed. It is important that information on our wild mammals continues to be collected, analysed & reported so I ask all who have contributed records to continue to do so but to send them to BRERC ( www.brerc.org.uk ) or the National Biodiversity Network (NBN - http://nbn.org.uk/ ), or specialist survey groups. I hope that others will come forward to take on the task of reporting on mammals sighted during each year. My special thanks to everyone who has contributed records over the last three years. I am now collating all information I have so that the Mammal Society’s distribution maps due to be published in 2016 will be as up to date as possible.
FACEBOOK GROUP The Mammal Section has a Facebook Group where members can post useful
information, or anything relevant they would like to share. We hope BNS
members interested in mammals will join and suggest ideas for field meetings,
talks and other initiatives. To join the group you need a Facebook account. Once
logged in, type 'Mammal Section, Bristol Naturalists' Society' into the search bar
and you should find it.
Image©Philippa Foster
Aye Aye © Gill Brown
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MISCELLANY Back to contents / Back to Diary
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL BOTANIC GARDEN
The Holmes, Stoke Park Rd, Stoke Bishop, BS9 1JG.
Booking: 0117 331 4906. www.bristol.ac.uk/botanic-garden
Email: [email protected] 10 June - 19 August, METAMORPHOSIS: painting a moth or butterfly life cycle Fri. 9.45 to
12.45; 10 & 24 June, 15 & 22 July, 12 & 19 Aug. Paint & sketch stages from egg to adult and plants linked with the process. Tutor Cath Hodsman has work sold through Nat. History Museum, and is a registered tutor with Bristol Drawing School (RWA). Students have access to
microscopes and the tutor’s selection of insect specimens and macro photos. Tea & coffee provided, sandwiches, cake etc. available. Further information: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/botanic-garden/events/2016/metamorphosis-painting-a-moth-or-butterfly-life-cycle.html 25 June, 10am-4pm, PAINTING POLLINATORS with Cath Hodsman. Aimed at beginners &
improvers. Examine the relationship between insects & plants and how plants provide food in return for pollination. Facilities & refreshments as above. 30 June, 7.30-11pm. Chapterhouse Theatre Co. presents A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at
the Botanic Garden. Adult £14 / Child £8.50 / Family (2 Adults & 2 Children) £40. 10% off for
parties of 10+. Gates open 6pm; please BYO rugs or low-backed seating. Further information: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/botanic-garden/events/2016/a-midsummer-nights-dream.html
Arnos Vale – arnosvale.org.uk - 357-359 Bath Rd, BS4 3EW Event led by Mary Wood, Arnos Vale naturalist
Sat. 11th June Introduction to grass identification 10am-1pm. (£15)
For queries see website or contact Mary Wood: 07900 121 527
Green Squares and Secret Gardens visit gardens you’ve never seen before, in
CLIFTON & HOTWELLS Saturday 11 - Sunday 12 June. Full details: www.cliftonhotwells.org.uk
Friends of Badock’s Wood (FOBW) www.fobw.org.uk We meet quarterly and all our meetings are free and open to all. For info visit :
www.fobw.org.uk Tuesday 7th June – 7.30 p.m. General Meeting, Greenway
Community Centre, Doncaster Rd, Southmead
Sun July 3rd 2.00 - 3:30 p.m. Midsummer Wildflower Walk (National Meadows
weekend). Led by Tony Smith. Learn about the summer meadow flowers in Badock’s
Wood. Meet at Northern Gateway, Doncaster Rd.
Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project Booking and further information: Contact the Project on 0117 903 0609 or e-
mail [email protected]. Pre-booking essential for all events.
Details of meeting points are given on booking.
Sat. 25 June: Get to grips with grasses. Foxed by fox-tails? Confused by quaking
grasses? Lost in Yorkshire fog? Then you need a day learning to identify grasses on the
Downs with botanist Libby Houston! 10.00am – 3.30pm. £20. At Bristol Zoo Gardens and
on the Downs.
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ORNITHOLOGY SECTION PRESIDENT:- Giles Morris, 01275 373917 [email protected]
HON SEC.:- Lesley Cox 07786 437528 [email protected] Back to contents / Back to Diary
FIELD MEETINGS
Field meetings take place at regular intervals throughout the whole of the year with one or two typically being held each month. They offer varied locations, optimum opportunities for
seeing the best range of avian life and some fun and good company along the way. We
look forward to giving a warm welcome to all our fellow members and visitors are welcome.
Please let the specified leader know of your intention to attend.
WESTHAY, SOMERSET LEVELS 10am, Saturday 4th June Leaders: Mike Johnson 0117 953 2545 & Giles Morris 01275 373917 The Reserve contains a remnant of the landscape as it was in the past with reed beds, lake-land pools, wet woodlands and raised bogs and is situated on the northern edge of the conglomerate of Nature Reserves known as the Avalon Marshes.
Meet at the Somerset Wildlife Trust Westhay Moor NNR car park ST 456 437 at 10:00 a.m. The car park is north of the village of Westhay just off the Godney Road at the junction with Daggs Lane Drove. There should be a wide variety of water birds, resident passerines, summer migrants and raptors including the Hobby and Marsh Harrier. The reserve is also good for dragonflies and damselflies, marsh and bog plants.
The walk will be flat but could be uneven and muddy in places. Waterproof footwear is advised. The meeting will end about 1:00 p.m. ‘Booking’ is essential via the details above, i.e., tell the leader that you are going to attend.
UPHILL and AXE ESTUARY 10am, Saturday 18th June Leader: Mike Johnson Tel. 0117 953 2545 This venue offers a range of scenery and habitats. The towering Brean Down shelters the estuary itself with its sandy low tide banks, whilst close by there is a quarry and two Nature Reserves, both designated as SSSIs which individually boast salt marsh and flowering limestone grassland.
Meet at 10am at the entrance to the beach at Uphill ST311588. From the roundabout on the A370 to the south of Weston-super-Mare, turn off into Uphill past the Hospital, then turn right and next left to the beach. There should be a variety of water birds with resident passerines and summer migrants in good numbers. The meeting will end about 1pm. The walk is mostly flat and part will be on grass that could be muddy. Waterproof footwear is advised. ‘Booking’ is essential via the details above, i.e., as above.
New book, published in a very limited edition;- The Birds of Exmoor & the Quantocks by David Balance, Brian Gibbs and Roger Butcher. 2nd edition of a book published in 2002, largely re-written, covering 300 species, with results from recent surveys and Atlases and updated comment on each species to the present. Paperback, 260 pages, 32 colour photos, published by the authors.
To purchase please send a cheque for £15 to DK Balance, Flat 2 Dunboyne, Bratton Lane, Minehead, TA24 8SQ.
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FIELD MEETING REPORT Back to contents / Back to Diary
Leigh Woods, Sun 1st May
It was a beautiful, still, clear morning for this May Day
Dawn Chorus walk. Five early birds gathered at 6:00
a.m. to walk through Leigh Woods and were rewarded by
not only good weather, but also a fine recital of woodland
voices. There was nothing rare or unexpected, but the
full range of the sounds that make British woodland so
special at this time of year was abundant.
The highlights? A Treecreeper offered very confiding and repeated views as it stripped
fibres from a dead tree for its nest, whilst a Song Thrush, in full voice, sang from the Bristol
Whitebeam overlooking the gorge and bridge at the camp viewpoint. Then there were the
docile and friendly Devon Red cows that walked with us from the Plain to the camp and the
two Roe Deer that stopped and stared from the camp ramparts before deciding that we
were actually human and bounding away.
Maybe not a morning for twitchers, with only 23 species and no rarities, but I’m sure
that, as naturalists, we all went home (or to work in one case!) much richer for the early
rising. It’s good to think that all across this country and abroad others will have been
sharing in the same experience on International Dawn Chorus Day!
RECENT BIRD NEWS April
he arrival of summer migrants continued apace although towards the end of the month the persistent northerly airflow and cold conditions held things up - some arrivals must have wished they had deferred their journeys.
4 Cranes over CVL on 1st posed the usual GCP dilemma - no rings were seen, and they were looked for carefully, but they are easy to miss. Black-necked Grebe, Red Kite, Marsh Harrier and Osprey also at the lake on the same day made it a great start to the month.
Several more Ospreys passed through here and elsewhere during the month as did the now expected Red Kites and a smatter of Marsh Harriers. Falls of Willow Warblers and Chiffchaff in the first few days were notable. 14 Little Gulls at CVL on 4th was a good count but on the estuary tern passage was almost non-existent.
A classic spring overshoot was a Hoopoe at Sand Point on 12th and another was reported at Hallen later in the month. Also on 12th a ringtail harrier was photographed near Marshfield and proved to be a young Pallid - only the second Avon record of this once monster national rarity. In total they have spent about 5 minutes under observation in our area. Also on 14th a Channel Wagtail (the intergrade between continental Blue-headed and our Yellow) was at Northwick Warth along with an astounding 73 Whites. Later there were 2 or more Blue-headeds there as well.
A young White-fronted Goose at PW on 16th was an excellent record, a day that also produced 11 (or 13) Barnacle Geese at NP-NW in the cold northerlies. A strange sounding Chiffchaff at Willsbridge on 19th sounded quite Iberian-like but the song was not entirely typical and the bird looked very like a Common Chiffchaff - it was perhaps a mixed singing Chiffchaff, but our first unequivocal Iberian is surely overdue.
As usual an exciting month with too many nice birds to list them all. May could be even better, so go and check your local patch - you never know at this time of year!
John Martin
T
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Bristol Swift Conservation Group. This organisation will be in the BNS tent in Millennium Square at the Festival of Nature. As I write the Swifts are back. Details of this year’s Swift Survey are on the website “Bristol Swifts”. Essentially any evidence of Swifts nesting in a building, normally Swifts seen entering or leaving a roof space should be noted, with as exact a reference - preferably an address of the building - as possible. We will be able to offer free Swift boxes to anyone who wants them and can find a handyman to fix them, and anyone who knows of such a handyman should contact me at [email protected] as we can offer them work Back to Contents / Back to Diary
New book: ‘The Migrant Waders’ Produced by Dunlin Press, a small not-for-profit company, this beautifully produced book will appeal to lovers of birds and nature writing - and has a local connection: BNS member David Hawkins is one of 14 contributors, writing about the Battery Point Purple Sandpipers featured in last month’s bulletin. http://dunlinpress.bigcartel.com/product/the-migrant-waders
Dormouse photos by Gill Brown - The dormouse is shown as found, and
on the scales.. Gill writes: “… my first
dormouse of the year. It was snoring!”
Photo
© S
teve H
ale
Dorm
ouse p
hoto
s ©
Gill
Bro
wn