Plants save the morning

For some daft reason I found myself at Canons Farm at the ungodly hour of 05.00... a calling Tawny Owl slightly convinced me that it was all worthwhile, but it slowly went downhill from there, with just a couple of Greylag Geese (patch goodie), a Swift, three House Martins, 4 Swallows and a Wheatear trying desperately hard to turn ornithological water into wine. It didn't work...

However, at times like these I can put another of my natural history hats on, so the 'botanical' one came out and I went to check the freshly ploughed strip at Fames Rough. This disturbance is irregularly carried out to help maintain the two ultra rare species that grow there - Ground Pine and Cut-leaved Germander. And the good news is that they are both present again this year, although the 11 GP and 3 C-LG plants that I found were on last years strip, roughly in the same place where the GP grew in 2015. This made me feel very happy indeed, as I understand that both species are not doing very well elsewhere.

Ground Pine, 01/05/16, Fames Rough
Cut-leaved Germander, 01/05/16, Fames Rough

Comments

Derek Faulkner said…
It's nice to see it reported that habitat disturbance can and is, beneficial. All to often some bloggers quickly moan at the first sight of disturbance on their patch without monitoring the long term benefits that arise. Yes, sometimes there is an immediate, short term, loss of habitat but often, such activation of soil can either spur things back into life, or re-growth of new vegetation can quickly replenish an area that had become tired and tangled.
2 May 2016 at 08:35
Steve Gale said…
You are right Derek, some people cannot see deliberate disturbance (whether it be wholesale clearance, felling of trees or ploughing) as anything but habitat vandalism. Some species need it to survive.
2 May 2016 at 11:19
Derek Faulkner said…
Poor lack of knowledge of countryside management I guess.
2 May 2016 at 15:27
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Kwowww"

On Tuesday evening, at 20.05hrs, I was taking out the rubbish, when I heard a call from south-west of the house. I froze, knowing what it was at once, but scarcely believing it. I had listened to this call on Xeno-Canto many times, getting ready for such a moment but not really considering it something that I would hear over the back garden. After 15 seconds the call came again from the blackness, now directly over head. Yes, there was no mistaking it! Another 20 seconds it called a third time - now further away to the north-east... "Kwowww" A lazy drawl, part bark, part yelp. A Bittern. Nocturnal flight-call. I went back inside and played the call on Xeno Canto just to make sure that I had remembered everything correctly. I had. Bloody hell, a Bittern over suburban Banstead! And only a week after an Arctic Skua had blessed me just a mile or so away. Sometimes the birding Gods do smile on you. To some birders these two species are just small fry, mere starters to the main cou
Read more

Mike Netherwood

Image
I first met Mike Netherwood at Beddington Sewage Farm in early 1975, me being an ultra-keen and ultra-green 16-year old birder, he some 20 years my senior. Mike, together with Ken Parsley, were the remnants of a once much larger ringing group which carried out the trapping and ringing of birds across the open expanse of the sewage farm. Whenever I bumped into them, which I often did, they would both tolerate my many questions about what they had seen and trapped and listen to me waxing lyrical about my own observations. Over the coming months they showed me how they caught the birds, allowed me to witness the ringing and measuring of them and, if I were very lucky, allow me to help them out by holding mist-net poles, carrying bird bags or writing down (scribing) the data that they were collecting into notebooks. By the summer of 1976 I had joined them, proudly in possession of my trainee ringer's permit. For the next three years (until I 'defected' to Dungeness) I spent man
Read more

To tell it like it is, or not...

Image
I am grateful to Gavin Haig (Not Quite Scilly) who drew my attention to an opinion piece, penned by Matt Phelps, which appeared in the November issue of 'Birdwatch' magazine, entitled 'Positive Approach', which I have now read. In it, he suggests that there is too much negativity being posted on social media regarding the state of our birding world, which is then acting as a deterrent towards a younger generation in adopting conservation and wildlife study. He also suggests that a lot of this negativity is being generated by older birders, and that these old timers keep banging on about the 'good old days' which isn't helpful in encouraging the youth to pick up a pair of binoculars and get out into the field. Does he have a point? Now, I am undeniably an older birder, and I am also guilty of having posted, blogged, written and spoken about the slump in bird and invertebrate numbers. I also like nothing better than to revisit my notebooks and share in the hi
Read more