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Who's manifesto is it anyway?

In the autumn, the People's Manifesto for Wildlife went off with a barley audible pop that was more like a wet bubble bursting that...

Friday 26 June 2015

Invasive alien species - has the debate become unbalanced?


The UK is full of non-native species and here is Wessex we have our fair share. Some species have been here so long they seem like natives, such as shepherd's-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) and some of them are welcome, like the orange hawk-weed (Pilosella aurantiaca) in my lawn. But some are not welcome at all, because they are agricultural pests or they are invasive. By that, we mean that they take over the ecological niches occupied by native plants and cause a local drop in plant diversity or even local extinctions. So it is never a case of of "native good, alien bad"; there is much to be gained from active and determined management of the issue.

No one should be in any doubt as to the severity of the issue. World-wide, alien invasive species is one of the top three or four reasons for the accelerated extinction rate we are experiencing in modern times. In the UK, we like to lay blame and the finger is most often pointed at the horticultural sector.

In some quarters, the debates that go on about this topic are becoming confused. None more so than in horticultural circles where people can feel a bit embattled. A recent letter in the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine "The Garden" is a case in point. A paper published by two academics was described as if it was more authoritative than it really deserved. 

So I quickly penned a reply back and I am glad to say that it is published in the latest issue of "The Garden".

Non-native species
Your headline ‘No countrywide threat from non-natives’ (News, May, p10) was overly simplistic. Thomas and Palmer’s paper has been quoted as if it were the last word on the subject. The effect is to cloud the issues around biodiversity conservation in the UK.
The lack of increase in non-native species observed in the Countryside Survey data (the raw data on which the research was based: no new field data was gathered) may well be due to the huge effort being taken to combat them. Between £1–2billion a year is spent in the UK to control and eradicate non-native plant species; this obviously affects the distribution of their populations. That we have still not succeeded in saving our precious landscapes, despite this considerable expenditure, shows just how intractable the problem is.
Habitat loss is the main driver of the loss of biodiversity, but not usually the total destruction of a wood, heath, mire or moor. Rather it is the gradual degradation of the habitat’s quality, a major cause of which is the effect of non-native plants. For instance, an ancient oak woodland may be protected in that the trees cannot be cut down. But if cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) or Rhododendron x superponticum are present, and unless they are controlled and ultimately eradicated, the writing is on the wall for that entire fragile plant community.
Professor Thomas’s bizarre point of view that non-native plants have ‘supplemented, rather than excluded, native species’ is not supported by the experience of decades.
A chalk stream’s riparian plant community is not ‘supplemented’ by Himalayan balsam (
Impatiens glandulifera); the presence of Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) is indeed a threat to any UK native habitat. I work for one of the 46 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in every one of which we are fighting to save our wild plants at landscape scale. I feel that giving this single study such prominence can only cause confusion. 

For more information about this subject, or to join the debate, have a look at Trevor Dines' blog http://www.plantlife.org.uk/about_us/blog/loving_the_alien

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Calling roe for Outstandingly beautiful images and a bit of Digging for History!

Today saw the publication of a new document "So much more than the view..." that describes the great benefits we receive from our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. As I work in an AONB, live in it and do nearly all my photography in AONBs and National Parks in the UK and abroad, I will admit to being biased. I make no apology for having a distinct bias in favour of places that are beautiful, rich in wildlife, offer amazing levels of access to nature and where you can see, feel and smell some of the wildness that is becoming so rare in our world. I encourage you to have a look at it, it can be found here: http://www.landscapesforliferesources.org.uk/images/uploads/pdf/So_much_more_than_the_view.pdf




I was able to contribute three images to the publication: they can be found on page 17. One of them is the portrait of a roe kid that I took in 2008. It just shows that wildlife images that inspire feelings of nurturing, love and protection are enduringly popular. The story behind this image is of some interest.


I took this image while going round a farm with the landowner. I was demonstrating to her how roe deer can be called in by imitating the noises that females make when calling to their kids or calling for a mate during the rut. The two calls are similar, a very soft "feeep" that is often lost amidst the background noise of wind in leaves and birdsong. Moving along a field edge, I saw the tips of four ears poking up above the ripening wheat. I gave the call and it was immediately answered by this little buck kid. His sister stayed in the wheat, but this chap came out and walked up to us, standing while I took photos of him and approaching to within two metres. At that point, I started to talk to him and he eventually worked out that we were not his mother and walked back into the crop. Needless to say, the landowner was pretty bowled over by the experience.

Calling roe deer is not difficult, although it sounds like some sort of Grizzly Adams / Crocodile Dundee tall tale. If you would like to see it done and learn it for yourself, please get in touch and book a session.

And now for something completely different …

Here's a hole I made earlier:


As you can see, it is empty. It is 1m x 1m and about 1.5m deep. It took me all morning to dig. I dug it as one of the 25 test pits in the Digging for History event; which is one of the best bits of the fabulous Chalke Valley History Festival. We were digging on the site of a Medieval village at Fifield Bavant. This is a hamlet beside the River Ebble. It has a 12th Century church (the second smallest in England) and it was much busier in the Romano-British period. It remained busy through the Medieval period when it was known as Stowford.  Other people's holes had walls, arrow heads and pottery. I found some little bits of Greensand building stone and a butchered pig bone. Of course we all feigned a collaborative spirit, working for a greater good, "every hole is important" we were told. But these community activities are pretty competitive and I was NOT one of the winners! I have also found that "photograph of my hole" is in fact a genre of photography; but you must never, never, ever Google it. Really. Believe me.

Wiltshire, particularly South Wiltshire, is one of the most archaeologically rich areas on Earth. Not just because people have studied this area more than anywhere else (which is true, too), but because there is heaps and heaps of stuff from thousands of years of human endeavour lying in the chalky soil. So, to dig a hole in what looks like a good place and find absolutely Sweet Fanny Adams (as my dear old Dad would say) is quite an achievement. If you would like to see what came out of far more interesting holes than mine, come along to the Chalk Valley History Festival on the 27th and 28th June and talk to us in the Salisbury Museum tent.

See you there!

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Summer sun, butterflies and badgers

The long sunny days of June are busy ones for a nature photographer with a full-time job and a full-on biodiversity addiction. So the last few glorious days have been a mad scramble to get out and shoot some images in places that have been at the back of my mind for ages.

Firstly, it was back to the Wessex woodland that featured in the last blog posting to see if the fox family were ready to make their public debut. No such luck, I'm afraid. But I left them with a large Canada goose corpse that had been in the freezer (too long) as a small offering. They will appreciate this delicacy far more than I would have done. However, sitting in my hide as the sun goes down is wonderfully relaxing and always interesting. It is a natural hide under a hawthorn bush that affords a good background in the shadows and a I use throw-over hide that goes over the tripod, camera, lens and me. It overlooks a narrow, dry valley and there is always plenty going on. I watched two young roe deer for a while, then listened to the chattering of magpies in the wood as the fox family tumbled out of the earth, but remained unseen. I watched a half-grown rabbit selecting grass stems to eat and counted three species of orchid in the grass in front of me. Close by the hide is a broom-rape, a parasitic plant that lives off grass roots and has no chlorophyll in it's single priapic spike.

As with all the valleys around the chalk massif of South Wiltshire, this one abounds with badgers. A large boar badger ran across my front, pausing briefly to give me a rather hard stare. I could see another large badger foraging on the other side of the valley and then a sow ran along the same path as the boar.

Badger on the move

The next day and I was out in the afternoon. My trusty guide decided that we should head out to a stretch of downland that has some great views across Salisbury Plain Military Training Area. As it was Trusty Guide's birthday, we went with her plan and as usual, it was a really excellent plan! We wandered across acres of herb-rich grassland, thousands of other grassy acres stretched out to the horizon. The grassland is coming to it's best right now. Tares and vetches scramble through the ripening grass. Chalk milkwort and Star of Bethlehem stud the sward like jewels on baize. Buttercups and birds-foot trefoil are sprinkled throughout. What really draws my eye are the taller spikes of orchids. Common spotted, lesser butterfly, early purple and fragrant orchids are all in flower; and to my huge delight several burnt-tip orchids as well. 

Burnt-tip orchid
This is a truly lovely plant. It looks as though someone has taken it and dipped it's perfect flower. It always reminds me of the iced cream cones you could get in the late sixties; a dollop of vanilla iced cream with sickly-sweet raspberry sauce poured over the top.

A good time for plants is usually a good time for insects as well. Leaf beetles, soldier beetles and six-spot burnet moths flew randomly around the down. I was on the look-out for two species in particular and I was not disappointed.

Salisbury Plain is one of the last strong-holds of the Marsh Fritillary butterfly. This species has recently gone extinct in two European countries, populations are dwindling rapidly, so the Salisbury Plain population is ever-more important. These butterflies had been flying for some time, so most of them were tattered and washed-out, but still wonderfully beautiful.

Marsh Fritillary butterfly
The other speciality of the area is blue butterflies. A large number of Common Blues and some very washed-out and tatty Adonis blues were concentrated around the Birds-foot trefoil; their food plant. Even worn and tatty, the Adonis is one of the absolute stars of British wildlife. The blue is so vibrant that you just can't believe it's British; it should be on the banks of a rainforest river or the hot rocks of a Greek limestone pavement.

Adonis blue: worn and torn
So a great summer weekend, lots of "Wow"s and "There they are!" and "Look at that!" Such huge excitement, such joy.