Nature and Me

Recently, Manchester Museum have been undertaking a project called 'Nature and Me' (http://naturemanchester.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/tree2yourdoor-for-nature-and-me/).  Local people, who were known to be interested in Nature, were invited to make short films describing their passion for the subject. Participants wrote their own scripts and supplied photographs or other illustrations and the films were made and edited by persons skilled in that art. I took part in this project and was filmed last year, partly at Stockport College and partly in Chorlton. The Producer of my film was a gentleman named Didier DuBois.

This project is now complete and I have been told that a total of 42 films have been made. The project was launched one night last week at the Museum. If you visit the Zoology Gallery you can see all of the films running in continuous loops on three or four screens. For some reason my film, and one other, seem to have found their way on to You Tube; you can see mine here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O-odLKVJRA

Frankly, I find it a bit embarrassing watching myself on screen but others have told me that they enjoyed the film (Didier should have got someone else to play me though ... George Clooney or Tom Hanks, perhaps?).

Anyway, I bet mine's the only one to mention the 'Scarlet Peony of Constantinople'!


Dave Bishop, 10.03.2013

Nest Box Checking, 2013

In 2011 FoCM obtained a Council grant which allowed us to put up 20 bird boxes on the Chorlton Ees and Ivy Green Local Nature Reserve (see John Agar’s blog entry for March 2011). We put up 10 boxes on the Ivy Green side of Chorlton Brook and 10 on the Chorlton Ees side.

Last year (15.01.2012) we checked to see if any of the boxes had been used over the previous nesting season, and to clean out those with old nests in. The results of this exercise are described in the blog post for 19.01.2013.

A couple of Sundays ago (17.02.2013) a group of us repeated the exercise. Again, it was John Agar’s son Mark who climbed the ladder and wielded the electric screwdriver to detach the boxes from their trees and then to re-attach them.

On the Ivy Green side of the brook all 10 boxes were still in place, but on the Chorlton Ees side only four of the original 10 were left (down from six the previous year).

Eight of the boxes we checked contained dry (-ish) nesting material and no eggs. We concluded that the occupiers of these nests had probably raised successful broods. Two boxes contained very damp material. This probably meant that these boxes had been penetrated by rain during the exceptionally wet summer of 2012; we couldn’t be certain if these soggy nests had contained successful broods (they could even have been abandoned part way through nest building). Three boxes contained un-hatched eggs and one contained a dead bird. Although the corpse was vey degraded, John thought that it was probably a Great Tit.

Most of the nests were, as we observed last year, constructed of moss on a foundation of dry grass. Nevertheless, a few contained fibres derived from human sources. Some contained bright red, wool-like fibres - which we couldn’t identify. There were also fluorescent, green-ish yellow fibres in some nests. FoCM member, Chris Hirst suddenly realised that these fibres came from tennis balls (!) Dog owners regularly take tennis balls into the area to throw for their pets to chase. The balls must, equally regularly, get lost and the nesting birds obviously see their bright, fibrous coverings as an ideal source of nesting material. I’m tempted to interpret the inclusion of these fibres as a form of avian interior decorating ... but mustn’t get carried away!

Even more bizarrely, a few of the damper boxes contained colonies of slugs. By coincidence a person from Inverness recently wrote to the Guardian about slugs in nest boxes; she wrote:

“Last autumn I took down the wooden bird houses from the silver birch and one of them when I opened it had at least 36 large slugs packed very, very tightly together in the box ... stuffed in. They appeared to be possibly hibernating although it was still early autumn and not cold. Actually looking at them it was rather like opening a tin of pilchards and seeing them all packed neatly and tightly together. I was so revolted that I could only rush to dispose of them and didn't even check whether they were alive or dead.”
None of our boxes contained that many slugs!

The above quote was contained in article by the Guardian correspondent, Jane Perrone (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2013/feb/20/slugs) and contains some surprising information, namely that the slugs in the box were, almost certainly a “non-social aggregation” and probably represented a strategy to conserve moisture (do slugs ever ‘aggregate socially, I wonder? Getting carried away again! Sorry!). Also a group of slugs is called a “cornucopia”. Who knows? Perhaps you’ll get an opportunity to use that fact in a social situation!

I think I’d better stop now ...

Dave Bishop (27.02.2013)

Biophilia and Biophobia in Manchester

Those of you who read this blog might like to follow this link:

http://cultureprobe.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/a-tale-of-two-cities-the-manchester-that-loves-and-hates-wild-nature/#comment-96

 and read the interesting essay by Nadine Andrews of Whalley Range for Wildlife.

The Fate of the Mersey Valley

Dear Friends,

I kept hearing rumours about council spending cuts and the fate of the Mersey Valley and became increasingly concerned. So I e-mailed my three local (i.e. Chorlton) councillors and asked them what was going on. The text of my e-mail is below:

Dear Councillors,

I keep hearing rumours to the effect that the Mersey Valley Countryside Warden Service is to be disbanded. Are these rumours true, or not? If the rumours are true, are Friends groups, like the Friends of Chorlton Meadows, who have devoted hundreds of hours of their free time to the Mersey Valley, going to be properly informed and consulted - or are we just going to have to rely on rumours?

Yours sincerely,
David Bishop, Chair of FoCM

So far I have had the following reply from Cllr Victor Chamberlain:

The Mersey Valley Committee is meeting today [24.01.2013] and I still haven't heard back what the outcome is.

I understand that the City Council's budget proposals mean that the service will close down in April. A cut of £150,000 from MCC along with Trafford's lack of a payment commitment mean that the service is unlikely to survive.

It's really poor that you haven't received any information about this so I will ask the Council how they plan to engage Friends Groups in the proposals and the future.

He subsequently wrote:

I understand that the meeting was very sombre and that members accepted the budget cut. Some Councillors argued that Trafford Council's decision to cut funding last December encouraged Manchester to do the same. Apparently there is going to be a consultation which opens from today however the service is likely to be run down between now and the end of March.

So, the Mersey Valley project appears to be dead and the fate of a well-loved piece of local green space hangs in the balance. As a long-term user of this green space myself I am saddened and angry. I might also ask: What is the point of a consultation when the decision already appears to have been made?

As you are a Mersey Valley user, I’m sure that you will share my concerns, so please, please, please take some time to express those concerns by e-mailing:    

Councillor Rosa Battle, Executive Member for Culture & Leisure (cllr.r.battle@manchester.gov.uk)

Questions that you might like to ask Cllr Battle could include:

-       What are the implications of the disbanding of the Mersey Valley Countryside Warden Service for the future of the Mersey Valley?

-       How does the Council intend to maintain sites like Chorlton Ees/Ivy Green and Chorlton Water Park in the future?

-       How does the Council plan to protect these sites from vandalism and other forms of damage?

-       How does the Council plan to protect Mersey Valley wildlife?

-       Have the Council have any plans for selling off any Mersey Valley sites?

It would probably be a good idea to copy your ward councillors in on this correspondence; you can find your ward councillors here:

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/councillors/ward

It is absolutely essential to keep your message polite!

Please feel free to circulate this blog post to as many people as possible. Let’s show the Council that we love the Mersey Valley and that we don’t intend to lose it!!

Best Regards,

Dave Bishop (FoCM Chair)

Mistletoe

 

Mistletoe is, of course, one of those plants associated with Christmas. I had a couple of encounters with Mistletoe during this festive season, but, alas, I regret to report that none of these encounters involved any of the traditional kissing!

I visited my brother and his family in the Norfolk village of Congham near King’s Lynn. As I’ve reported before, this village is located in glorious ancient countryside with at least two nature reserves, of national importance, nearby and old lanes bordered by rich hedgerows and copses of old oaks. I have to report though that the area is becoming increasingly suburbanised and, I imagine, most of its modern inhabitants are commuters who work in nearby towns (perhaps as far away as Peterborough or Norwich). Although I’m sure that many of Congham’s inhabitants do appreciate the quality of their environment, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that many of them just drive through it and never really see it (when I went for walks I rarely encountered anyone on foot – lots of cars speeding through the village though).

Anyway, I digress! My first encounter with Mistletoe was not on a nature reserve, or in a lane, but on an apple tree in the garden of one of my brother’s neighbours; there were three or four plants in the same tree. But the really major sighting was last Thursday (27.12.2012) from the window of the 12:56 train out of King’s Lynn, on my way back to Manchester. In the suburbs of Lynn, in the middle distance, I spotted an urban park bordered by old Lime trees – probably (hybrid) Common Limes (Tilia x europaea). The boughs of many of these trees were conspicuously adorned with the characteristic frozen starbursts of Mistletoe plants; I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much Mistletoe in such a limited area.

The great expert on the British landscape, Oliver Rackham, tells us that: “Mistletoe is a flowering plant usually seen on exotic trees – cultivated apple, hybrid lime, hybrid poplar – with a preference for old specimens ... It has a natural habitat on ancient native trees, especially hawthorns.” He also tells us that there is evidence to suggest that Mistletoe was never a woodland species but a characteristic plant of more open, ancient savannahs. I vividly recall finding it on a Hawthorn bush on the Barnack Hills and Holes nature reserve in Cambridgeshire. It was only after reading Rackham’s book that I realised that I had been afforded a privileged glimpse of a prehistoric landscape!

There is only one species of Mistletoe in Britain: the plant with the scientific name, Viscum album. Worldwide there are many other species, all belonging to the family, Santalaceae.

Mistletoe, like Yellow Rattle which I referred to in the last post, is a hemi-parasite i.e. it derives some of its nourishment from the host tree but also has chlorophyll in its leaves which allows it, like most plants, to synthesise sugars from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the process being powered by sunlight. A severe infestation of Mistletoe can actually kill a tree.

Mistletoe seeds are delivered to the host tree by birds. An interesting website, called ‘The Mistletoe Pages: a website about the original mistletoe of western tradition and folklore’ (link below) has more to say about which species of bird are involved:

“[Mistletoe] relies entirely on winter birds for berry, and therefore seed, distribution – so birds are essential. Secondly the white sticky berries of Viscum album are not attractive to many birds – many ignore them as they are looking for red, orange, black or blue berries (mistletoe is the only native British species with white berries) and even if they try them the birds are put off by the super-glue quality of the berry pulp. So which birds do take mistletoe berries? In Britain the answer is largely Mistle Thrushes, whose common name and latin name, Turdus viscivorus, hint at a mistletoe specialism. Other thrushes – including Redwings, Fieldfares etc will also eat the berries. But despite their name Mistle Thrushes aren’t really mistletoe specialists as they occur commonly across the country in areas with no mistletoe, where they will eat many other berries. Furthermore they’re not really very efficient at spreading mistletoe. They usually swallow the whole berry, seed and all, excreting a mass of semi-digested berry pulp and seeds about 30 minutes later. Some of those seeds, still sticky, may stick to a branch where they can germinate. Most will not – often hanging uselessly below a branch. A few other birds will eat mistletoe too, including Waxwings and a few other relatively uncommon species, but the most efficient mistletoe spreading species is the Blackcap. These smart little birds only swallow the berry skin and pulp, wiping each seed off their beak before swallowing – and so they are much more efficient than Mistle Thrushes. Blackcaps in Britain migrate south for the winter, so they have not, traditionally, been a factor in mistletoe distribution in the UK. But changing migration patterns in the last 20-30 years have led to first 100s and now 1000s, of migrant Blackcaps from Germany visiting Britain each winter.”

This website also tells us that the main stronghold for Mistletoe in Britain is in the South and West Midlands, but that the distribution appears to be changing – possibly as either the result of climate change or the changed migration patterns of Blackcaps.

Mistletoe always seems to have been rare or uncommon in the Manchester region. The shoemaker botanist, Richard Buxton, in his flora of 1849, gives only two locations:

“Parasitical upon apple trees. In the neighbourhood of Pilkington and Prestwich.”

Ten years later his contemporary, Leo Grindon reported in more detail:

 “On apple-trees in garden and orchards at Lymm; Warburton; Atherton near Leigh .. Prestwich (also on hawthorns), Knutsford, Baguley and elsewhere, but very sparingly, and generally out of public view or Christmas thieves would have destroyed what little there is.”

Until recently I thought that Mistletoe must be extinct in this region but, amazingly, I now have two sites for it – both in Common Limes in the Didsbury area (I don’t want to be too specific for fear of [modern] “Christmas thieves”!). The photograph above was taken at one of my sites. As Common Limes are - well - common in parks and cemeteries, I can think of plenty of places where it might be worth searching for more local Mistletoe.

Dave Bishop, December 2012.

References:

Rackham, O.  ‘Woodlands’, Collins, 2006.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe

The Mistletoe Pages: http://mistletoe.org.uk/homewp/

Buxton, R. ‘A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algae Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester’, Longman And Co., 1849.

 

 

Grindon, L. ‘The Manchester Flora’, William White, 1859.

Making a Meadow on Ivy Green

 

 

Species-rich, semi-natural grasslands (e.g. traditional hay meadows) are now some of the rarest habitats in Britain, and they are also some of the most colourful and biodiverse.

Up until the Second World War such grasslands were common – particularly in river valleys. These meadows were full of wild flowers and were at their most glorious in May and June. In late summer they were cut (traditionally using scythes) and the cut grass left to dry in the sun. Once dry, the ‘hay’ was raked into piles, loaded onto horse-drawn carts and dragged away to be stored in barns, eventually to be fed to animals during the winter months.

I don’t suppose many of the old farmers thought too much about the effect they were having on biodiversity (!) Nevertheless, the drying and raking stages helped to spread the wild flower seeds (not to mention the grass seeds) and removing the hay crop kept the nutrient content of the soil on the low side. This may seem counter-intuitive but high nutrient levels lead to the habitat being dominated by a few vigorous species, whereas lower nutrient levels tend to suppress these species whilst giving more delicate species a chance to flourish.

After the Second World War millions of acres of meadowland were ploughed up and planted with crops or turned into species-poor ‘ley’ meadows dominated by Perennial Rye-grass. In the Mersey Valley the ancient meadows were tipped on, turned into golf courses or sports fields or grossly over-grazed by horses. But when I first moved to Chorlton, in the 1970s, there were still small patches of species-rich grassland left, with some of the original meadow flora. The local authorities then committed a series of outrageous acts of crass vandalism by planting trees on many of these precious patches. This was basically a stupid and perverse assault – a bit like gluing a false moustache onto the upper lip of a beautiful woman! It led me to formulate Bishop’s First Law, i.e. an organisation’s knowledge of, or concern for, its local environment is inversely proportional to it propensity to plant trees.   Whenever I walk on Chorlton Ees (i.e. Chorlton Meadows) and see those gloomy, species-poor pseudo-woods that dominate the area now, I mourn for the rich, colourful place that we could have had if the local authorities had known what they were doing.

I have reason to believe that the old local meadows were of a type that ecologists call ‘Alopecurus-Sanguisorba’ – that is meadows dominated by the grass Meadow Foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis)

 

 

 and the herb Great Burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis).
 

 

A defined suite of other species tend to accompany these two dominant ones. A sad, degraded remnant of such a meadow is still just about visible near Sale Water Park.

I was wandering across Ivy Green, one day last June, admiring a large patch of Meadow Foxtail, and thinking, “wouldn’t some Great Burnet look good with that?” Suddenly I stopped in amazement because with the grasses were a few plants of Great Burnet - in a site where I’ve never recorded that species before! Frankly, I can’t explain how they got there and how I had previously failed to spot them. It occurred to me that here was an opportunity to attempt to re-create a Mersey Valley hay meadow.

I asked the Mersey Valley Wardens if they could strim the area in late summer or early autumn. They did so, and then last Sunday (13.10.2012) members of FoCM raked off the hay. This wasn’t too easy because, after all the rain recently, the hay was sodden (luckily we weren’t planning feed it to any animals). One of our members said that raking this soggy mess reminded him of combing the knots out of one of his children’s tangled hair.

Although two of the appropriate species are present on our site, many other key species are missing. In the weeks leading up to our hay raking day I had been gathering appropriate seeds from up and down the Mersey Valley. After we had finished raking, and had removed the hay, I mixed these seeds with some dry sand and broadcast the mixture over the site.

Species I chose included some more Great Burnet plus Bistort, Meadow Buttercup, some vetches and Red Clover and two dandelion look-a-likes: Common Catsear and Autumn Hawkbit. Most important, I added seeds of Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor). This plant is a ‘hemi-parasite’ – which means that although its leaves contain chlorophyll and are green, it also attaches itself to the roots of grasses and steals nutrients from them.  This suppresses the grasses and reduces the competition with the more delicate plants.
 

 

When attempting a project like this it is extremely important to use local seed and not any old imported ‘wild flower mix’. Perhaps I’ll get round to explaining why in a future post. Suffice it to say that, contrary to popular opinion, planting any old ‘wild flower’ seeds in the countryside can be as damaging to local biodiversity as planting the wrong trees in the wrong place.

So, will all of this effort pay off? We’ll have to wait at least until next May to find out – watch this space!

Dave Bishop, October 2012

An Encounter with the Trichomanes Gametophyte

 

On Saturday afternoon I, and some fellow fern enthusiasts, got very excited about a green, fuzzy patch on the wall of a rock crevice. For reasons which will be revealed later, I can't tell you where this was - but it wasn't in the Mersey Valley.

I suppose I'd better explain:

In Britain and Ireland there are three species of, so-called, 'filmy ferns'. These are Wilson's Filmy Fern (Hymenophyllum wilsonii), the Tunbridge Filmy Fern (H. tunbridgense) and the Killarney Bristle Fern (Trichomanes speciosum). These grow in wet, sheltered sites on rock faces - usually in areas with high rainfall. They all have translucent leaves which are only one cell thick (hence the 'filmy fern' name). In the 19th century colonies of the handsomest of these species, T. speciosum, were practically destroyed by fern collectors, and they have never really recovered. At least the colonies of the adult form of T. speciosum - i.e. the spore-bearing or 'sporophyte' stage - have never recovered but, relatively recently, an extraordinary discovery was made. Ferns have a complicated life cycle and before they reach the sporophyte stage go through a 'gametophyte' stage in which a female element is fertilised by a male element. Typical fern gametophytes are usually tiny, heart-shaped scales clinging to rocks or soil.

Around 30 or 40 years ago Donald Farrar, a professor of botany at Iowa State University, discovered that certain American fern species, including filmy ferns, produce 'independent gametophytes' - tiny plantlets that never produce adult sporophytes; they exist in a state of permanently arrested development. He discovered colonies of these independent gametophytes by examing the interiors of rock crevices, fissures and other shady places with a torch (OK - a 'flashlight'!). Unlike typical fern gametophytes, the independent gametophytes of the American filmy fern species, Trichomanes intricatum, are like green mats of thread-like filaments - sometimes covering several square metres. They reproduce via tiny, specialised buds, called 'gemmae', which become detached and dispersed to new locations.

In 1989 Prof. Farrar was on sabbatical leave in Britain and found colonies of the independent gametophyte of T. speciosum here. This discovery prompted further research and such colonies have now been found in several areas of Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

The big question, of course, is how did this phenomenon arise? The American fern expert, Robbin C. Moran, has put forward an extraordinary explanation: Most filmy ferns are tropical species found clinging to trees in rain and cloud forests. Until the middle of the Tertiary period, 35 million years ago, such forests existed in America and Europe. Then the climate began to cool and become more seasonal, culminating in the last Ice Age. A few species hung on as sporophytes in wetter, somewhat warmer areas (like western regions of Britain and Ireland) but in other drier, colder areas they 'toughed out' the climate change by confining themselves to the stable micro-climates in rock crevices and similar places, and arresting their development to their gametophyte stages. So, and I hardly dare write this, those little green patches that we saw on Saturday, and which were not noticed until just over 20 years ago, have probably existed in Britain for millions of years!

The colonies of T. speciosum gametophytes which we found on Saturday looked like thin layers of bright green cotton wool pasted to the rock and we had to use torches to see them (and because of the cramped and awkward conditions my photo is rubbish - well, that's my excuse!).

All stages of T. speciosum are protected by law in Britain and Ireland (it's a Red Data Book species) - which is why I can't tell you where the site is. A passerby asked us what we were looking at and, I'm ashamed to say, we lied and told him that we were looking for mosses. On the bright side, though, by lying we didn't have to kill him and he didn't have to endure my explanation of what a gametophyte is!

Dave Bishop, September 2012

References:

Moran, R.C., 'A Natural History of Ferns', Timber Press, 2004

Rich, T.C.G. & Jermy, A.C., 'Plant Crib 1998', BSBI, 1998