Ptyxis Ecology - Our Botany Blog

Ecology careers

2008-07-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Want a career in ecology?

As a professional ecologist and botanist, and a trained teacher, I often get asked for advice on ecology careers. Training is a major part of my freelance work, and I teach undergraduates and postgraduates at Newcastle University. I also sit on the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management’s (IEEM) working group on the ecology skills gap, a project addressing the fact that many biology and ecology degree courses do not train students in the vocational skills that employers are looking for.

Working in nature conservation is extremely competitive. There are currently more opportunities in commercial ecological consultancies, working mainly for the corporate sector (such as property developers, wind energy companies etc), but also for local authorities and government agencies. To maximise your opportunities during your early career, you will need to be prepared to develop your CV by volunteering and to move around the country for work.

Top tips for careers in ecology

What is your summer project about? If you want a job in the UK ecology sector, make sure you do a project on British or Irish habitats and /or species! Although the large ecological consultancies do require ecologists to conduct survey work abroad, this is generally in Europe or North America. If you do a project on African or Asian ecology, expect to work for organizations who work in Africa or Asia, such as universities or international charities. You will not be attractive to the British conservation sector or commercial consultancies.

Build up the evidence for your skills by volunteering. You need to make time to do this at weekends; it is at least worth as much as a high grade degree, arguably more. There are plenty of first class honours graduates without jobs because they have not got any work experience. You need to show that you have the skills listed in IEEM’s booklet ‘what every graduate should know’ which is available from http://www.ieem.org.uk/

Botany – by which I mean plant identification and survey skills – is in demand. Consultancies are very short of young graduates who are proficient botanists. Join BSBI, attend their field meetings and put this on your CV. No one expects you to be an expert overnight; but you do need to show a serious commitment to improving your field identification skills and going on BSBI meetings demonstrates this. BSBI also offer a one day test and a certificate, called a Field Skills Identification Qualification or FISQ, to evidence how good a botanist you really are, which also looks good on your CV. See http://www.bsbi.org.uk/html/field_skills.html

Whether you plan to be a mammal ecologist, entomologist or an ornithologist, all commercial consultancies need graduates who can do a Phase 1 habitat survey. Find out about this by reading the survey handbook (it’s amazing how many interview candidtates don’t do this!); go on a short course (The Field Studies Council http://www.field-studies-council.org/ and IEEM www.ieem.net both run Phase 1 habitat survey courses); do a voluntary Phase 1 survey for your local Wildlife Trust to prove to employers that you can really do it!

Be careful when you choose an MSc course. Having an MSc will not assist you in finding a job if you still have little or no work experience. Look for an MSc that has a strong vocational element: training in ecological survey methods combined with business skills, like project management and negotiation skills, which you will need in the workplace.

Good luck!!

Clare O'Reilly

Blysmus bliss!

2008-07-03T12:29:00.001-07:00

As you can see from my face, I was pleased to find Blysmus compressus (flat sedge) the other day when Clare and I looked for it at one of its previously known sites near where we live at Lambley, on the South Tyne river, Northumberland.

The river's edge habitat (which is regularly flooded) is apparently one of its typical habitats in Northumberland. There was a very big colony here - we estimated over 6,000 flowering spikes.

Flat sedge is a good name for it as the inflorescence is very flattened, which makes it fairly easy to separate from other sedges.

Close-up of Blysmus with its stigmas sticking out.

This is an uncommon species nationally with a real cluster of records around our part of the north of England as you can see from the BSBIs distribution map -http://www.bsbimaps.org.uk/atlas/map_page.php?spid=245.0&sppname=Blysmus%20compressus&commname=Flat-sedge

We were looking for this as part of the BSBI's threatened plant survey. Botanists all over Britian are going out searching old sites for 10 uncommon and declining species (including Blysmus) and recording detailed information and accurate grid references when they find it or reasons why it might have gone extinct when they don't find it.

In my view this is the best survey that BSBI has organised for a long time, but its a shame they are keeping it a secret. If you want to find out any more about it you will have to contact your county recorder.

John

Small-white orchid and bluebell banks

2008-06-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

The Weardale Gazette recently reported that "John O'Reilly excited himself by finding a rare plant in a meadow near Wolsingham". The rare plant in question was Alchemilla acutiloba which is not that rare in Weardale but is very rare elsewhere. Well, yesterday I 'excited myself'' even more by finding 8 spikes of small-white orchid Pseudorchis albida on a bank in the Holwick area of Teesdale. Out of about 450 meadows that I've surveyed so far this is only the 2nd time I have found it and the other time it was shown to me by Linda Robinson.

I surveyed this meadow on 5th June and was puzzled by this orchid spike in bud:

I assumed at the time that it was probably Platanthera chlorantha which is quite uncommon and a nice thing to find, but it didn't look quite right. The flower buds showed no sign of the elongated pedicels you would expect with greater butterfly-orchid but I thought that might just be because of the early stage of development. But the stem leaves seemed too big and the flower buds were very numerous and congested on the spike. I thought the stem leaves and overall shape of the spike was right for Pseudorchis but I doubted it was that because the plant was about 10 inches high already which I thought was too big and also because it is so rare around here.

So here it is in all its glory 8 days later:

It is not the most spectacular-looking species in the world but a nice find beacuse it is so uncommon and it usually indicates very nice habitat. One of the best things about it was that I told the farmer that I found it and he rang me back later on to ask how could he grow more of them on the bank!

I didn't take a proper habitat shot but you can see some of the associated species in this shot:

If you look closely you will see lots of leaves of Succisa pratensis and Hyacinthoides non-scripta, some Potentilla erecta and Conopodium majus a flowering stem of Festuca rubra, and STOP PRESS!..... I've just this minute noticed something with a spike of flowers in bud in the bottom right hand corner which I think is Persicaria vivipara - I will have to go back again to check that out.

This bank was quite large, about 15-20 metres top to bottom and about 100m long, the vegetation was fairly homogenous throughout. The dominant species were Devil's-bit scabious, bluebell, pignut, tormentil and creeping soft-grass. I was very puzzled as to what this would be in the NVC but I think I've worked it out now. One of the best places to look for Pseudorchis albida in upland hay meadows is apparently in U4c vegetation on banks (see my blogs from last year about banks in meadows). I think the vegetation above is a form of MG5c which grades into U4c depending on the soil characteristics. The main difference between the two is the grass component of the flora. MG5c has more of the broad-leaved bulkier grasses (here it had both Holcus species, Dactylis glomerata and Helictotrichon pubescens) and bulkier herbs like Centaures nigra, whereas the dominant grasses in U4c tend to be fine-leaved species like Festuca rubra and ovina and Agrostis capillaris.

Bluebells are a prominant feature of grasslands in meadows in Teesdale and in the Greta valley. In the NVC bluebell does not feature prominently in any of the tables describing the published grassland communities, so it has taken me a while to work out which communities are involved. Not far from the bank described above it occurs in another very large bank in vegetation with some similarities to the type of MG5c described above, except that in has some more typical acid grassland indicators like Galium saxatile and has a canopy of bracken. This 2nd type of vegetation is clearly a good match to U20a.

A third type of grassland where it occurs abundantly is almost identical to the U20a except that it has no bracken. So you could call this either 'U20a without bracken' or 'U4a with lots of bluebell'?

A forth type is quite common in narrow strips along the base of walls or along the lines where there used to be a wall within a field. This vegetation has clearly developed along these walls since they were erected and is not relict woodland vegetation. Usually the vegetation is overwhelmingly dominated by Holcus mollis and Hyacinthoides non-scripta, sometimes with the odd bit of Urtica dioica, Dactylis glomerata, Dryopteris filix-mas or Conopodium majus. This vegetation is an excellent match to W25a, except that there is no bramble or other woody species. Perhaps it is a stage in the development towards W25a!

It also occurs in more typical MG3 and the richer forms of MG6 that grade into MG3.

John

Eyebrights in old hay meadows

2008-06-07T04:20:00.000-07:00

The hay meadow survey season has come around again. My job at this time of year is to survey lots of upland hay meadows in the north Pennines (the bits of the Pennines in Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland), to advise on their management and to find species-rich meadows to use as a source of 'green hay' for introducing seed to other meadows being restored nearby. Species-rich upland hay meadows ('MG3b' in the NVC) differ from southern or lowland meadows in having lots of wood crane's-bill and other northern montane species.

Wood crane's-bill in an upland hay meadow in Weardale

In a lot of the meadows the sheep have only been put out about 2 weeks ago and this week more and more species have been coming into flower. The meadows will probably be at their most colourful next week. The picture below shows a close up of a fairly common type of vegetation that we get in the north Pennines meadows. This is what I call MG6+. It is semi-improved and so lacks the special northern montane species. It is often quite herb-rich with more than 60% cover of herbs, but it is not really species-rich, being dominated by a few common species like red clover, buttercups, pignut, ribwort plantain and often a lot of yellow rattle. This vegetation is a bit too rich to fit in to standard MG6 and not rich enough to be called MG3 or MG5 so I call it MG6+.

Colourful MG6+ vegetation in a meadow in Weardale

Just before the season started this year I got my eyebrights determined by the BSBI's eyebright expert Alan Silverside. My job gives me the opportunity to access lots of meadow on private land most of which may never have been visited by a botanist. So, it is worth making the effort to try to work out some of the critical groups or at least to collect specimens so that an expert can identify them.

Euphrasia arctica arctica

It seems that the eyebright I have been finding most frequently in these meadows is Euphrasia arctica arctica. This is an 'old hay meadow' specialist. Until a few years ago it was thought that this sub-arctic taxon (whose main stronghold is the Faroe Islands) was confined in Britain to Orkney and Shetland. However it turns out that it probably occured throughout the range of Euphrasia arctica in Britain (i.e. most of the northern half and upland areas in Britain) but has largely died out in most places due to both loss of old hay meadow habitat and being hybidised out by the more competitive, 'weedy' Euphrasia arctica borealis.

A stand of Euphrasia arctica arctica near Blanchland in Northumberland

As with other eyebrights, hybrids are common which makes identification a bit of a nightmare! I can't distinguish between true Euphrasia arctica and hybrids so I collect specimens and allow the expert to identify them properly. In the field I can only split the upland hay meadow eyebrights into 2 main groups - The Euphrasia arctica types and the Euphrasia rostkoviana (officinalis) types which are much rarer. Last year I found Euphrasia rostkoviana montana (Euphrasia officinalis monticola) 4 times out of about 250 meadows surveyed. It has very large flowers for a Euphrasia and has long hairs with tiny glands on the end.

Euphrasia rostkoviana montana

This is now a UKBAP species as it has suffered a massive decline and grows only in upland hay meadows which have themselves suffered a massive decline. Its current range in Britain is Wales, Yorkshire Dales, north Pennines, Cumbria and the Scottish Borders. Alan was delighted to see this again as there had been no authenticated records from the Pennines for about 30 years and he thought it may have gone completely extinct in the Pennines. I will be looking out for it carefully again this year.

John

There's something else in the bog!

2008-06-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

See our post of 19th January for pictures of amazing-looking testate amoebae taken by Chris Carter. Chris really wanted to find desmids (a type of unicellular alga with lateral symmetry) in the sphagnum samples but the samples I collected the first time were not from the right bit of the bog. So since then I have been collecting the most gungy, horrible-looking bits of sphagnum from bog pools. The more gungy they are the more excited Chris gets!

Here are some stunning photos of some of the desmids he has found in sphagnum samples from Widdybank Fell in upper Teesdale:

I think that these next ones are testate amobae again rather than desmids:

There is a method of assigning conservation value to mire sites based on the species of desmids that is used in the Netherlands. Using the first 3 small sphagnum samples Chris found 17 species (8 of which were red list) which already gives Widdybank fell a score of 6 out of 10. The pictures above are from 2 more samples collected recently and already Chris has found several extra species so this will result in an even higher conservation score from a very small amount of sampling.

The bog at Widdybank Fell is very species-rich and is well known for its conservation value for other groups of species. On my last visit Viola rupestris and Gentiana verna were flowering in the limestone grassland surrounding the bog and Minuartia stricta (at its only British site) was just about to flower in a flush. There was constant calling from golden plovers in the background and we almost stepped on a dunlin.

Viola rupestris growing on eroding sugar limestone at Widdybank Fell

John

The flower and the fly

2008-05-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Bank of globeflower by River Ithing.

Its always good to see a bank full of globeflower! Its not a common sight even up here in the north! The flowers have their own wow factor and area sign of a very good habitat. But apart from all that, there is a very interesting story to be told about globeflower flies. To these critters the globe-flower really is their world!

Guess what's inside me?

If you google globeflower you will find lots of scientific papers on globeflower flies (or Chiastocheta species). The flower and the flies are a classic case of mutualism (what people used to call symbiosis). They have co-evolved, as globeflower depends on these particular flies for pollination and the larvae of these particular flies feed on nothing else but globeflower seeds.

That's interesting enough but it gets better! There are at least 6 different species of these flies and several of them can co-exist in the same flower without competing with each other. Each occupies a slightly different niche within this tiny secret world. They largely seem to avoid competing with each other by developing at different stages of the seed development.

A big fly and a small fly!

So, next time you find a globeflower, take a look inside. We had a look inside some flowers by the River Irthing on the Cumbria/Northumberland border on Sunday and found about 5 or 6 flies of different sizes in each one.

However, if you look on the NBN gateway website you will see that there are hardly any records for any Chiastocheta species in the whole country and none at all for our part of the world in the north Pennines and south Northumberland! But they must be here! Otherwise how would the flowers reproduce, unless they just reproduce vegetatively all the time? It just goes to show how little we know about the natural world still. Invertebrates in the uplands seem to have had hardly any attention.

And finally, nothing to do with globeflowers or flies but we found this toad at a place called Tod Hole so we just had to say goodbye from 'Toad of Tod Hole'!

I'm Toad of Tod Hole!

John & Clare

Hummocks of brown Sphagnum

2008-05-04T02:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very satisfying day in the field. I went up to Kielder to check out a site that had old records for Sphagnum austinii. This is a special species for several reasons. It is very uncommon nationally and has only been recorded at 4 sites in Northumberland. It always grows only in the best quality bog habitat and in bogs that have not been mis-managed. And it used to be our most abundant peat-forming Sphagnum species in the past. Estimates reckon it formed about 80% of our peat and sometimes it is still possible to identify its leaves (due to the distinctive lamellae on the green cells) at the bottom of the peat. Here is a close-up image of the surface of a hummock:

Sphagnum austinii

In the few sites where it is found nowadays it can form very big hummocks which are very hard. Some people say you can sit on it and leave no impression behind but maybe that's exaggerating slightly! You can imagine how it would be a good peat-former when you see those big hummocks. I found two hummocks of it yesterday in a very wet bog. These hummocks were not very big but they were easy to find as most of the bog was incredibly flat. The few hummocks of Sphagnum that were there really stood out.

Low hummock of Sphagnum austinii in wet bog at Kielder

In the picture above you can see a lot of surface water in the background . This is the kind of bog where it would be useful to have snow shoes. The extensive wet part of the bog had about 50% surface water interspersed with flat carpets of Sphagnum rather than hummocks. Most of the Sphagnum was papillosum, magellanicum, capillifolium and tenellum. There was also lots of sundews, cranberry and bog rosemary. In the NVC this vegetation is known as M18a. This is known to be one of the wettest types of bog communities, described as 'saturated' and this example was probably towards the wetter end of this normally wet community.

The brown of Sphagnum austinii contrasting with the red of Sphagnum magellanicum on the left.

From the pictures above you can see it is a very brown species and this is a good way of initially recognising it in the field. Where you find Sphagnum austinii it is always worth looking for another uncommon brown species Sphagnum fuscum. This differs in having much more narrow branch leaves - like a brown version of Sphagnum capillifolium. It is a bit more common than austinii in the north of Scotland but it is even more rare than austinii in Northumberland.

Surface of Sphagnum fuscum hummock.

Before yesterday it had only ever been recorded at one site in Northumberland - the famous Muckle Moss. Sure enough, after a bit of searching I was able to find a single hummock.

Prominent hummock of Sphagnum fuscum in flat area of bog.

Both of these species are indicators of really good quality habitat and both have suffered massive declines. If one of these wet bogs is drained or burnt even once these species quickly dissapear, usually never to return. Yesterday the way the tiny number of hummocks of these two species stood out from the flat bog surface was quite melancholy as it made them look very isolated!

John

Epiphytes in a Northumberland wood

2008-02-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I went out hunting bryophytes with Doug McCutcheon and Ian Craft. We were trying to relocate a rare moss that Doug had found a few years ago in the woods between Bellingham and Hareshaw Linn waterfall. The woods were fairly ordinary at first with mainly the usual common species present. When we got about half way up we started to find more interesting species. The epiphyte communities were especially interesting, particularly close to the stream where the athomosphere was most humid.

As a rule in Britain, the further west you go, the more diverse the epiphytes. There are many species that have an extreme western distribution in Britain. So unsurprisingly the best places to find these species in Northumberland are probably in the extreme west of the county. The valleys of the South Tyne and Irthing are probably well worth exploring.

But the woods at Bellingham had some very nice uncommon species. Ian took all of the photos below. The first one is a nice shot of Frullania dilatata which is a common enough species but very noticable and attractive when it is this dark red colour. There is a tiny bit of Radula complanata (the pale green one) poking in at the top of the photo. This is also reasonably common but usually grows in fairly good quality habitat for epiphytes.

This little cushion-forming moss growing on the twig is Ulota drummondii. Most Ulota species nearly always grow on twigs. This is a fairly uncommon species in Britain and in England it is very uncommon and now more or less confined to Northumberland and nearby bits of Cumbria and Durham. I had never seen it before but Doug has found it several times in Northumberland and was able to point out its distinguishing features to me. The lower parts of the shoots have a reddish tinge and the peristome teeth are white and stick out.

By the stream on several trees there were lots of patches of this Metzgeria (a small thalloid liverwort). Unlike the very common Metzgeria furcata, this species has attenuate (narrowed to the tip) branches that stick out and are covered with tiny green gemmae (vegetative propagules). Doug and I both brought some home to check which species it was. Doug's plant was Metzgeria fruticulosa but mine looked more like Metzgeria temperata. I've sent this away to be checked by the BBS referee for Metzgeria. If it is right then its only the 2nd record for Northumberland for this species, the first one was only last year from a tree next to the South Tyne.

There are two epiphytic lichens (which Doug identified) in this shot. The one on the right with the light brown/reddish bits at the end of the thalli is Peltigera praetextata. Clinging closer to the tree and occupying most of the rest of the photo is Protopannaria pezizoides. This was a stiking species forming big patches, the red bits looked a bit redder in real life. Doug was very excited to find this as it is fairly rare, mainly occuring in north and west Scotland and had not been recorded from this wood since 1897! There was at least one other epiphytic lichen that we saw in the wood which is a good indicator of long ecological continuity in woodland.

Britain probably has more variety in its epiphytic communities than any other country in Europe (maybe apart from Norway and Ireland), but they get virtually zero attention in the conservation world. One of my 'big ideas' is to some day do a detailed study of epiphyte communities accross the country. As far as I know the type of comprehensive study I have in mind has only been done once before by JJ Barkman in Holland. But before I can embark on something so ambitious I really need to develop my ID skills more. After putting a lot of time in over 5 years I'm starting to feel like I'm getting there with bryophytes, but while I'm still learning them I just don't have enough room in my brain to cope with lichens also.

However, watch out for my tome on British Epiphyte communities in about 40 years time!

There's something in the bog!

2008-01-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

It still always amazes me just how mind-boggling the diversity of wild plants and animals is and how little any one person can ever hope to learn about it. Have a look at these pictures of testate amobae taken by Chris Carter from blanket bog on the watershed between Weardale and Allendale.

I met Chris on a training course last year and as he knew I was interested in Sphagnum he asked me to send him some samples so that he could have a look at what was living in the water amongst the Sphagnum. Chris was particularly interested to see what desmids there were, but he mainly found amobae in the samples I sent him as the samples were mainly from the drier bits of the bog.

Here is a good link on desmids http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/wimsmall/algdr.html

and here's one on testate amobae http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artjun03/gsamoebae.html

It was really difficult to choose only a few of Chris's photos but here are some of my favourites...

Meet Arcella arenaria...

What has this Nebella swallowed?

You wouldn't want to meet Euglypha compressa on your way home on a dark night!

Later that evening... Nebella again. I think it had too much kebab. Or maybe it was the fresh air?

John

North Pennines Sphagna project

2008-01-14T03:33:00.000-08:00

Sphagnum subnitens

The Sphagna research project involves recording vascular plants, bryophytes and macrolichens, together with a range of environmental variables, in 200 quadrats in randomly selected upland one km squares. The project aims to investigate the ecological niches occupied by species of Sphagnum that occur in blanket bog and wet heath in the North Pennines. Results will be applied to hone upland condition assessment methodologies used in the North Pennines and may generate hypotheses for future work. This project is part of a suite of research funded by the Peatscapes Project. Peatscapes aims to conserve and enhance the internationally important peatland resource within the North Pennines (see below for more about Peatscapes).

Bog pool in Novermber!

As the field work was conducted in November, these photos are not very colourful!!

Version of M19 heather/hare’s-tail cottongrass blanket mire with canes marking quardat extent

Observations so far, from 90 quadrats completed, include:

We anticipated that species such as Sphagnum subnitens (pictured above) Sphagnum tenellum and Sphagnum compactum may be associated with blanket bog in poor or damaged condition in the North Pennines and so would be useful as negative indicator species. It is surprising that, so far, two of these species were found rarely and Sphagnum compactum was not found at all.

Overall more of the blanket bog in the North Pennines appears to be in reasonably good condition (i.e. with active peat formation) than we had anticipated.

The predominant type of blanket bog vegetation in the North Pennines AONB is the ‘M19 heather/hare’s-tail cottongrass blanket mire’ community. Much of this vegetation, which is apparently in good condition, is quite species-poor and often has a low cover of Sphagnum. Heather Calluna vulgaris and hare’s-tail cottongrass Eriophorum vaginatum are often the dominant plants and, where they are very abundant, these species allow little space for other bog species to coexist with them.

Areas that have been ‘damaged’ in some way (e.g. by burning or erosion) can sometimes be locally relatively species-rich. Many of the liverwort species found tend to grow in these areas more frequently than in more ‘intact’ areas of bog. This may be because areas of shorter vegetation or bare peat allow more opportunity for a wider range of species to coexist until the heather and cottongrass take over.

These observations pose some interesting questions including:

Is some form of disturbance desirable in order to maintain high species diversity in M19 blanket bog?

Or, is it desirable, for other environmental reasons, to avoid disturbance and so aim to maintain a lower species-diversity?

Like a lot of scientific research, I think that this project will raise many more questions than it answers! You can read more about Peatscapes here: http://www.northpennines.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=12218

Clare

Christmas day walk

2007-12-27T10:48:00.000-08:00

We've had some severe frosts over the past week, to -6C during the day and colder at night, so have stuck by the stove as walking up our long steep drive (no 4x4!) was enough! Christmas day was mild and bright, so we did a 5 mile walk around the South Tyne valley. From our house you can walk along the disused railway or on open moorland. The Pennine Way crosses Lambley Common , about 1/4 mile westwards up the fellside from our driveway, via a black grouse lek, although we've not seen this spectacle yet as I don't like early mornings!

I don't think we have said where we are on this blog. Railway Cottages, near the hamlet of Lambley, are two mid-Victorian former railway signalman's cottages on the disused railway between Alston and Haltwhistle. Our only close neighbour is Waughold Holme farm, now a holiday home, although a local farmer rents the fields, so we are surrounded by sheep and (too many) rabbits.

On Christmas morning we walked to Lambley viaduct (below), about 5 minutes from our cottage, and crossed the River South Tyne on the little footbridge below the arches - today the river was fast-flowing with milky taupe water, but it actually froze over last week.

There is a disused quarry, I think for milstone grit (roadstone) on the north bank below Castle Hill, which we searched for bryophytes but found mainly swathes of Eurynchium striatum.

The footpath cuts up the hill towards Ashholme and then back along the eastern fringe of the mixed conifier and oak woodland that is a feature of South Tynedale. Most of the North Pennines is unwooded - the trees disappearing long ago, replaced by cones of lead mine spoil or in-by pastures. The woods here are planted through with conifers, which is a shame, but it does provide habitat for red squirrels. We have had a red squirrel a couple of times near the house, and you do see them regularly around Slaggyford, but sadly I think their days are numbered in South Tynedale due to the ever expanding numbers of grey squirrel.

View westwards from Ashholme farm towards Lambley village with iconic dry stone wall

Oakeyside Wood

Oakeyside Wood is aptly named, being mostly Quercus petraea, with thousands of common cowwheat plants in Spring, which reminds me of Devon, where these yellow flowers are a feature of the acidic woodland soils near Dartmoor. The understory was sparse, mostly holly, and there was one female holly shrub, which had been disfigured by walkers breaking branchs for its berries.

At Towsbank Wood the footpath cuts down to the river floodplain beside some river cliffs.
Species on the millstone grit river cliff included Amphidium mougeotii; Lejeunea c.f. lamacerina (the first Northumberland record since 1956, if it's right, and the second vcr); Conocephalum conicum (the shiny one with conspicuous pores); C. salebrosum (the dull one); Cephalozia bicuspidata - If you have excellent eyesight (like John - see photo) to the naked eye this tiny liverwort appears as very short sections of fine green thread. If you don't have excellent eyesight (like me), you miss it altogether! So it's often something discovered in the packet once you are back home. We found over 20 species in a small area on these rocks as this is a specialist bryophyte habitat.

We crossed back over the river at Glendue Burn - about 15 minutes south of our house - walking back along the disused railway. As the light dimmed, a party of siskins fed noisily on alder cone seeds and we also saw long-tailed tits and goldcrests. And a (wooden) black grouse...
Clare

Glendue Burn

Black grouse totem pole on disused South Tynedale railway

Carry on Chara-ing!

2007-12-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

I am partial to a pond dip, and have been known to skinny dip, but most dipping recently has been to find charophytes (or stoneworts, a type of green algae). These are super plants, very beautiful under a microscope, excellent bio-indicators for good water quality, and often the first macrophytes to colonise newly created water bodies. The Elder Pliny in the 1st century AD called these plants 'stinking water horsetail', as they resemble the fern-like genus Equisetum (and they can stink!). The smell may be alleopathic, inhibiting pytoplankton growth, but we still don't really know. We do know from genetic studies that charophytes are the missing evolutionary link between water plants and the first land plants.

Chara vulgaris var papillata
photo: Chris Carter
The orange footballs are the male antheridia

I've just had 9 specimens back from Nick Stewart, BSBI Charophyte referee, and got 7/9 right, which is OK but not spectacular. Part of why I like botany is the challenge - it's not supposed to be easy!! Charophytes are particularly tricky due to their plasticity and range of developmental forms. The batch included Chara aspera ... the first record for the NE since ... ever. Which is weird, as it came from Broomlee Lough, on Hadrian's Wall, which has been surveyed intensively in the past as it's a SAC, NNR and SSSI, primarily designated for its aquatic macrophtyes. We are Mapmating all our records for 2007, which will appear on the Flora of the North East website soon. These will include v.c. 67 records for Nitella flexilis agg. and Chara virgata of specimens collected by Chris Irvine. Chris sent me plants found on the Northumbria Natural History Society mid-week botany field meetings. I would really welcome specimens from anyone - fresh in a sealed plastic bag if you post the same day, otherwise press lightly between baking parchment (or the plant sticks to the towel) and a paper towel (address on my website www.ptyxis.com).

Chara aspera beds in Scottish Loch

Chara aspera in a tub, pending my MSc AFLP molecular analysis!

I've finally got my first scientific peer-reviewed paper published this month in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. This is a milestone, as I am still scheming to get into academia without doing a PhD, although I've got a part-time doctorate lined up with funding. I have to admit that the 6 year slog is off-putting. I also have a famously low boredom threshold, so may not stick it out; conversely, I am inquisitive and obsessive, so it would be fun to do some more science. Of course, I've forgotten the traumatic gestation and birth of the MSc thesis...(I did swear I would not set foot in a lab again)!

Clare

Bogs, farming and bryophytes

2007-11-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

We are still surveying, this time on blanket bog in randomly chosen 1km squares scattered across the North Pennines Natural Area, or at least John is surveying, as I am stuck indoors report writing. The view out the office window isn't bad though (see photo above!) The problem with professional botany is that reports take 3 times as long as the survey work; and the bit you really enjoy is the surveying. I was warned about this when I went pro, I think I did loads more botany as an amateur even though I had to cram it in at weekends and on holidays.

My report this time is v interesting though - research on designing a training scheme for young wannabee upland livestock farmers in the Teesdale area. I do quite a lot of educational consultancy, as very few ecologists/agricultural advisers are also qualified FE teachers. We really need livestock farming to be sustained in the North Pennines for environmental reasons as well as more familiar socio-economic arguments; yet the average farmer's age is 58 and getting older all the time, as young people are not taking over their parents' farms anymore.

Sphagnum magellanicum in North Pennines

Our Sphagnum survey is progressing, blessed by sunshine as frozen moss is not easy to identify! The most common NVC type so far has been M19 heather - hare's-tail cotton grass blanket mire. We had this in the Perthshire NVC surveys (see blog archive 3rd June) but in the North Pennines, cloudberry is apparently not as abundant. The runner-up is M18 cross-leaved heath - Sphagnum papillosum mire. It is always striking how many times you can mis-id Sphag pap and Sphag pal if you (like most people!) rely on field characters. Even really experienced surveyors get these wrong sometimes on jizz; you really have to take the trouble to look for the papillose cell walls under x400. We had a similar experience with Sphagnum pulchrum in the Northumberland border mires recently; it wasn't. The field characters and its habitat didn't agree with the microscope or the national referee!

Sphagnum species by bog pool, Bell Crag Flow, v.c. 67, including putative S. pulchrum! What gorgeous autumnal colours!

Photo: Celia Port

John has found a mire community that is not described in the NVC but mentioned in that wonderful book by Ben and Alison Averis et al., An Illustrated Guide to British Upland Vegetation p 187. In Wales, these NVC gurus found small patches of bog with a canopy of Calluna and Erica vaginatum over a M6 ground layer. So now this vegetation has been identified from the North Pennines too.

John has just tested me, presenting me with a stringy moss, as I am writing this. I wasn't sure what it was. That, it turns out, was because it was only part of a moss - one shoot of Rhytididelphus loreus! Friday nights are moss night! Romantic isn't it?!

I am now going back to the Farmers of the Future research, and if you want to know more about this exciting proposed training project, call the Upper Teesdale Agricultural Advisory Service (UTASS) on 01833 640836 or the North Pennines AONB office on 01388 528801.

Clare

Bog blog!

2007-11-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

We are surveying blanket bog in the North Pennines for our Sphagnum research project, which involves serious walking more than anything else. John has been out alone, which is dodgy even with all the kit, and I am paranoid about disappearing in a bog, having had a scare in some fen carr last month (in up to the top of my left thigh, which is quite a long way, as I am just under 5'8''!!). We keep meaning to do a mountain navigation course; I did moutain leader training years ago (when young, fit and dynamic) but never took it further, once I started working in the City as a lawyer. I don't know how I survived for so long indoors!!!

Fen frolics: survey and condition assessment of fen habitat in Durham

2007-10-22T10:05:00.001-07:00

(top) Fringed water-lily at Loch Kenny Pond, Co Durham

(left) Greater tussock-sedge at Hardwick Hall, Co Durham

(below) painted lady on creeping thistle, in lesser pond-sedge swamp

The gap since our last post reflects the lack of in-door desk time we had in September - both John and I were surveying flat out to complete an assessment of fen and reed-bed habitat in the Durham Magnesium Limestone Natural Area. This equates to a fair chunk of county Durham, including the coastal denes, but excluding SSSIs, focusing on tier 2 sites like County Wildlife Sites and other undesignated areas.

We were doing a condition assessment of each site using Natural England's common standards monitoring methodology. Not many people have tried this out in the field in the North-East and we found that you really do need to be an experienced NVC surveyor who can accurately name communities more or less instantly, otherwise you'll be there all day (which kind of defeats the point of the CSM method - supposedly aimed at non-experienced people); plus you really need to know at least a key selection of bryos to do it properly. The next stage is to analyse our data and come up with a classification for Durham fens in the broad sense - which includes both mire (e.g. M10), swamp (S4 onwards - lots of these; boring buggers!), tall herb fen (e.g. S27) and wet grassland (e.g. MG4, MG 10) NVC communities.

We managed to cover a whopping 107 sites in total, in 4 weeks, out of 135 possibles, which is quite good going, especially with Foot & Mouth lurking in the background - a few farmers did refuse access, although most, even those with cattle, were pretty unconcerned.

The shock headline news appears to be that many sites have declined since their last visit (1991 for most) and almost all are in unfavourable condition, often turning into a species-poor M27 or much worse, OV26, featuring greater willowherb Epilobium hirsutum. I am now sick of Epi hirs!

Species-poor M27 - mostly dead! Part of the challenge for this survey, in September, was the dead and vegetative plant identification!

Even the few SSSIs we looked at (as they were next door to a CWS) are pretty knackered (see post below about Hetton Bogs). Bit of a doom and gloom situation. The sites that are hanging on in there are invariably on private farm land where the farmer is interested and is doing the right level of management.

The worst sites, by far, were ...

in local authority ownership. Probably no surprises there, unfortunately. We need to do a massive education effort to get the right people in local authorities doing the right thing; it's tragic that on sites where we do have the power to do some management, nothing, or not enough, is being done!!

The other shock was the apparent decline of a few widespread plant species characteristic of fen, like marsh cinquefoil Potentilla palustris. This is quite a common plant ... or was. It's not regarded as threatened nationally and plenty of SSSIs have good populations, but it does seem to be disappearing from lowland Durham sites. Like ragged-Robin Lychnis flos-cuculi (love that name!), it's one of those iconic fen species.

Ragged-Robin, on a lovely bit of cattle pasture (M23) marsh, Beacon Hill, nr South Wingate, Co. Durham

Ragged-Robin is much more iconic than the rarities like milk parsley Peucedanum palustre. I think conservationists need to focus on plants that people at least have a fair chance of seeing locally! I remember finding ragged-Robin in lots of roadside ditches as a child in Cambridgeshire. Twenty-five years on, eutrophication has wiped out most of those populations around where I used to live. Plantlife's new fens officer, Tim Pankhurst, is the person to champion these species. Tim is a top fen specialist and it's great that he is able to focus effort on fen habitat nationwide - it's not all in East Anglia guys!! You can read about Plantlife's work at http://www.plantlife.org.uk/

Clare

Hetton Bog horror

2007-08-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

I had a horrific shock recently botanising for the Durham Biodiversity Partnership's fen inventory project. We are locating and surveying as many fen and mire sites in the Durham magnesium limestone natural area as we can by the end of September, focussing on 2nd tier sites rather than SSSIs. Our survey team visited Hetton Bog SSSI to practice the fen condition assessment and site survey methodology. This site is designated for its valley mire herb-rich fen communities. Or so we thought...the site now bears very little resemblance to the SSSI description. Much of it is now MG1 false oat-grass Arrhenatherum elatius grassland. There was no sign of any of the choice species like brown sedge Carex disticha and marsh valerian Valeriana dioica. Sadly, I suspect these are long gone. The small patch of surviving fen meadow is a species-poor M27 Filipendula ulmaria - Angelica sylvestris mire. Hetton Bog was "one of only two sites known to contain such wetland communities in the Tyne-Tees area" so we are down to one site (hopefully).

The official condition assessment is that Hetton Bog is in unfavourable condition but recovering. It looked like it was drying out even further to me. Grazing, or at least multiple cuts, would be needed to reduce the cover of the false oat-grass, but obviously the hydrology must also be knackered and I don't really know what you can do about that.

I expect a non-botanist would think this is a lovely site; it is still very valuable for conservation, particularly for invertebrates. But someone who knows their vegetation would be able to tell instantly that it is not what it once was. This is a bit of a sad post; and I am sure there are lots of issues which would explain the situation at Hetton Bog. But that doesn't stop me feeling very upset when I see a site that has deteriorated so much, especially as botancially-rich wetland sites are so threatened nationally.

Clare

Tetraplodon mnioides

2007-08-13T00:33:00.000-07:00

I was just about to finish botanising at Bellcrag Flow yesterday when I came accross Tetraplodon mnioides growing among mosses in the drain at the side of a forestry track. Even to people who never notice mosses this is a very striking species. Unfortunately none of my photos of it were in focus.

Nationally it is quite uncommon, although more frequent in bogs and heaths in the north and west. It has a very interesting life cycle. It grows on the bones of dead animals or sometimes on dung. The spores are dispersed by flies. The spore capsules give off a scent of rotting animal which is attractive to flies. They pick up the spores and deposit them on the next rotting animal they visit.

John

NEW county record for Durham v.c. 66

2007-08-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

I can remember desperately wanting to get my first new VC record when I got into field botany. It was pretty hard to achieve this as at the time I was living in Surrey, one of the most thoroughly botanised counties in England. The chances of a new VCR were limited and only ever likely to be a non-native species. Eventually after obsessively recording in every tetrad in the BSBI's Local Change project in Surrey, I found that holy grail, a new VCR in Verbascum speciosum, Hungarian mullien. John and I have found a few new county records for Durham and Northumberland since moving up here in March 2006, and this year spotted an odd looking spurge while doing a recce for a training day at Hamsterley Forest. Eric Clement, one of Britain's top experts on non-native plants, kindly confirmed it as Euphorbia dulcis, sweet spurge, which I think is new to Durham v.c. 66.

My best botany moments have been when routine recording has turned up some really unusual species; going to a site specifically to re-find something (no matter how rare or endangered) is a very poor second best. I try to encourage people who do the latter to have a go at recording because I think that it is really so much more exciting to find new, unexpected things for yourself!

What do you think? What's your best botany moment??

Clare

Species-rich banks in meadows

2007-08-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

The meadow survey season is now well and truly over for this year and we have started our green hay harvesting at last. The weather has been dreadful and has held us up much longer than we hoped. Since I started the hay meadow job last year I have surveyed nearly 400 meadows in the North Pennines AONB, so I am starting to build up a reasonable picture of what's out there. Overall there are very very few really herb-rich upland hay meadows left - considerably less than official estimates. Many of the really good sites identified in the NCC surveys of the mid 1980s have been agriculturally improved. I've been a bit shocked by this. The losses of species-rich grassland between the 1950s and 1980s are well documented, but it seems like the small number of sites surviving in the 1980s have suffered major losses in the last 20 years despite conservation initiatives like SSSIs and the ESA scheme.

Where meadows include awkward or steep banks that are too difficult to access with large modern machinery, these often have interesting vegetation. A few (bad) pictures below show a small sample of the variation you can get. The main upland hay meadow community on dry soils is MG3 and there are some very good examples of herb-rich MG3 on some of these banks. But the really interesting thing about them is that you can sometimes get several different types of vegetation on the same bank. Many of these banks would have been mown for hay using hand tools in the distant past, but nowadays the only management they get is grazing in spring and autumn. They may never have had any fertiliser (including farm yard manure) or lime applied.

My favourite type of bank vegetation has to be U4c. This is strange vegetation that I don't understand yet. It usually includes several calcifuge species but yet is often very species-rich. Species-rich acid grassland is not something I have come accross before. There is usually a good bit of tormentil and heath bedstraw along with sweet vernal-grass, red fescue and common bent. Sometimes you get mat-grass, heath rush and other species that I think of as strong calcifuges. Sometimes its not much richer than this so it conforms quite closely to normal species-poor U4. But there is a group of species that indicate vegetation that is often much richer. These are betony, zig-zag clover, devil's-bit scabious, heath grass and bitter vetch. These areas are usually very herb-rich and are good places to look for uncommon hay meadow plants like greater butterfly-orchid, alpine bistort, fragrant orchid (usually subsp. borealis) shade horsetail or small white orchid.

John

A moderately interesting U4c bank near Wolsingham

Some MG3 vegetation on a bank in the Harwood Valley

An unmown herby bank just outside Middleton-in-Teesdale

A forest of wood horsetail

Orchid overdose!

2007-07-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've never really been in to orchids. They get a lot of attention, they are too showy, Dactylorhizas are bloody difficult and I've never learnt them properly. A lot of botanists particularly like orchids and go out of their way to see lots of them, making special trips to famous orchid sites. I've never really been interested in that but suddenly I find myself orchid twitching! Some uncommon species occasionally turn up on banks in upland hay meadows so this year I've made a concerted effort to try to get to grips with them and I find myself really getting in to them.

This weekend I've been to 2 sites that were spectacular for their flora and their orchid populations in particular. Gowk Bank NNR must be one of the most remote nature reserves in England. You have to be quite determined to get there. I took a wrong turn at one stage and ended up at an RAF base that isn't marked on the map. Very confusing (and a bit intimidating)! It has a mosaic of vegetation communities including some excellent herb-rich upland hay meadow communities. A lot of the vegetation there is much more acidic in character than most upland hay meadows I come across but still very very herb rich. I went there to have a look for Euphrasia rostkoviana for the warden. It was there in abundance which was nice to see. I got directions to find Pseudorchis albida and frog orchid. I found one spike of the Pseudorchis (see picture) but I couldn't find any frog orchids.

There were extensive areas of grassland that looked intermediate between U4c and M26 with some of the usual upland hay meadow plants but abundant Crepis paludosa and acidic species like Potentilla erecta, Galium saxatile, Juncus squarrosa and Nardus stricta. The whole site had loads of twayblade, Gymnadenia conopsea subsp. borealis (see picture) and the 3 common upland haymeadow Dactylorhiza species - fuchsii, maculata and purpurella - probably their hybrids as well (groan!).

Today Clare and I went to see a very species-rich pasture close to Allendale. The dry bits looked like U4c again which is similar to MG5c but a bit more acidic. I'm not used to seeing such species-rich acid grassland. There must be something strange about the soil and/or management of these communities that makes them so uncommon. In the original NVC books they were only recorded in Derbyshire but they are a lot more widespread than that although probably very uncommon everywhere they occur.

This site was also very spectacular for its orchids. Surprisingly the only Dacylorhiza was fuchsii. Otherwise it had loads of twayblade, Gymnadenia conopsea subsp.borealis and greater butterfly orchid. This is a very rare plant in Northumberland - there are only a handful of sites for it in the county, mostly with a small number of plants in each one. One this site there were easily more than 1,000 plants in the field.

Anyway, enough about orchids, you may never hear me talk about them again!

John

... and more meadows ...

2007-06-24T14:15:00.000-07:00

Highlights from last week's meadow surveys. Surveyed 10 meadows on a farm in Westgate, Weardale and Alchemilla acutiloba was abundant in 8 of them! The leaf lobes didn't look as distinctive as I expected so I actually recorded it as Alchemilla xanthochlora in the first field and only realised what it was half way through the second field.

Recorded Euphrasia rostkoviana in 2 fields near Wynch Bridge in Teesdale where Margaret Bradshaw's Upper Teesdale Botany Group also found it a couple of weeks ago. In one of the fields it was quite abundant throughout the field.

The absolute highlight of the week was visiting a meadow near Garrigil in South Tynedale with a very large and varied and very species-rich bank in the middle. I didn't have my camera with me so no photos I'm afraid. Linda Robinson discovered the site last year and introduced us to it. We saw 2 spikes of small white orchid which is a very nice plant (for an orchid), also a few Gymnadenia conopsea ssp. borealis. The bank also has Crepis mollis which wasn't flowering and we couldn't find it. We also could not find Alchemilla glomerulans where it was growing last year at the edge of the meadow. Most bizarrely of all was the Vulpia bromoides growing along the top of the bank, probably many miles away from its next nearest site.

Here are some pictures,

John

A typical MG3 community growing on a strem bank within a SSSI meadow in Allendale

Meadow foxtail flowering

Cow-wheat and whin grassland

2007-06-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Bad week for meadow surveys this week because of the weather and the forecast is bad for next week too. Rain has been torential here at times this week. We went for a walk on the other side of the Tyne during the week and came across a spectacular display of common cow-wheat. Took some photos of it in dull weather on Saturday.

Today I went searching for some of the county's rare plants to help with a new 'county rare plant register' for Northumberland. I didn't find anything that I was looking for but came across some extensive areas of whin grassland near Hadrian's Wall at Walltown. Whin grassland grows on thin soils on outcrops of whin. It is found only in Northumberland. The grasslands I saw today were becoming parched and were dominated mainly by slender parsley-piert and early hair-grass. This is a good habitat for winter ephemerals so its best to see them early in the year and very occasionally it has some real rarities like maiden pink and chives.

John