An urban oasis

Often the best sites for biodiversity are difficult to get to,  but I was reminded of the splendor of some sites right under our noses today when I decided to take my lunch break in Belfast Harbour Estate.

This is where I work:

It’s an industrial estate on the shores of Belfast Lough, grey, lots of ornamental plants, dominated by heavy and commercial industry – that type of a place.

I thought for day 3 of “30 days wild” I would try one of the brownfield sites around the corner from our HQ.I wasn’t sure what sort of place I would stumble upon but what an oasis for wildlife (and me) it proved to be.

Birds foot trefoil carpeted the area underfoot as i delicately picked my way deeper into the site among the moths, butterflies and bees. As i looked around a rebellious pink glimpse stood out like a sore thumb in the melting pot of gold at my feet. Scarlet pimpernel, now recogniseable around the world as a result of the movement of people, looked up at me defiantly. Heedless or careless of the fact that it was gatecrashing the rave of yellow around it.

 

As I marveled at the life at my feet I watched a red tailed bumblebee tumble from a bird’s foot trefoil almost as if drunk on the nectar it was hunting for. I also spotted a common blue butterfly, a species that always give me great joy. First noticed from the bluish tinge on the wings and then finally confirmed on one of the few occasions it stayed still long  enough to confirm the orange and brown undersides.

Finally as I was leaving the area  I stumbled across something new. I’m no stranger to ladybird larvae however ladybird pupae have for whatever reason evaded me. I remember reading of a survey that wanted people to collect ladybird pupae to check whether they had parasites in them or not.

Certain parasitic wasps will use ladybirds to protect themselves from predators by turning its ladybird host into a bodyguard. The female wasp injects its egg into the ladybird, the larva will survive by eating the host’s internal tissues before breaking out through the abdomen. I’ve collected the larvae for monitoring and will let you know of it’s development. Aren’t we lucky we aren’t ladybirds!

I’ll let you know of it’s development!

Happy 30 days wilding!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my doorstep

Our urban areas are dead. Polluted, concrete wastelands that offer little hope and sustenance for  wildlife. Right?

Wrong.

I started my “30 days wild” challenge courtesy of the Wildlife Trusts in the splendid serenity amongst the skylarks in Slievenacloy. Today I decided to keep it a lot closer to home and went to the beautiful Lagan Towpath. A 7 mile long greenway along the River Lagan that is used extensively by commuters, evening walkers, joggers, talkers lovers and of course kingfisher weary naturalists.

The Lagan Towpath is a regular haunt of mine, or should I say hunt of mine. A thrice be damned kingfisher lives along this part of the river and it has become a personal mission of mine to suss out the habits of the blighter. Just when I think I recognise a pattern and regularity to its behaviour, it becomes entirely unpredictable again.

Fortunately there is so much more that lives along this meandering stretch of river that it means that even my kingfisher free  walks along are always well worthwhile.

Today I’m glad to say was no different, a family of ducks, or a paddling as the collective noun aptly puts it, kept pace with me as I meandered from area to area of the walk. As I always do I chose to go the road less travelled through an area of woodland I call the Cathedral. I love this part, it’s grand, quiet and totally distinct from the busier towpath I had just come off. And the bird song, it just echos through those epic living obelisks.

The best part is just beyond these trees however, there the real cathedrals live.

 

One of the most precious places along this walk is Belvoir Forest Park. An old oak parkland ASSI where you can watch woodpeckers, damselflies and (if free of avian vendetta and scuddery) kingfishers, and where some of the oldest trees are several hundred years old. Put into context the oldest cathedral in Belfast is St Peters Cathedral which was built in 1866. Some of these trees are comfortably 3 times older than this.

 

But none so much as this grandaddy. Just a short walk away from the ASSI lives the oldest oak in Ireland. This incredible specimen of a tree could be anywhere between 500 and 700 years old. Forget your cathedrals, this tree could very possibly have been growing when:

• The Scots defeated the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314
• The black death killed a third of the population in 1348
• The defeat of the Spanish armada 1588
• The great fire of London 1666
• The formation of the United Kingdom 1707
• The Irish famine 1845

 

Amazing what is on your doorstep.

Beyond the noise and haste.

I woke up feeling positive. There’s nothing like the feeling of waking up to the sun in your face as it peeks in between the curtains. I got up, got dressed  and got thinking – today marked the start of the #30dayswild challenge. How was I going to start it? What was I going to do?

This thought stayed with me as I made my way to work at Ulster Wildlife. Unfortunately even a job in conservation has it’s evil necessities. Excel spreadsheets, word documents, white screen glare, ringing phones, directed attention, directed attention, directed attention.

I have a poem at work, desiderata, in it a passage:

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.”

I looked out the window and felt that I knew exactly the place to go.

Our reserve Slievenacloy sits above Belfast, an oasis of peace and serenity despite being above Northern Ireland’s capital city. It is awash with flowers, butterflies, bees and birds and has views that stretch all the way to the Mourne Mountains and Lough Neagh.

It is funny how refreshing it is to go from the directed hard attention required for computers, spreadsheets and funding reports to the undirected softer focus of drinking in the sights and sounds of the world around us. The good news is that none of us are too far away from these special places, and with #30dayswild running – is there any better time to give it a go?

 

Winter and wildlife.

We’ve all heard the term the early bird gets the worm, it’s a phrase that conveys that some opportunities are often only available to the first competitors. Much like human society, if a little less harmonised (or more depending on your perspective!), the wildlife around us finds itself in a constant battle for resources, unlike human society however this struggle will often mean the difference between life and death.

It stands to reason therefore that our wildlife must avail of absolutely any opportunity to eat, drink and support dependents. It occurred to me over the past week speaking to a number of different people that wildlife has been really early displaying behaviour normally associated with spring. Great Tits preen in my back garden, a Mistle Thrush has been singing for some time in the grounds of Queens University and badgers have been active around the country snuffling after earthworms abundant thanks to mild winter weather. On twitter I even had a report that a Sparrowhawk might currently be rearing young!

Meanwhile we are also seeing that there are some very confused plants out there. The BSBI recorded over 600 different species flowering on new years day, an incredible tally and an indication that climate change is already having an impact on our wildlife. This included species like Hawthorn normally well known for the superb white displays it provides, in May! This response is a gamble to say the least as the unstable weather could just as well provide a sharp frost killing the plant and any potential it might have to support pollinators and frugivores later in the season.

The consequences that climate change will have on wildlife here will be varied. The mild winter weather that we have experienced is consistent with expectations for the UK and Ireland in future climate change scenarios. It will certainly lead to a decline of our arctic and subarctic species that barely cling on from the last ice age. This includes the likes of Mountain Saw-wort and the beautiful Purple Saxifrage which now only exist in areas like the Mournes and Binevenagh. Climate change scenarios also indicate that the increased storminess we are experiencing will continue. From Abigail to Imogen (so far!), this year’s storm season has brought gusts of wind of over 80 mph and rainfall levels of more than 250mm per storm. This has a negative impact on many species. The high wind speeds strip trees and bushes of fruit and seeds which leaves less for birds around the country. As well as this the high wind speeds already pose difficulties for our birds to get from one place to another. For example take a moment to look at the change in your pocket and feel the individual coins in your hand. A 20p piece is the same weight as a goldcrest, a 50p piece is a long tailed tit, a £1 coin a wren and a £2 coin a blue tit. Such small weights mean that these species in particular need to expend a great deal of energy just to stay in one place in windy conditions and with less of a food supply available they will find it harder to get into breeding condition.

Increased storminess also leads to higher rainfall levels meaning that soil gets saturated and leads to more surface run-off. This causes more nutrients, organic matter and other pollutants to get washed into our rivers from farmland and our urban areas. Such high levels of run-off will lower water quality which can have significant impacts on species like the fresh water pearl mussel and river waters crowfoot ( which has only one site in N. Ireland in the sixmilewater!).

 

There are also winners however, we all read the media attention on fat squirrels over the winter. These guys will absolutely be fighting fit (perhaps read fighting fat..) for the breeding season given the mild conditions over the winter. It will also be a boon for a number of our local pest species. The universally hated midge is much more likely to have a bumper year in mild winters as it means fewer of its larvae is killed off by frost and cold temperatures. Likewise female ticks are much more likely to survive to another breeding season in the absence of severe frosts. Frogs and other wildlife that overwinter in pond mud can benefit from a mild winter. Ponds that suffer icing over and snow accumulation in cold temperatures can lead to lack of oxygen for frogs overwintering in pond mud. This is because the ice forms a cap over the pond and the snow prevents sunlight reaching water plants which aren’t able to photosynthesise and oxygenate the water.

Whilst there are still a lot of uncertainties about the impact of climate changes on our wildlife. We may well lose a lot of currently endangered species, particularly those that are currently only found in areas with nowhere else to go, like mountainous or fragmented sites. This highlights the need for us to look at connections across our landscapes to allow “corridors” for less mobile protected species to move from site to site (like marsh fritillary which has a dispersal distance of only 3-5km). Many of these impacts are becoming more and more apparent thanks to data from scientists and from the public. But what is clear is that you and I have a big part to play in the continuing evolution in conservation in the UK and Ireland. Either through the provision of data, the management of land (we are all land managers in one way or another), the canvassing of politicians or by minimising our own impacts on the world around us, we all can make a significant contribution to conservation efforts.