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Newsletter No.9 – October 2004
For the sake of download times, the photos have been ommitted from this page. If you would like a full pdf version of the newsletter, click here (4.4mb)
For pdf files of previous newsletters click here.
- Introduction
- Wildlife Liaison Officer
- Focus on a PNR: Pen-y-lan
- Bats in Radnorshire
- PNR Group Visit to Rhos Goch Bog
- Denmark Farm Conservation Centre
- PNR of Bob and Judy Dennison
- Coed Tew Mill
- Questions & Answers
- Notices from members
- Contacts
From your co-ordinator
The summer of 2004 seems to have flown by. Our garden has grown wonderfully
well and vegetables have been plentiful.
For those of you who have visited us, we have now created the lower garden
pond and I have introduced some native pond weed and a native iris. The
day after it was filled with water from our bore hole water, there were
2 pond skaters and 1 great diving beetle in the water – what were
they eating?
I used spare pond liner to make safe frog homes. I had hoped that this
pond would be primarily for frogs (eaters of vine weevils!) as the huge
numbers of newts in the established garden pond help the dragonfly larvae
to eat all the frog and toad tadpoles in the spring. The second day after
my new pond was filled, what did I find down there amongst the stones?
Yes, several newts!
It will be interesting to see in which pond the frogs spawn this spring
Please come to the planning meeting - when we all decide on next year’s
programme at 10.30am Penybont, The Severn Arms on Saturday November 20.
If you can’t make it, do send me comments/ideas by email or telephone.
Please send me notices / articles /questions or just pictures for the
next newsletter in the spring.
Pauline Oldroyd
From our Wildlife Liaison Officer
You Can’t See the Wood for the Trees
I will start with a couple of questions.
1. Where in a woodland is the majority of “woodland wildlife”?
2. What kind of trees is best for wildlife?
My answers to the questions are;
1. Where there are no trees and
2. Dead ones.
This is not the whole truth I admit, a wood with only dead trees, widely
spaced would have a very high wildlife value, but not as good as one
with more elements to it. However the principle is one to be taken in
when managing woodland for wildlife.
Massed ranks of planted conifers are, rightly, taken as being an example of wildlife-unfriendly habitat. But it is the management rather than the conifers themselves that are to blame. If you are in doubt, visit any of the National Forests of France where they practice a very different style of management. The woods are just as commercial, but wildlife thrives. The main difference is in essence that areas are not clear felled and then re-planted, but are progressively thinned and then allowed to regenerate with seed from nurse trees left to grow large. Things are at last changing in this country but it will take a long time.
Less noticeable is that many of our native woodlands are just as poor for wildlife; many oak woods have not been managed for years. Most would have been clear felled in the 1940’s and then left. Eventually they will sort themselves out but in the meantime much wildlife will have been lost. One forest of single-age stems and no light reaching the ground is much like any other; deciduous is slightly better than conifer. Unrestricted sheep grazing does not help!
In my native Sussex the situation was much the same until the great storm of October 1987, which was quite simply the best thing to happen to the Sussex woods in 50 years. The woods were beautifully thinned and a huge amount of dead wood deposited, light returned to the woodlands and wildlife thrived. By spring 1988 there were birds and butterflies in areas where there had been none for 40 or more years. The most damage was done by humans who just cannot leave a good thing alone. Why, if they had done nothing in a wood for 50 years, did they suddenly have to start ‘clearing up’ just as nature had put right their 50 years of mis-management?
A hurricane may not be the best way of sorting out the woodlands of Wales, but if it blew away a few million sheep as well, who knows?
Richard Becker
Doing the right thing
Last year we decided the roof of the indoor pool and barn needed replacing due to severe problems with condensation and ingress of rain. Research into the best way it could be done included discussion with an expert at the Royal Welsh show from the confederation of roofing specialists and visits from builders to give quotes for the work. We decided to get our dependable local builder to do the work and he through pressure of work and weather conditions suggested we commence the work in July 2004. Final measurements and ordering of the specially cut roofing material took place in May.
Newsletters from Radnor Wildlife Trust in June contained lots about bats and made us think as PNR members we ought to find out the best way to minimise disruption to the bats that we new existed in the roof space. A site meeting with Jonathon Gilpin and Fiona Luckhurst started the initiation into a bats view of the world! Bats being a protected species cannot have their roosts disturbed during the breeding season and work can only be undertaken under licence.
In July large quantities of roofing material were delivered and no doubt it will remain in large stacks until we can finalise the licence and let the young pipistrelles grow sufficiently to leave their maternity roost. No doubt by then the autumn gales and lashing rain will be upon us. Long forms have been completed and much correspondence made, but after my professional letters I may be able to append ‘licensed bat disturber’.
Chatting with local farmers and friends elicits a common response, saying we were mad to let the authorities know anything about our intentions.
What of our own conclusions? We have a certain pride of having done the ‘right’ thing and the knowledge that each of our pipistrelles consumes up to 3,000 midges and mosquitoes in a night making our human environment much more comfortable, is rewarding. A little delay in re-roofing will be in the long term of minor significance but please could the weather be kind in October and November!
Mike & Stephanie Warrick
Editor’s note:
I hope November is drier than October!
Alder Buckthorn
If you have got a bit of space or are planting some trees, please include the Alder Buckthorn in your planting scheme. Apart from being an attractive shrub and producing a good crop of berries it is the only foodplant in this area for the caterpillar of the Brimstone Butterfly.
It appears to be palatable to sheep and is therefore completely absent from most of the area. It grows well in the Hafren Forest (which is probably too high and cold for the butterfly), along the coastal estuaries and in the lowlands of the borders.
It must have been much more widespread in the past. Not surprisingly
I have seen only one butterfly in the last four years. However if enough
people plant buckthorns it ought to be possible to encourage the butterfly
(which more than any other says that spring has arrived) into mid-Wales.
The Brimstone is an extremely mobile butterfly that wanders huge distances.
The furthest north it breeds in England is Yorkshire, but butterflies
regularly wander into Scotland, so Hereford to Llandod or Welshpool
to Llanidloes should not be too much of a problem.
Alder Buckthorn is easy to grow from seed; it just needs stratifying
over the winter. I have a few seedling plants of local provenance to
spare if anyone is interested.
Richard Becker
Editor’s extra ( extracts from my tree book)
Most buckthorns are spineless. The alder buckthorn or Frangula alnus
is so-called because it grows on damp ground amidst alders. It rarely
grows larger than 4 or 5 m. It is common in marshy woodlands throughout
Europe and gives a rich pale gold autumn leaf colour. The spineless
black twigs bear brown breathing pores and opposite oval leaves with
blunt points or rounded ends. Inconspicuous flowers ripen into beautiful
berries: first green then yellow, red and finally glossy black.
The dried bark has purgative properties like cascara. The timber yields
a fine-grained charcoal better than any other for making gunpowder (still
used in slow fuses).
Each issue, one PNR member is asked to write something and this time it is the turn of Heather and Kelvyn Curry from Nantmel. (Thanks Heather for the article and Kelvyn for the photos.)
Over twenty years ago, we fell in love with a south-facing, semi-derelict cottage and barn nestling in the Radnorshire hills and, resisting the advice of less romantically-minded members of our families, we bought it. There was an option to buy the two fields which surrounded the house, which we accepted, so we became smallholders on our ten acres. The front field had been recently ‘improved’, but the back field, on a steep north-facing slope, had not, although it had been well fertilised. Over the years, we have experimented with various grazing regimes - or maybe that sounds a little more purposeful than what actually happened! Anyway, we have had a variety – from a weaving friend’s woolly fleeces (mad Jacobs and giddy Wensleydales!) to this summer’s two mares, two foals and a gelding. (We did not want our own animals, other than the menagerie of chickens, ducks, geese, etc which we had already acquired, so have been intermittently on the look-out for likely graziers.) We have resisted well-intentioned offers to include our fields in the annual liming, and have applied no fertiliser.
So, twenty-odd years on, what have we got? This is what I asked Julian on a sunny October morning with mist lying in the valley below us. (Pen-y-lan is at a thousand feet.) The answer is a rich environment with numerous grassland species of plants, including common bent grass, cocks-foot grass, harebells, yarrow, tormentil, hawkbit, stitchwort, heath bedstraw, germander speedwell, common violets, vetch, wood-sorrel and bluebells. Over the years we have noticed a steady increase in the insects and birds which live and visit here. Last year, dozens of painted lady butterflies appeared for a few days in August, and this year, although we did not see any painted ladies, the back field was briefly covered in colourful six-spot burnet moths.
Other butterflies we saw this year included wall browns, ringlets, red admirals, peacocks, a meadow brown and a gatekeeper.
Fungi are also on the increase – there were lots on the morning
Julian and I walked around, including several different waxcaps, parasols,
fly-agaric and something unpleasant that looked like sick!
(see Q and A later)
Last Autumn, we dug out the pond at the front of the house which was threatening to turn into a swamp. This has resulted in more dragonflies than usual this summer – including southern hawkers, brown hawkers, broad-bodied chasers, common darters and an emperor. We also saw various damsel-flies, but didn’t manage to identify them. Lots of common newts have made their way back to the pond, but the frogs decided it was too open – or too something –and declined to lay their spawn there this year. Unfortunately, the only survivor plant-wise of the digging-out was the Canadian pondweed which we planted in ignorance, along with other oxygenators, twenty years ago and now wanted heartily to lose. Oh well, some you win…
Eleven years ago, the conifer plantation adjacent to our land came up
for sale and we decided it would be a great idea to buy it and make it
into something more interesting and valuable for wildlife. It felt a
bit scary when we were told that our bid had been successful – hell’s
bells! Thirty-seven acres! The conifers had been planted in the fifties
and never thinned, so it was pretty dark and dank and dead in there.
With the invaluable help of a friend in the forestry business, we had
the whole lot cut down, apart from a couple of acres at the bottom which
had been planted with oaks.
37 acre wood from across the valley
We then entered into an agreement with the Forestry Authority to replant
with a mix of native deciduous trees – oak, ash, beech, rowan,
bird cherry, wild cherry, sweet chestnut, field maple, hazel, crab apple,
holly, guelder rose…..and birch.
In our innocence, we actually planted birch, unaware of how much birch
was going to end up in the wood.
.
The planting scheme involved leaving a number of open glades, (see one
glade above) which were almost instantly overtaken by regenerated birch,
as was a lot of the planted area too. This is apparently what happens
if you clear-fell in this area, and in retrospect we should probably
have approached it differently, but hey!
Ten years later, and the wood is starting to look like a wood. Birch is not the only tree to regenerate – there is now lots of oak, rowan, holly, hazel and ash too. The holly in particular is doing far better than the planted ones. Some of the conifers, mainly spruce and larch, have reappeared too and we shall have to keep an eye on that. The year after the trees were felled, a huge swathe of bluebells appeared in the spring, presumably having lain dormant for forty years. Heather, mosses and many different lichens are starting to clothe the rocky outcrops, and the plants in the heathy, open rides mirror the species in the fields, with extra species such as tufted hair-grass, heath milk-wort, common knapweed, and the ubiquitous rosebay willowherb.
There is quite a contrast in habitats, with wet, willowy, rushy areas too. A stream runs all the way down the western side of the wood, which coincides at the bottom with the more mature oak woodland which we left.
I am sure there is a lot of wildlife in there carrying on quite happily without our knowledge. Badgers are very obvious, having developed a network of superhighways throughout the wood, and now taking liberties by coming right up to the house, digging up the lawn and making latrines! There are also lots of small mammals – voles, moles, wood mice and weasels. (I am sorry to admit that I know this, not through any scientific observation, but by identifying the corpses which our cats leave, often under the kitchen table.) Lizards have colonised the rocky bank behind the house. We have seen hares by the edge of the wood, and lots of rabbits in the wood. Our loft is home to a colony of pipistrelles in the summer, and at this time of year, a few individuals get confused and come out and fly around the house.
As the trees and hedges which we planted around the house have established, there are far more birds, including all the usual field and garden ones, and occasionally something more unusual, such as the bramblings that appeared for a while last Winter. Redstarts nest in a hole in the barn wall most Summers, and greater spotted woodpeckers are common visitors, with an occasional glimpse of a green woodpecker. Larks have nested on the rough grass on the back hill for the last two years. We see flocks of fieldfares and redwings in the winter and redwings sometimes come close to the house to feed on fallen apples. Every year several pairs of swallows nest in our barn, sometimes raising two broods, and a couple of years ago three. (Flying lessons were still being conducted in mid-September!) Our nights are often punctuated by the sharp call of a tawny owl, and occasionally, but sadly less and less often, the blood-curdling shriek of a barn owl. Overhead, red kites are becoming nearly as common a sight as buzzards – we are not far as the kite flies from the feeding station at Rhayader.
We feel very privileged to be able to live in such a lovely place, and to be custodians of it all for a few decades. We have made lots of mistakes but I think we’ve done some things right and provided a richer environment than when we arrived. There are lots more that we could do, especially when we have more time. We have applied to Tir Gofal, and, if it is successful, it will provide us with a management plan for the future.
Heather Curry
Fiona Luckhurst has written a paper about bats and we will be serialising it over the next few newsletters. It is sad for us that Fiona is no longer working for RWT. We wish her well in her new job in Yorkshire.
Radnorshire is a rolling, upland county with the hills being dissected by numerous streams and river valleys. In and around the valleys an interesting mosaic of habitats can be found, with small broadleaf woodlands and permanent pasture being still quite plentiful, whereas arable land is scarce. Therefore the countryside provides excellent conditions for bats and goes a long way towards explaining the rich bat fauna that the county supports.
11 species of bat have been recorded from Radnorshire this century. (17 species exist in Britain.) Most of these occupy roosts in buildings in summer although a number of tree-roosting colonies have also been discovered.
Serotine (vulnerable)
The Serotine bat is one of our largest bats but was first recorded in
Wales at Penybont only in 1985. This species is probably resident in
small numbers but its exact status is unknown.
The Serotine has probably declined due to loss of feeding habitat where
large insects such as chafers can be found. As it roosts almost entirely
in buildings, it is subject to the effects of building work and the use
of toxic chemicals in remedial timber treatment.
Noctule (vulnerable)
Another large species, the Noctule is very much a tree roosting species
in Radnorshire. This bat usually emerges at early dusk, often flying
with the last swifts of the day, and is widespread in the County.
The Noctule bat has declined in Britain, due to modern agricultural practices
resulting in the loss of suitable feeding habitats (such as permanent
pasture and woodland edge / hedgerows rich in invertebrate fauna). The
heavy management and loss of suitable trees for roosting may also have
contributed to the decline.
The Common and Soprano Pipistrelles
These two species are both tiny bats that roost in a wide range of old
and modern buildings. They are widespread and are the most common species
in the county. The largest known nursery of Soprano Pipistrelle in
Radnorshire has had 800-1000 females counted!
Pipistrelle bats have probably declined as a result of modern agricultural
practices. Their reliance on buildings makes them vulnerable to renovation
work, exclusion and toxic remedial timber treatment chemicals.
Bat biology (Bat bits)
Sizing them up:
Bats can hang by their toe-nails from rafters. In flight they
look a little like birds, but no bird flies with the agile twists and
jinks that bats perform (although swallows can temporarily be mistaken
for bats at dusk).
They are mammals, and like most mammals, have bodies covered in hair and suckle their young after giving birth.
When you first see a British bat up close, you are amazed at how small it is. The Pipistrelle is the smallest, with head and body only 1.5 inches it would fit snugly into a matchbox. Pipistrelles only weigh about 4g – the weight of a 2p coin. Even the biggest bat is only 3 inches long and weighs about 25g – the same as a chocolate bar.
3 contenders for the “Biggest Bat in Britain” title are the Noctule, Serotine and the Greater Horseshoe bats, and are all about the same size.
Body hair
Quite a dense fur completely covers bats’ bodies and
helps their insulation. The hairs that make up this snug, made-to-measure
fur coat look rather unusual under the microscope. Each hair is coated
in a layer of fine scales so that they look like a stack of flower-pots.
The hairs are quite long in comparison with the size of the body, and
this makes them look bulkier than they are. A naked bat would look
very thin indeed – and quite embarrassed! A Pipistrelle for example
is only 1½ an inch from front to back, yet it has hair over ½ an
inch long, making it look plump and cuddly. The slow-flying Long-eared
bat has a coat that is very fluffed up, whereas that of the fast-flying
Noctule is smooth, sleek and glossy.
The colour of the coat differs for each species, but generally they are all some shade of grey, brown or black above and off-white, buff or brown below. The individual hairs often have 3 colours along their length, so the overall impression of the colour can look different if the fur is smoothed down or fluffed up or if viewed from a different angle. Pipistrelles have hair on their upper-parts which is usually black-rooted, pale buff in the middle and brown on the tips.
Bats are very attached to their fur coats and look after them with regular and careful grooming. They keep themselves meticulously clean by hanging by one foot and using the claws of the other as a comb. In this way they ensure that their fur is kept spotless and in good condition. They moult every year, so old, worn hairs are replaced by new ones. Young bats have a much greyer coat than adults and it is often more downy, too. After a few months this colour difference fades and they look more like adults.
Editor’s note: we look forward to learning about other species of bats and some more “bat bits” from Fiona in the next newsletter.
Review of Summer Events
PNR Group Visit to Rhos Goch Bog 5 June 2004
I arrived at Rhos Goch at the appointed hour to find a man running around the lanes in his T-shirt and shorts, apparently lost. It was Mike Warwick, who wasn’t lost but had decided (for some reason) to run over the hills from his home near Howey, rather than take the more sensible option of arriving at Rhos Goch by car (which his wife, Steph, did a few minutes later).
Other members who turned up for the visit were Ros Coles (and David later), Sally Holterman, Penny Hurt. My sister also gate crashed the visit as she was staying with us for the weekend.
The PNR Group visit to Rhos Goch Bog was led by Countryside Council
for Wales’ (CCW) Warden Andrew Ferguson, who had given up his day
to show us round the bog. He was a good speaker and was very happy to
discuss points as they arose, and to enter into debate about issues such
as willow and birch control.
Rhos Goch Bog is a National Nature Reserve and is managed by the CCW.
It was a lake (2-3m deep) formed during the last Ice Age and over the
following years (millennia?) slowly filled with peat-forming plants such
as sphagnum moss. So much peat was formed in one part of the bog that
that particular area is raised a meter or more above the rest of the
bog. This raised part is very acidic and is fed only by rainwater whereas
the lower part is kept watered by run-off from the surrounding land,
which is all farmed.
Rhos Goch is a large area of bog: over 40 hectares (100 acres+). (Note
that I’ve forgotten the actual size and have measured this from
the map – so take the value with a modicum of salt!) It consists
of a number of distinct habitats: Raised Bog, Wet Woodland, Swamp and
Grassland. It contains such species as (yes, of course I cribbed this
list from the leaflet) Heather, Lichen, Mosses, Cotton Grass, Bog Bean,
Water Horsetail, Royal Fern, Rowan, Pendunculate Oak, Birch, Willow,
Bulrush, Spearwort, Sedges, Rushes, Meadow Thistle and Devils Bit Scabious.
Insect and bird life includes Dragonflies, Teal, Curlew, Lapwing, Willow
Warbler, Reed Bunting.
The bog is not open to the public: permits are needed from CCW to visit.
They strongly recommend that you do not venture out into the bog on your
own!
It is deep in places – despite the summer dryness; wellies are most definitely needed rather than walking boots. The bog is deep enough to warrant a boardwalk across almost half of it to enable access to the raised area without filling your boots (as it were).
Thirty to forty years ago peat was still being taken from the bog for
fuel, and cattle grazed it. Peat is no longer taken but cattle still
occasionally graze the drier parts. As some of the wetter parts are quite
deep the graziers are understandably a little reticent about letting
their cattle roam too widely!
In around 1950 there was a large fire in the bog, cause apparently unkown.
Surrounding birch trees took advantage of the exposed peat to export
their seed and to colonise this “new” habitat. If the birch
tree encroachment is allowed to continue unchecked the bog will eventually
dry out and its unique nature would be lost to us forever. Consequently
the CCW have a management plan that includes controlling the encroachment
of the birch and willow. They’ve tried a number of things and are
currently concentrating on the use of Roundup, a poison/weed killer.
It is administered by careful injection into the arboreal offenders and
seems to have a significant effect on them using quite small doses.
Cattle are used to help maintain the diversity of the plants in the
bog. (The feeling I got from Andrew was that a little more cattle grazing
would be good. One assumes that slightly heavier grazing by cattle would
also help with the willow control as they enjoy barking willow trees!)
However, as a substitute the CCW have machinery with a very light footprint
that will travel on the bog to cut the grasses and reeds and help manage
the diversity.
While we were having our picnic lunch sat on the boardwalk, with our
feet dangling in the water, we were regaled by the sound of a nearby
Water Rail intermittently chattering at us. He/she was very close but
we did not catch sight of the wee beastie.
After lunch on the boardwalk Ros left us (to take over Vet standby duty from David Coles) along with Sally. We watched them slowly picking their way across and through the bog back to the cars, out of sight in the distance. (We wondered if we’d ever see them again—the cars that is—not Ros and Sally!) The rest of us explored some of the Raised Bog area before moving on to the Wet Woodland. We met David Coles (not surprisingly up to his knees in the bog) who was trying to find us as he’d now been relieved his duties by Ros. We slowly made our way through the Swamp area to the dryer grassland area and then back to the cars. These were immediately utilised to transport the remainder of the party, along with our guide, back to our house where we had a walk round our PNR followed by tea and cake.
It was an interesting visit to see a unique Radnorshire bog Nature Reserve. It’s a great pity more members of the PNR weren’t able to make it down to Rhos Goch that day to enjoy the visit, and to listen to Andrew Ferguson talking to us about it and its management. Many thanks to Andrew for giving up his day to show us around.
Chris Bruce
Sunday July 4: Denmark Farm Conservation Centre, Betsw
Bledrws, Lampeter SA48 8PB, 01570 493 358,
www.shared-earth-trust.org.uk
Editor’s note:
About 15 PNR members attended the open day at Denmark Farm. They were
opening a new trail to celebrate the centre now being open to the public.
Angela Polkey who helps run the centre was our excellent guide during
an hour long tour.
I recommend a visit to see the huge range of habitats that they have
created. One third of the land has been taken out of production to create
woodlands, shelterbelts, a lake, field scrapes and scrub (surprisingly
to me - the most valuable habitat for birds). The other two thirds are
a wide range of grasslands and marshes managed through low-intensive
systems by a combination of hay-making and grazing. They run all types
of countryside courses – the next is Hedgelaying and Coppicing
on November 19th.
Malcom Davey remembers the day:
To those of us of a Certain Age the visit to Denmark Farm in July was
like a trip back to childhood. For a start the weather was as summers
remembered, warm and sunny with a balmy breeze. Then there was the farm
itself; an evocative mix of hedgerows, meadows, woods and scrubland,
natural pond and large lake, each alive with it’s own native flowers,
insects, animal and aquatic life. But this is no living museum – a
British version of an African game reserve. This is a working farm which
has reverted to using traditional methods to sustain itself. Managed
grazing and seasonal cutting has allowed Nature to re-establish what
has for so long been lost. And now that it is open to the public to come
and enjoy the peace and tranquillity of real countryside, it should inspire
anyone with a little surplus land to leave it alone – and simply
wait for a host of new, and highly valuable, neighbours.
Malcom Davey
Saturday 31st July :
PNR of Bob and Judy Dennison
It was a wonderful hot day as we met near the telephone box in Crossgates. Bob Dennison had prepared interesting notes on the history and management of each field, pond, hedge and wood as we walked through Bob and Judy’s PNR.
He explained the different hedge protection methods when planting hedges eg tubes, black plastic, woven plastic ..) and we saw the results of their hard work in a thick and varied hedge. We viewed the four and a half ponds at various stages of establishment and had fun identifying water creatures (eg: water measurer) as well as enjoying the dragonflies and damsel flies.
We picnicked on a bank above the Clywedog Brook, then walked through some established and some planted woodland before returning to the A483 for a short walk back to the cars along the “nature reserve” uncut grass verge .
It was a most informative and enjoyable few hours and it was a pity that more members did not join us. Thank you so much Bob for your preparation work and the fascinating guided walk.
Pauline
Saturday August 21:
Bat evening at Coed Tew Mill
We were pleased to see so many members, and would like to thank them
for taking the trouble to attend the Bat Evening at our PNR. Luckily
for all of us it turned out to be a dry and still evening with plenty
of insects about – ideal conditions for studying bats. As darkness
fell they appeared with a final count of over 300. The roost, situated
behind the soffits and barge boards, and also in the walls of our house,
is a summer maternity roost of Pipistrelle. A few Brown Long-eared bats
can occasionally be seen in the loft. Fiona brought along a number of
bat detectors which allowed us to hear the bats.
Our special thanks to Fiona for providing the bat detectors and answering
the many questions. We were all most grateful to both her and Julian
for giving up their Saturday evening for the PNR Group.
Judy and Alan Clift-Jones
Editor’s note: Many thanks to you both for hosting the evening and to Judy for the drinks and super home-made cakes!.
Question from Penny and Pauline:
What is this weird yellow sticky stuff that looks like sick on grass?
Answer from Richard:
" It's the spore producing stage of a slime-mould. It crawls up the grass
leaving a slime trail behind; eventually, it will turn grey and blow away.
The hills around here have had loads on this year, white species too.
There are lots of species, most are very small - a small orange one on
dead wood is very common."
Notices from members
· If you would like a couple of native buckthorn seedlings, please contact Richard Becker
· Richard Becker has an exhibition of framed wildlife prints at Theatr Hafren Newtown in December, January and February. Pictures are for purchase and would make good Christmas presents! Pauline
· If you know any animal loving person or couple who would be interested in house and cat sitting, please contact Pauline 01597 851 433 (Other members may also be interested in a house and dog sitter.)
· For sale: half price - a new 14m length of top quality butyl rubber pond liner – about 1m wide – suitable for a stream (eg: joining 2 ponds) Also, used green wind shelter fabric – ideal if you are establishing a hedge or shrubs. Contact Pauline.
· Marilyn Jarvis is a physiotherapist and is now accepting private consultations at their PNR in Hundred House. 01982 570 313
Pauline Oldroyd (PNR Co-ordinator)
01597 851 433
Email: oldroyddon@aol.com
Richard Becker (Wildlife Liaison Officer)
01686 411 343
Email: richard.becker@ukgateway.net
Julian Jones (RWT Conservation Officer)
Email: Jonesj@radnorshirewildlifetrust.org.uk
01597 823 298.
The views expressed in this newsletter are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of Radnorshire Wildlife Trust
Back Copies of Newsletters
Pdf files of previous newsletters are available. Please select from below:
Newsletter 7 Jan 04 (1mb)
Newsletter 6 Sep 03 (850kb)
Newsletter5
Mar 03 (196kb)
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