One month in - Nature in Harmony

Hi all,

Spring time is my absolute favourite time of the year, everywhere you look there are signs of wildlife; busy insects and growing leaves, and Harmony Woods is currently bursting with all the colours, sights and sounds of life. I particularly love to see all of the wildflowers and pollinators and to hear the sound of skylarks. Every week I visit the woods, and every week I notice a change in the environment, nature is constantly moving and changing and once you begin to notice it, it’s fascinating to watch.

I’ve been carrying out my wildlife surveys for Andover Trees United’s project, Nature in Harmony, for 1 month now.

Here’s whats happened so far…

We have been surveying 2 transects every week - for birds, butterflies, pollinators, wildflowers and
grasses - so this means we’ve now surveyed each of the 8 transects at least once for the above taxa. We plan to repeat this structure every month in order to capture seasonal changes in flora and fauna, but of course if volunteers would like to go up in their own time to do some surveying, they can.
We have collected about 200 individual data points so far from the surveys alone. This has been collected by me, Wendy, Sarah & Jack , plus Liz & Tony - all of us are volunteers. This data doesn’t include the observations that have been made via iNaturalist, our citizen science portion of the project.

*A Cinnabar moth. Spotted only a few minutes after saying "I really wanna see a Cinnabar Moth, I've never seen one before" !*

Emerging trends in the data

Data suggests that there could be a higher species biodiversity in western end of the Diamond wood, particularly when it comes to flowers and pollinators, which could be due to the difference in management over the years.
Interestingly, skylark abundance seems quite matched across both ends of the site. This is useful to know as it further highlights the importance of people and dogs staying out of the long grass across the whole site during breeding season of ground-nesting birds.
In terms of numbers of dogs off leads vs dogs on leads, again there has been no clear difference between the 2 ends of the site - despite there being dog walking restrictions on the western end . This could explain the similar skylark abundances between each end of the site, that is, if we assume that areas with dogs off leads = fewer nesting skylarks, and vice versa. But more likely, this could suggest that visitors to the site are not aware of the current dog walking restrictions. Perhaps due to lack of signage (unfortunately dog walking signs are often vandalised and ATU has limited funds to replace them) - but this is a communication challenge that ATU are currently tackling and I am in the process of creating an illustrated map of the woods to help with this.

Whilst this data is very interesting, it is still very early days for me to make any conclusions.

Other updates to note

A grant application that I wrote to HBIC (Hampshire Biodiversity Information Centre) has been successful. They have awarded us with a grant that will go towards the purchase of some Identification guides. This means we will have the resources needed to run our Nature in Harmony schools sessions later in the year, and community outreach events when lockdown guidance allows.

YOUR OBSERVATIONS

iNaturalist

Whilst citizen science isn’t as statistically strong in terms of the data collection method, it is a brilliant way to engage the wider community in the project, especially during lockdown! The iNaturalist project page has enabled us to identify a wide range of flora and fauna. So far we’ve observed 80 different species of plants and animals. Observations came from 8 different people, and 47 individuals have helped to identify them. We have 26 members of the iNaturalist project page so far. Join the project here.

#NoticingNature

ATU volunteers have decided to create a social media trend which we have called #NoticingNature. The aim of the game was to post a photograph on social media of the nature that we noticed each day, for 7 days, and we tagged our friends to do the same. Those 7 days have ended for most of us now, however we’re still using the hashtag where we can, and new people are taking up the challenge every day. Our friends from across the country and even worldwide have taken part! It has been a quick and easy way to encourage the wider community to get outside, appreciate and pay closer attention to the nature that surrounds them.

I have also been sharing a 'wildlife spot of the week' on our social media pages, which I have been taking from our iNaturalist project page.

Check out our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) or the project webpage.

PLANS FOR JUNE

We’ll be continuing our weekly surveys of the wood, and we plan to begin our moth trapping next week, and then bat detecting the week after that. I also want to take some readings from the pond, and i’m hoping to acquire some mammal footprint tunnels.

Are you an expert on spiders, mosses, or any other taxa that I have not already mentioned? Are you a qualified mammal trapper? If so, we would love to learn from you and/or involve you in some surveys of your own!

Are you interested in carrying out some of the surveys?

Please get in touch! My email address is: alex.marshall@andovertrees.org.uk

Stay safe,

Alex :)

NatureInHarmonyAlex Marshall2 June 2020