A New Dawn, A New Day

All images unless otherwise stated © Jeff Clarke 2010

A pale patch of sky to the east is the prelude to the stirrings of diurnal life as a new dawn approaches. I walk out along Hale Head in preparation for a day's surveying. The crunching of my footsteps on the gravel track seems amplified in the stillness of the chilly air. There's enough light now to see my own condensed breath. Seemingly within moments the lights on the south bank of the Mersey, which moments earlier had seemed so luminous, are already losing their battle against the march of the day. A small bank of cloud begins to glow, under-lit by the, as yet unseen, sun.

I quicken my pace as I realise that this is shaping up to be a memorable moment. I reach my first count point east of the lighthouse. Ghostly shapes, scattered out across the mudflats, are already beginning to materialise out of the darkness, but it's still to early to begin the count so I turn back toward the orange glow rapidly building from the east. Time to get out my camera. I check my watch, two minute to the start of the count. The sky is awash with pinks, oranges and burning yellows as the up-lit clouds take on the full 3D effect.

As I take each picture I let the images sear across my retinas wanting to remember this moment. This was the beginning of the next chapter of my life. It was a new dawn, a new day and I was feeling good!

Celebrate Good Times, C'mon!

From Small Beginnings
by Sue Pinnington

It said in the paper ‘Zoo visit for free’

To count the wild birds

I thought ‘That’s for me!!’

We turned up in time for the very first session

To witness Jeff Clarke’s famous Robin impression

Steve recorded the species,

in all forty-four

we had such a great time that we left wanting more

So a few weeks later we did ‘Down to Earth’

Digging up worms and sniffing the earth!

Spring brought us sunshine,

no sign of rain

when gathering Ragworts or Bluebells from Spain

We scanned the canalbanks

for Alien breeds

Not little green men

But Giant Hogweeds!

We battered the trees and broke open logs,

Marched across fields and plodded through bogs.

Nothing was safe from our nets and our traps

As we I.D-ed the ladybirds, fungi and bats

‘Darwin Day’ saw us in Chester with placards

By the end of that day we were all really knack-ared

Since then we’ve progressed

To a scope and a lens

And through all this study

We’ve made such good friends

So it would be so nice to say

‘see you next year’

And not say ‘Good-bye’ with a hug and a tear

So a heartfelt plea

Some funding to win

For another two years and ,please

COUNT ME IN!!!

Reproduced here by kind permission.

Mammals of Kindrogan

All images unless otherwise stated © Jeff Clarke 2010

I spent an enjoyable few days at FSC Kindrogan in Scotland teaching an enthusiastic group of people about Small Mammals, including live trapping and handling techniques. The range of people on the course was wide, encompassing trained ecologists and bat workers, to a father and son team there for the simple and rewarding pleasure of getting close to nature and learning new skills. I have to say they were a lovely bunch of people and very easy to work with.

In total we found evidence of 22 different mammal species during the course and actually had visual sightings of 16  different species. The main thrust of the course was to get people used to setting live traps successfully and learning how to safely handle the small mammals we captured. On our second full day of trapping we captured six different species, Wood Mouse, Bank Vole, Short-tailed Field Vole, Common Shrew, Pygmy Shrew and Water Shrew. The latter animal was typically feisty. We released it on the banks of the River Ardle and were treated to a superb display of the animals aquatic capabilities as it zoomed around like a clockwork toy, one moment at the surface the next rummaging through the underwater stones in search of a tasty morsel.

Two late evening stake-outs for Pine Marten and Wildcat drew a blank and even finding additional evidence of presence was hard to comeby with just two Pine Marten scats found during the course. The Red Deer were easier to see in Glen Lyon; here we watched a dominant stag psyche out some would-be Monarchs of the Glen. Fallow and Roe Deer were also closely watched during the course. The antics of the local Red squirrels were, as usual, a delight, though I never found time to photograph them.

I brought my moth trap along and it proved a draw for the local bats. We even diverted some to catch flicked up casters, an idea inspired by our youngest participant. Simeon captured some of the calls of the bats and through his bat call software we could see the calls of both Common and Soprano Pipistrelles, which confirmed our identifications using the detectors.

A walk to picture postcard Cateran Lochan produced some interesting fungi en-route and a very fishy Otter spraint near the lochan shore. We found badger snuffles but no sett in the woods on our return. The participants on the course all vastly improved their handling technique during the long weekend, especially after overcoming their initial nerves. I'm sure many of them will go on to use their newly acquired skills to demonstrate the wonderful world of small mammals to young and old alike, for many years to come.

Finally I'd like to thank the staff at FSC Kindrogan for being so helpful and flexible when we constantly requested changes to meal times to accomodate our late evening and early morning mammal searches. Lovely people, wonderful place, I thoroughly recommend it!

Body Snatcher

All images unless otherwise stated © Jeff Clarke 2010