Lee Brady's Recording Blog for Kent

Buzzards

Does it count if a bird flies over the garden without landing? If so we can now claim to have had visiting swifts and, best of all, three buzzards!

Kent's First Baby Lizards of the Year?

Yesterday (10th July) at one of my work sites near Sissinghurst, I saw two new born (neonate) viviparous lizards. Each lizard was just a few hours old and since they were seen in different parts of quite a large site, they probably came from different females. 

A quick inspection of the KRAG database indicates that the previous earliest neonate lizard was observed by Martin Hendy on 4th August 2008. 

Has anybody else seen baby lizards yet this year? 

Dragon Garden Wins Bronze

The first public event attended by the newly formed Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust was at this week's Hampton Court Flower Show. ARCT volunteers helped to build a garden specifically designed to encourage reptiles and amphibians. Congrats to all for winning a Bronze Medal. 

The garden can be seen on the Hampton Court website. 

I must admit though, the garden strikes me as having a lot of path and very short grass. I know, I know, things have to grow. But what on earth were they were thinking when they built that rockery! Hi-rise slow-worms, who would have thought it?!

Jungle Telegraph and All That...

Looks like Mr. Smith has now woken up to the fact that Wildwood have a problem... 

A News item has now appeared on the animal park's website. But why on earth didn't they do this yesterday morning? 

Wildwood Have Not Gone Bust

Despite a report on last night's Meridian news, Wildwood has not gone bust. A company that Wildwood was working with (on a water vole project) has gone under - but Wildwood is fine.

Apparently Meridian made a bit of a cock-up and mis-reported a Wildwood press release that was intended to help raise cash. A word to the wise. Never trust journalists with a press release. Heck, I don't trust journalists period...

Over the past year or so Wildwood has been rather over-playing the media game and it was only a matter of time before they got their fingers burnt. Consider those fingers well and truly roasted!

I had two calls last night about this and was surprised that there was no correction published on the Wildwood website.

Folks do tend to believe what they hear on the telly.

Wake up Mr. Smith.

A New Dawn for Herpetofauna Conservation?

The Herpetological Conservation Trust and Froglife will soon be no more... 

Froglife lost its relevance to grass roots amphibian and reptile conservation several years ago. For reasons that elude me, the organisation has managed to retain its media following and is still frequently consulted on various issues by journalists working for various publications. In essence, Froglife became little more than a brand. In my opinion it was a brand with little substance, but a successful brand none the less. 

To the public, The Herpetological Conservation Trust is an almost unknown entity. It consists of knowledgeable and experienced herpetologists who just put their collective heads down and get on with things. HCT are one of the lead partners on herpetofauna biodiversity action plans and play an important role lobbying government both nationally and internationally. Unfortunately they tend to do this without widely communicating their work in any meaningful way. The result is an organisation that is eminently qualified to advise on various conservation matters, but one that is largely unknown to the public. 

Since Froglife and HCT clearly have complementary qualities their respective trustees have decided that merging the two organisations into a new unified body will better serve herpetofauna conservation. The new organisation will retain most if not all existing staff and go by the snappy name of Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust. This will inevitably be shortened to ARCT. The first public appearance takes place this week at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, where they will be promoting Dragon Gardens. More on that in another post. 

I consider that merging the two organisations is the right thing to do. I'm not sure about the name though. They should have retained the Froglife branding. I'm also less than thrilled by some aspects of their internal structure. Despite rumours that ARCT will launch a 'friends' scheme, the new trust will not be a democratic membership organisation. ARCT Friends will not be members of the organisation, just financial supporters. I'm not a great fan of this approach and it really smells of the old Froglife. 

These concerns aside, I really do hope that the new organisation will be successful in re-energising herpetofauna conservation and not become just a new facade on two tired old faces. Time will tell.  

Riverside Countryside Experience 2009 - Can you help?

Unfortunately, Jo will not now be able to attend next Sunday's event at Riverside Country Park. Poor Jo has twisted her ankle and won't be able to lug all of the gear needed for the stand. Therefore, unless any other members of KRAG are willing and able to help, we will have to cancel the group's attendance at this year's event. 

If you think that you can put a few hours aside next Sunday, please do get in touch.

In the meantime Jo, I hope your ankle gets better soon!!

Riverside Countryside Experience 2009

KRAG will be setting up a stall at this year's Riverside Countryside Experience. Jo Richards will be on hand to chat with folks who would like to come along and perhaps share some recent records. There will also  be plenty of other stalls and activities to keep everyone entertained. I only hope the weather is better than last year! 

The event will be held on Sunday 12th July from 11 am to 5 pm. 

For those of you with a satnav, the park address is:

Riverside Country Park, Lower Rainham Road, Gillingham, Kent, KE7 2XH

 

More detailed directions on how to find the country park are also available here. 

Here is some additional information on the country park that was obtained from Medway Council's website (with a few of my photos to illustrate):

Riverside Country Park covers 100 hectares alongside the Medway Estuary, including Motney Hill and Berengrave Local Nature Reserve. There are various habitats within the park, including mudflats and salt marsh, ponds and reed-beds, grassland and scrub, which provide a haven for wildlife.

The estuary has special protection as part of the Medway Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and is internationally important for wintering birds that thrive on the invertebrate-rich mudflats. The salt marshes have a specialised ecology and act as high tide roost sites.

Riverside has several ponds at Sharps Green and Berengrave. These are cleared of vegetation to maintain open water.

The reedbeds at Motney Hill are one of only 92 such sites which exceed two hectares in the UK. Management involves cutting a small area each year, which promotes dense growth and halts the natural progression of the reeds.

Grassland at Eastcourt Meadows and Rainham Dock East is mown in early autumn to encourage wildflowers and insects. Although the scrub is controlled, it forms an important part of this habitat, providing cover for small animals, nesting sites for birds and complete ecosystems for insects.

Of course, Riverside Country Park is also of great interest to KRAG for one or two other reasons...

I'm sure that you won't be surprised to learn that Riverside Country Park has been designated by KRAG as a Key Reptile Site for Kent. If you do see any lizards or snakes whilst visiting the park, please do remember to tell us about it! 

Gardening for Wildlife

One of the great joys of owning a garden is being able to manage it just the way you like. As a keen herpetologist, that presents a fantastic opportunity. We have lived at our Dunkirk address for nearly 10 years and some of the gardening work that has been undertaken over that time is really starting to pay dividends. 

 Although our garden pond is only small (for the moment!), it supports good numbers of common frog and smooth newts. Indeed, earlier this year the kids had a fantastic afternoon newting and pulled out 56 individual newts! 

Last week I spotted something moving on the grass and ran in the house shouting for everybody to come and see...  

An adult female stag beetle (Lucanus cervus)! This is the first stag beetle we have seen in the garden. We have constructed several log piles, but I'm not sure whether they breed. It is likely that this one simply flew in. Stag beetles have apparently been recorded in Faversham and we live close to Blean Woods. More information on stag beetles is available from the Stag Beetle Helpline (including a recording form of course).  

The family weren't quite as excited as me, but I suspect Erin was secretly thrilled.

Another interesting find over the past weekend was a spotted longhorn beetle (Rutpela maculata). I found this one feeding on the flowers of an oxe-eye daisy. 

The garden does of course support lots of slow-worms, but I'll write about them in a future post - stay tuned, the Dragon Gardens are coming!

Utility Company Prosecuted for Damaging Newt Habitat

Natural England has recently issued a couple of press releases concerning prosecutions of companies that have damaged great crested newt habitat. In one case, EDF Energy carried out an extension to one of their Essex sites following the construction of a new housing estate nearby. Unfortunately this work was undertaken without an ecological assessment and caused disturbance to great crested newt terrestrial habitat. 

Natural England spokesperson Paul Cantwell is quoted as saying:

"This case highlights the importance of companies, including utility companies, of carrying out ecological assessments before undertaking works on sites where there may be protected species. It is not just large scale developments or projects that can have detrimental impacts on protected species, smaller scale work such as this can also be damaging." 

In the second case, Yorkshire developer Essential Vivendi Ltd was fined £11,500 for ignoring advice previously offered by Natural England and undertaking construction works that resulted in significant damage to a great crested newt population. This represents the single largest fine ever issued for disturbance to great crested newt habitat. Natural England expressed disappointment that it had become necessary to pursue a prosecution and advised

"Thousands of great crested newt populations have been lost in the last century, many to developments built where newts were not considered. The law now protects declining species like the great crested newt, and many developers easily comply by getting early specialist advice, and by talking to us."

Such specialist advice can of course be obtained from Calumma Ecological Services. For projects not located in SE England, other appropriately licensed consultants can be identified by contacting IEEM.