#660: Field Guides

The Linnean Society has shared a good collection of field guides to help you identify species.

These are going to be useful for those beginning to upskill themselves in such skills ahead of potentially teaching some of the proposed habitats in the subject content which is out for consultation until early September 2026

#557: Beetles

How to identify beetles?

A guide is here.

ID guides for major species which may be mentioned in the specification will be important. Some teachers who are teaching the new specifications may not be 

#494: Tautonyms

Check out the Triple Tautonyms website to help practise your latin naming of flora and fauna.

#421: Natural History Reading List #22: 'Homecoming'

'Homecoming' is the latest book by nature writer Melissa Harrison. 

It is a chunky almanac-cum-diary which can be filled in over the course of a year, but started at any time.

After an introduction into the importance of engaging with the natural world, and the benefits to be gained by doing that, the book includes a monthly summary of what can be seen in nature and the weather.

This is followed by a diary type set of page where observations can be recorded, and a set of tick boxes of typical wildlife interactions that you might have in that particular month. There are note pages and other things.

While you should of course support your local bookseller, if you are on a budget, this is currently half price on Amazon.

My copy was published by W and N

It was purchased from Topping Books in Ely. Support your local 

Hardback, 320pp

ISBN: 978-1399618779

#297: Poo

I've previously blogged about the Mammal Society's website. 

This has a section on the identification of animal poo.

Here is a link to the resource. 

This is something which is perhaps an area to use with young people.

We also mentioned poo in quite a few of our missions in the Mission:Explore books - particularly our National Parks book.

This included some creative uses of poo.

Please note that it’s important NOT to touch any poo directly as it can be harmful. In order to break it apart and get a better look, it’s best to use a tool, such as a small stick.

#238: Watkins and Doncaster

Watkins and Doncaster are a firm that many schools are likely to be in touch with when they are preparing to teach the new GCSE Natural History specification for the first time.

Any school planning to offer the GCSE Natural History will probably need to purchase a range of equipment for some of the skills and fieldwork elements - if those are retained from the original consultation. It is unlikely that many will have everything they need for the new specification. This is also one additional 'cost' involved for schools which want to offer the new specification and which might therefore prevent some colleagues who might want to be involved from being able to add it to the subjects they offer.

Here's the wording from the original consultation document, which is only advisory and not the final text of course.

Safe use of techniques for monitoring/detecting organisms. For example: Longworth traps, moth traps, camera traps, satellite tags, methods for monitoring reptiles, using photographs, bat detectors, bird ringing, etc. Use of indirect evidence (e.g. signs, tracks, landscape analysis) Use of Identification charts

They will need some equipment for fieldwork and also to train students in the techniques they need - the teachers will need to upskill themselves first of all, so liaison between biologists, geographers and others will be essential...

The firm sells some useful equipment for entomological work (insects) and geology.

#236: Urban Plants: an ID guide

Most ID guides for plants are about rural locations, and to help identify things like wildflowers and salt marsh plants. They are for taking on nature rambles in woodlands or rural locations.

Pelagic Publishing is preparing to publish a guide in July 2024 which will help identify weeds growing through the pavements, or other urban locations. To be fair, for many schools, these plants are more likely the ones to be found in the immediate area, particularly urban schools which may not have a park or significant open space that is easily accessible.

This is another example where the context of a school may well determine the possibility of offering GCSE Natural History. There are several important factors here.

Description:

Have you ever wondered exactly what those ‘weeds’ are growing along the kerb or between the cracks in the pavement? Not the pampered plants of parks, front gardens and herbaceous borders, but simply those that exist everywhere and nowhere in particular: the true survivors, the botanical opportunists. In this handy guide, we introduce the most commonplace flowers, shrubs, grasses, mosses and ferns that are to be found on the street, and show the main characteristics by which you can recognise them. 

Soon you’ll be more alert than ever to the rebellious species of tarmac, wall and gutter as they defy weedkiller, climate change and dog wee.

So you can identify the plants you discover in your town as readily as possible, the species are arranged according to their growth form. The book starts with the largest group – herbaceous plants – followed by a few woody plants, grasses, mosses and ferns.

Out in July 2024. I think I will be getting a copy of this book for our library of field guides.

#233: Natural History Reading List #16: 'British Woodland" How to explore the secret world of our trees'

This is a new book written by survival expert and TV personality Ray Mears. I can attest to the power of Ray's storytelling as I attended an excellent talk he gave in Ely Cathedral several years ago, organised by Topping Books of Ely.

This book explores British Woodlands, and is very nicely designed.  The book is organised under themed chapters, but the trees themselves are arranged in alphabetical order, starting with Alder, and working through Beech, Elm, Horse Chestnut, Pine, Sycamore and many others, ending up with Yew. A final chapter explores the Future, and the book begins with a look at the past, when there were no trees in much of the UK as it had been scraped clean by glaciers. The trees soon returned to colonise the land, before people then stripped them all away.

There is some nice photography and the story of each tree is joined with a narrative. Each tree has a double page of information and a picture of their leaves, to aid identification perhaps. 

A focus for the narrative is on the usefulness of each tree for different things. The photography also explores toxic and edible plants and fungi as well as berries and other fruits which can be found in British woodlands. The book covers a whole range of associated topics e.g. Phototropism.

I liked the section on 'How not to get lost', which is all to easy of course in dense woodland. There are also photos of some of the indicator species of ancient woodlands towards the end of the book. 

This would make a fantastic addition to any library of Natural History books, and also a great gift for someone.

I obtained this book from the Norfolk Library Service. It was published in 2023.

The paperback edition comes out on the 21st of March, 2024 and I will be adding a copy to my GCSE Natural History library.

#228: A likin' for lichen

There is a British Lichen Society which provides all your lichen related needs.

Lichens are a particularly unusual class of organisms.

The plant-like living things are made up of fungi growing in association with other life forms, such as algae. There are more than 2,000 species in Britain and Ireland alone.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license.

The British Lichen Society website has some useful documents for those wanting to know more about these organisms. 

They can indicate the quality of the air in a city, for example, and the rate of growth can give clues as to when ice receded to reveal bare rock outcrops.

More to come in time...

Update:

Did you know?

Lichen survived 18 months attached to outside of International Space Station.

When lichens were attached to the outside of the International Space Station for 18 months they survived the vacuum of space, no water, extreme temperatures and the full onslaught of… pic.twitter.com/P5Zmqcvwid

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 4, 2024

#226: Forestry England - free Tree Trumps game download

Forestry England have made a free Top Trumps game available to download featuring UK tree species. This is found in the activities section of their website. May be helpful for those wanting to improve their identification skills.

#223: Forestry and Land Scotland

Forestry and Land Scotland is an organisation which has a broad remit, and manages land in Scotland. They have a LEARN section on their website, which contains some useful resources which may well be of value for those teaching the new specification.

These include the following:

- an ID guide to help identify Scotland's tree species

- the lifcycle of a piece of wood from seedling to finished product - exploring the various products from forestry may be relevant

- Scotland's heritage

- activity sheets

There's also a Future Forest podcast.

#217: Hedgelink

Hedgelink is a useful site to go to for anyone teaching about the value of hedgerows.

Hedgelink brings together organisations and individuals with a love of hedgerows. We share knowledge and ideas to encourage and inspire everyone to take action to manage, protect and conserve our hedgerows for the future.

They provide a range of resources on the value of hedgerows, which are not always guaranteed to remain where they have been for (potentially) centuries. There is plenty of information elsewhere on the importance of hedges in creating the enclosures of land and marking boundaries.

They have a Hedge Hub with all related resources. This CPRE guide is a useful one, for example, as it describes the techniques for investigating the origins and age of hedgerows by looking at the variety of plant species they contain. This might include an investigation into Hooper's Rule for ageing a hedge.

Wikipedia explains more

Hooper's rule (named for Dr. Max Hooper) is based on ecological data obtained from hedges of known age, and suggests that the age of a hedge can be roughly estimated by counting the number of woody species counted in a thirty-yard distance and multiplying by 110 years.

Max Hooper published his original formula in the book Hedges in 1974. This method is only a rule of thumb, and can be off by a couple of centuries; it should always be backed up by documentary evidence, if possible, and take into account other factors. Caveats include the fact that planted hedgerows, hedgerows with elm, and hedgerows in the north of England tend not to follow the rule as closely. The formula also does not work on hedges more than a thousand years old. 

The founding father of contemporary Local Studies W.G. Hoskins, also pointed out that the number and types of species vary from county to county, which casts further doubt on Hooper’s Rule as an accurate dating tool. So unless it can be verified with historic records, it cannot stand alone.

Hooper's scheme is important not least for its potential use in determining what an important hedgerow is, given their protection in The Hedgerows Regulations (1997; No. 1160) of the Department of the Environment, based on age and other factors.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge

Hedges are of particular significance in the landscape in Devon - see link here (PDF download)

#177: Ladybird love

A nice piece in The Guardian by Helen Sullivan on Ladybirds. 

She describes the link with the Virgin Mary.

Its spots – seven, if you are in Europe – symbolise Mary’s seven sorrows, its red shell the cloak she wears sometimes, when she is feeling passionate or loving, or devoted to her son, or, when she’s in a particularly generous mood, devoted to all of humanity.

When a ladybug lands on you, by thinking about what you’d like to happen, you might increase the chances it’ll come true—like wishing on a star. Maybe it’s just the power of positive thinking.

Unsurprisingly, the reverse of this belief is also commonly held. Squishing a ladybug is thought to bring bad fortune, so you might want to stay away from whacking them.

A guide to ladybirds can be purchased for £4 from this link. It is produced by Watkins and Doncaster.

Source

https://www.birdsandblooms.com/gardening/garden-bugs/ladybug-meaning/

Image: https://www.watdon.co.uk/acatalog/E5475-guide-to-ladybirds-of-the-British-Isles-identification-chart.html

There will be a separate post about Watkins and Doncaster - a firm that sells quite a lot of the equipment that departments will need if they are planning to teach the 

#164: Dr. Margaret Bradshaw - wildflower advocate

I hope that students will be introduced to a diverse range of people who have worked in the field of natural history - specialising in discrete aspects of the various sub-disciplines - and not just the usual suspects of dead white men.

Margaret Bradshaw is a legend in the field of wildlfower research.

The Guardian has profiled Margaret, who has spent many decades researching the flowers in Teesdale in North Yorkshire. At 97, she has just had a book published outlining the results of her research into the local flowers which developed in a unique mini-ecosystem of Arctic-Alpine flora.

She has also been featured on Countryfile.

This part of the uplands is a seemingly empty landscape, heavily grazed by sheep, but it hides botanical treasures that have been here for more than 10,000 years. Some of the plants can’t be found anywhere else in the UK and – until Bradshaw arrived on the scene – many were unaccounted for.

Bradshaw is the chief caretaker of some of the country’s rarest flowers. She has spent seven decades obsessively studying the unique Arctic-Alpine flora of Teesdale, in the north of England.

We just loved reading this profile of Margaret Bradshaw - deserving winner of our 2023 H. H. Bloomer Award.

Margaret has spent decades studying the plants of Teesdale, and campaigning to preserve them.https://t.co/8stQfR3P4K pic.twitter.com/z6q4ZRNrfC

— The Linnean Society of London (@LinneanSociety) November 3, 2023

On her Countryfile appearance she was asked if it 'mattered' that the flowers were disappearing.

In response, Margarets said: 'Well, does it matter that we have Durham cathedral? Does it matter that we have Stongehenge?'

'What would happen if Durham cathedral was falling down, bit by bit? They'd want to build it up again because it's part of our heritage.

'This is part of our heritage. Much older than Stonehenge. It's 10,000 or 12,000 years old.'

#84: Feathers and Featherbase

If you found a bird's feather, would you be able to identify the bird it came from?

Featherbase is a wonderful resource and a labour of love.

As the creators say:

Every feather has a fascinating story to tell, each so unique in its makeup, shape, form, texture, color and function it serves to the bird. Feathers can teach us so much about birds and how they live. They bring people closer to the natural world – and therefore play an important role in its preservation.

Details (from the website):

Featherbase is a working group of German feather scientists and other collectors worldwide who came together with their personal collections and created the biggest and most comprehensive online feather library in the world. Using our website, it is possible to identify feathers from hundreds of different species, compare similarities between them, work out gender or age-specific characteristics and look at the statistics of countless feather measurements. In contrast to the conventional work of museums, Featherbase is much more oriented towards the general public, allowing not just enrolled scientists the opportunity to gain access to the collection, but anyone with an interest in studying birds and their feathers. Featherbase also frequently collaborates with scientific or educational organizations by offering images, data or teamwork in general.

Featherbase works completely independently, without administrative affiliation, and first and foremost without commercial interests. We are a non-profit making entity and funded entirely by our own contributors. The collecting of feathers and skins for our database is approved by the relevant authorities, and for any protected/CITES listed species held, we are fastidious about maintaining records of their origin.

This will go onto our list of websites to help identify wildlife and other natural history related phenomena and artefacts.

There is an Instagram page for the project.

Feathers - image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license