#626: Octavia Hill

Another person on the list of people who students studying the course should be introduced to is Octavia Hill.

Octavia Hill tried to improve access to nature for the people of the UK. In doing so, she was one of three founders of the National Trust.

Image copyright: National Trust.

Founding the charity in 1895, she said she believed that “the healthy gift of air and the joy of plants and flowers” were vital in everyone’s life.

The National Trust wants city dwellers to be given more access to nature.

#509: Go Jauntly into your Naturehood

Via LinkedIn.

Go Jauntly has teamed up with the National Trust.

#454: Longshaw Estate - new home of BBC's 'Springwatch'

The location for the BBC's Springwatch / Autumnwatch programmes has often been in places I know well, and even very close to home.

From Pensthorpe near Fakenham to Minsmere, and particularly Ken Hill in Snettisham (where I lived for 12 years)...

And now they've moved to an area of Derbyshire which I visited regularly for decades when I was younger, for walks, climbing, pubs and generally getting out of the city and into the countryside at weekends. The new venue is the Longshaw Estate, which is close to Grindleford (with its famous cafe and where my parents actually had their honeymoon), and Hathersage, and Fox House (where I was first served alcohol in a pub... but that's another story.) Burbage Brook - a classic location for fieldwork for schools from Sheffield - runs through it - through Padley Gorge, and Stanage Edge is not too far away, or several of the other edges where I used to climb. Heading for Hathersage you will pass Froggy Rock and then Surprise View - always things we looked out for when heading there as a child... half a century and more ago...

The estate is managed by the National Trust.

Map source

The programme started yesterday and is on iPlayer.

Multicams can be watched through the day....

e.g.here's a Short Eared Owl I just saw live... complete with distant traffic noise and a plane going over... the sounds of us impinging on the sounds of nature...

#420: The National Trust's Annual Review for 2024

This has been getting a lot of coverage in the news: the charity's annual review.

Each year the Weather and Wildlife Review looks back on how weather has impacted wildlife through the seasons at the places the National Trust looks after.

One in six species in the UK are currently threatened with extinction and we're seeing the impact that the climate crisis is having on both common and rare species.

The review shows that our changing climate has led to the slow loss of predictable weather patterns and how traditional seasonal shifts are causing chaos and confusion for wildlife and people.

The incremental shifts we’re experiencing in terms of our seasons extending may not feel like much in a 12-month period, but over a decade the changes are extremely significant.

Ben McCarthy: National Trust Head of Nature Conservation and Restoration Ecology

With 2024 declared the world’s hottest year on record, it signals a red alert for nature. As global temperatures rise, scientists have previously said that the UK is likely to experience a wetter climate. That reality is now playing out in real time, impacting landscapes, nature and the places we look after. 

Following record-breaking warm years in 2022 and 2023, 2024 was mild and very wet by comparison, with unsettled weather dominating forecasts across the UK in the past 12 months.

2024 has seen record-breaking warm and wet months as well as temperatures see-sawing from one extreme to the other within a matter of days. 

Storms, flooding and multi-hazard weather events bringing snow, rain and wind simultaneously in different pockets of the country have caused destruction and disruption. Unusual sightings in the natural world from across the year also act as warning beacons for what’s happening to our wildlife and seasons. 

#414: The National Trust's Weather and Wildlife Review

This has been getting a lot of coverage today in the news: the charity's annual review.

Each year the Weather and Wildlife Review looks back on how weather has impacted wildlife through the seasons at the places the National Trust looks after.

One in six species in the UK are currently threatened with extinction and we're seeing the impact that the climate crisis is having on both common and rare species.

The review shows that our changing climate has led to the slow loss of predictable weather patterns and how traditional seasonal shifts are causing chaos and confusion for wildlife and people.

The incremental shifts we’re experiencing in terms of our seasons extending may not feel like much in a 12-month period, but over a decade the changes are extremely significant.

Ben McCarthy: National Trust Head of Nature Conservation and Restoration Ecology

With 2024 declared the world’s hottest year on record, it signals a red alert for nature. As global temperatures rise, scientists have previously said that the UK is likely to experience a wetter climate. That reality is now playing out in real time, impacting landscapes, nature and the places we look after. 

Following record-breaking warm years in 2022 and 2023, 2024 was mild and very wet by comparison, with unsettled weather dominating forecasts across the UK in the past 12 months.

2024 has seen record-breaking warm and wet months as well as temperatures see-sawing from one extreme to the other within a matter of days. 

Storms, flooding and multi-hazard weather events bringing snow, rain and wind simultaneously in different pockets of the country have caused destruction and disruption. Unusual sightings in the natural world from across the year also act as warning beacons for what’s happening to our wildlife and seasons. 

#357: Wicken Fen's 125th birthday

2024 marks the 125th birthday of Wicken Fen: a local nature reserve to me in Cambridgeshire.

Wednesday 1 May 2024 marked 125 years since the National Trust acquired its first two acres of land at Wicken Fen. 

Since 1899, when it became the National Trust's first nature reserve, Wicken Fen has now expanded to over 2,000 acres. Today, it is one of Europe's most important wetlands and home to more than 9,000 species.

#216: Wicken Fen- 125th anniversary

2024 marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Wicken Fen.

From the website:

Before 1899, the Sedge Fen area was home to a thriving sedge-harvesting community, and was frequented by naturalists who delighted in this remnant of undrained fenland. 

In the 19th century, Wicken Fen became popular with Victorian naturalists - while there isn't evidence that Charles Darwin actually visited Wicken, he is known to have collected beetles in the fens in 1820. Later, during the first half of the 20th century, Cambridge botanists Sir Harry Godwin and Dr Arthur Tansley - recognised as the fathers of modern ecology and conservation - carried out cutting-dge studies in the area.

In the late 19th century, with the local sedge and peat industries collapsing, naturalists paid villagers to assist with collecting trips on the Fen, and also bought up land from them. Distinguished entomologist Herbert Goss suggested the National Trust should consider saving Wicken Fen as early as 1898, as it was 'the haunt of much wildlife'. These naturalists then sold or gifted their land at Wicken to the newly-formed National Trust, including J C Moberley whose two acres were sold to the organisation for £10. Other notable donors included George Verrall, MP for Newmarket, who bequesthed 239 acres, on his death in 1911. Banker Charles Rothschild, an early influential figure in nature conservation donated parts of St Edmunds and Adventurers' Fens in 1901.

In 1999 - to mark the 100th anniversary of the first acquisition - the Wicken Fen Vision was launched, a 100-year project that will see the nature reserve expanded from Wicken Fen to the edge of Cambridge. Since 1999, the size of the reserve has more than doubled, for the benefit of wildlife, and for access into green space for people.

Image: © National Trust Images/Rob Coleman

Wicken Fen is very close to Ely, and the school where I work.

#139: Lydford Gorge: temperate rainforests

A news report from the BBC explores the UK's few temperate rainforests. I have mentioned Guy Shrubsole's book before - a copy is in my Natural History library and will be featured on the blog as well and in the reading lists we are making.

The story looks at Lydford Gorge in Devon, a place I've visited a few times over the years.

A reminder of the need to protect what we have. There are some particularly rare lichens in the woods, including one in Somerset which is the only known location where it is found.

The article says:

Lichens are a particularly unusual class of organisms found in temperate rainforests.

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, many of which are found in temperate rainforests,

The horsehair lichen Bryoria smithii is known at only two rainforest sites in Britain and Arthonia thoriana, a rare comma lichen, is not known anywhere else in the world other than at Horner Wood in Somerset. 

Temperate rainforests are made up of oak, birch, ash, pine and hazel woodland, but the ash trees are suffering from ash dieback.

#106: Sycamore Gap tree felled

A few days ago, I saw a tweet from Robert MacFarlane which was rather shocking: the iconic sycamore tree in the 'Sycamore Gap' along Hadrian's Wall had been deliberately felled  the previous night by someone / a group of people with a chainsaw. A big one at that given the size of the tree...

Sick to the core to see this.
A tree known & loved by millions.
Stories, memories, histories, lives, all entwined with it.
100s of years of patient growth, felled in a few minutes, the day the State of Nature report is published.
War waged on nature by individuals & government. https://t.co/F9Gq7hBkqo

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) September 28, 2023

 I really cannot understand why this might have been done.

Others do have some theories, particularly if you look at the quality of the cut and the circumstances under which the act took place... see below

The tree was special to many people in many different ways. It sits in a dramatic location where the wall dips down after a steep cliffed section of the Whin Sill. The tree had stood there for around three hundred years.

One thing to note is that sycamore trees can regenerate with new growth from a stump.

Image: Claire Kyndt

The Guardian shared some pictures of the tree in a feature here.

Personally find it unlikely a 16 year- old would bother to do this in a storm for a prank, let alone mark a saw cut with white paint #SycamoreGap pic.twitter.com/M1rDdJjYYH

— Dr Jonathan Foyle  (@JonathanFoyle) September 28, 2023

Update 

A new piece from Robert.

I spoke about the need to understand the Sycamore Gap tree’s slaughter in context of the wider “hostile environment” towards the natural world in the UK.
And also about how the best way to mourn the loss of this tree is to grow a forest. https://t.co/iLkq7CWbVP

— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) September 29, 2023

It's possible that the story of the tree may form part of some sort of material for the draft specification - perhaps an image on the front cover, or as a reminder of the way that some trees and nature gain additional significance for people. 

Updated October 12th 

Preparations are underway to remove the tree at Sycamore Gap tomorrow. The 50-foot tree had stood for almost 200 years until it was felled in an act of vandalism two weeks ago - it will now be carefully moved by crane and taken to a property in our care, to be safely stored. 1/5 pic.twitter.com/zal78fEd3O

— National Trust in the North (@NT_TheNorth) October 11, 2023

#95: National Trust report on people and nature

The National Trust has recently released a report on the relationship between people and nature, in association with the University of Derby.

It is worth exploring to see some recommendations for how we might strengthen the relationship betwen people and nature.

Noticing Nature is the first stage.

Download the full report from here.

You can also search the hashtag #Everyoneneedsnature

The report reveals that ‘noticing nature’, or simple everyday interactions with nature, were the most closely linked to conservation action. The most important interactions were:

• Watching wildlife (for example birdwatching)
• Listening to birdsong
• Smelling wild flowers
• Taking a photo/drawing or painting a picture of a view, plant, flower or animal
• Taking time to notice butterflies and/or bees
• Watching the sunrise
• Watching clouds.

‘Nature connectedness’ was also a key factor in conservation action. Reading and talking about nature, environmental behaviours, levels of concern, and knowledge of nature also helped explain conservation behaviours.

#90: Thought for the Day