Writtle Wildlife Watch, October 2015

Image courtesy of Wikipedia
'Seawall' by Liftarn 

I was out and about the other day on the gorgeous Essex coast when I got chatting to two women who were walking round the sea wall. The walls are one of the joys of the Essex coastline, providing the walker with a panoramic view of both the sea and the land, with the former desperate to breach the defence and take back the territory we have stolen from it; the latter cheekily thumbing its nose from behind the safety of the wall.

 

The women were going the long route around the wall and were kitted out with boots, fleeces and binoculars, so clearly they had an interest in the natural world. There was much to see. With the tide half out, waders had been gathering in large numbers and a flock of over 200 Golden Plovers was passing overhead as we chatted. I had already seen Harriers over distant Northey Island and had been chuffed to bits to find a Pompilid wasp dragging its prey, a Woodlouse Spider, across the path. 



Moth tent

We remarked on the huge number of moth ‘tents’ we could see in the surrounding scrub and I said it was good to see so many this year, there having been far fewer in recent years. These tents protect the larvae while they grow and can be quite surprisingly robust. One of the women said there were far too many moth tents and she hoped they did not kill off the trees. 

 

In other words, ‘trees good, moths bad’. This got me thinking. 

 

Firstly, what do we regard as ‘wildlife’? 

 

There appears to be a hierarchy in the way we regard our wildlife and this is often reinforced with spectacular ignorance by the British press. The famous biologist E. O. Wilson advanced the notion of ‘biophilia’ but perhaps we are instead in the grip of ‘biophobia’. Mammals, birds and trees: good. Amphibians, dragonflies and fungi: so so. Wasps, snakes and thistles: bad. Sadly, the consequence is that often only the first group actually count as ‘wildlife’ as the others are too horrible to contemplate. Why is this? Are we conditioned at an early age to appreciate the cute, fluffy and accessible and to despise the challenging, awkward and stingy? If so, we have problems, as ecosystems rely on far more than the cute and fluffy to make them work. Where would we be without the pollinators (including wasps and flies) and the detritivores (slugs and slime moulds)? We would have no food and we would be up to our knees in waste, that’s where! 

 

Secondly, why are the British obsessed with trees? 

 

I suspect this is partly to do with what we regard as ‘nature’ and partly as a result of confusion around general green issues such as climate change, global temperature regulation and sustainable timber harvesting. More trees must be good, because we keep telling ourselves it is the case. 

 

People sometimes say to me ‘Well, France and Germany have far more trees than we do’. But it’s not a competition. And even if we could, do we really want to cover our wonderful heathlands, fens and grasslands in trees? Of course not. 

 

Thirdly, what’s wrong with a dead tree? 

 

My co-chattees (as Alan Partridge may have described them) were concerned that the trees might be killed by the presence of the moths. I do not want to seem mean but my first thought was ‘so what?’, although I promise I did not actually say it out loud. 

 

The fact is, we are now beginning to realise that dead wood has a key role to play in the way ecosystems work and we need a lot more of it. Conservationists now wince at our collective reaction to the storm of 1987 after which everyone rushed to tidy up the countryside and remove all that lovely dead wood. A handy publication is the Forestry Commission’s ‘Life in the Deadwood’ which I urge you to find online. A dead tree is a good tree! 

 

And on that happy note, until next time…

 

 

Written by Alan Roscoe

Writtle Wildlife Watch!

The face of the Essex countryside is forever adapting, with the arrival of new animal and plant species on a frequent basis. Farming is essentially changing too, with less livestock production and more arable crop farming. So why are we seeing these changes happen?

Conservation expert, Alan Roscoe, explores why...

"I was chuffed the other day to see that celebrity chef Tom Kerridge’s pub, the Hand and Flowers, serves a main course of ‘Essex lamb bun with sweetbreads and salsa verde’. With the notable exceptions of Kelly bronze turkeys, samphire from our estuaries and previously, saffron from the eponymous Walden, Essex is not especially venerated for the distinctiveness of its produce. So it was nice to see us given a mention.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia "Crops"
by Johannes Jansson

It got me thinking though, about how geographically polarised our food production has become, with comparatively little livestock in the south-east, and how this has affected our wildlife. A lamb from Essex is a pretty rare - no pun intended - beast and I can think of only two farmers locally who raise sheep for the table. The exception proves the rule therefore. Essex is predominantly an arable county and has been for many years, mostly as a consequence of its soil being excellent for crops.

The presence of animals on a farm was, many decades ago, a given. They were there to provide the power to drive the plough and the harrow. With the arrival of mechanised power in the early 20^th century however, the presence of animals on a farm was no longer necessary and finding working animals on an Essex farm is now almost an impossibility.

So what is the knock-on effect?

Image courtesy of Wikipedia "Farmer ploughing"
by Ralf Roletschek

Well, for a start, you no longer need grassland to feed your animals. And so called ‘unimproved’ grassland i.e. areas which have not had applications of chemicals or ever been ploughed, are especially rare. These areas have high conservation value and would have numbered among the fields which had fed animals for hundreds of years, only to be turned over to the plough once the animals were no longer needed.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia
"Harvest mouse" by Michael Gäbler

But we also lose the animals and, arguably, their most important product – their waste. An ecosystem is built from the base up and, in many systems, we are talking about insects. Animal waste provides food and shelter, primarily for various families of flies and beetles. These insects then become a food source for small mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds, thus acting as the base of    a huge ‘food pyramid’.

So although Tom’s lamb bun will set you back £27 a time, you are doing your bit for biodiversity in Essex!"