Writtle Wildlife Watch (May 2014)

Writtle Wildlife Watch is back! Once more, our conservation expert Alan Roscoe has been keeping an eye on the wildlife on campus. 

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"Personally, I am not a great one for cute and fluffy animals. Giant Panda? Thanks but no. Meerkats? Raincheck. Ring-tailed Lemur? Sorry, washing my hair.

But every once in a while you have a close encounter with the cute and fluffy side of nature that really hits home. Back in the January blog I mentioned our various bird boxes around the estate and I am delighted to report we have a newly hatched clutch of College Kestrels this month, having only installed the box earlier this year.

Kestrel box at Writtle College. Copyright Steve Baines.

Under the supervision of local bird box supremo Steve Baines, the box was checked a few days ago and we have five very healthy looking chicks. As you can see they are quite chunky already but also a little apprehensive of strangers! We checked but the mother was nowhere to be seen. You have to be patient as absences from a nestbox can be as long as two hours.

And in line with this blog’s mission to be both entertaining and informative, Kestrels number some 45,000 pairs in Britain, although they have declined recently leading to ‘amber’ status. The word ‘falcon’ derives from the Latin falcis meaning a sickle, and refers to the shape of a falcon’s talons. Now there’s a good word I never learned in my Latin lessons."

For those of you on Twitter, did you know you can now follow us? Find us @WrittleCons.

Writtle Wildlife Watch (April 2014)

Writtle conservation expert, Alan Roscoe, has once again been observing the wildlife on campus at Writtle. Here, Alan reviews his April findings.

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"Now come on, this just isn’t playing fair. One second you think the rain has gone and we are in for another scorching summer like last year, the next you are gazing out of the window, whilst reaching for the thermostat.

But did you notice the slightest warming of the days a few weeks back when things started waking up? We certainly did here at the College as we are interested in annual changes in seasonal events (’phenological indicators’) and our students keep an eye open for us on the first appearance of certain key species, especially butterflies.

Orange Tip, College estate, April 2014, Copyright Noah Greaves

So, what was the first butterfly out of the blocks this year? The Brimstone was the first species, spotted in late February by our student Fiona basking on bricks near the student restaurant (the butterfly that is, not Fiona). This sulphur yellow insect was closely followed by Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Comma. But for me the acme of spring is the Orange Tip. This small butterfly says that spring is in full swing and its appearance is all the more special for it being so fleeting.

Thanks to our student Noah for this great picture of a female Orange Tip on the College estate. Roll on summer."

Writtle Wildlife Watch (March 2014)

This month our conservation expert Alan Roscoe discusses the recent installation of an Otter Holt by Writtle students as well as his own encounter with the species.

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All animals are fascinating but, let’s face it, we tend to have softer spots for certain species. Of course it helps if it is a mammal – we can empathise with that group – and if you can add in a dash of success against the odds you can end up with a very charismatic species. One such animal is the Otter which has fought back from catastrophic losses in the middle of the 20^th century and is now found in every county in England. 

Otter (Image by Catherine Trigg. Source: Flickr)

Students found spraints on the College estate in 2010 and they have also been reported along the River Wid in nearby Writtle village by our friends in the village wildlife group. The otters continue to spraint under one of our bridges and this year we thought we would lend them a hand.

We have regular work parties on the estate and a good project for a pleasant spring day is building an otter holt. Otters will use artificial holts if sited in undisturbed areas and, despite the fact we have a very busy estate, animals can still find quiet corners away from farm and student activity.

I invited students to run the activity as projects like this provide an opportunity to demonstrate planning, resourcing, organisational and management skills. Will and Katy volunteered to look after everything and off we went. The day passed surprisingly quickly and after just three hours we had a very substantial holt (see picture below). I am hoping we can set up our remote camera soon to capture any activity. 

Writtle students with Otter Holt

An added bonus: the timber we used had been brought down by our students elsewhere on the estate as part of felling practice so we also had a perfectly sustainable activity.

Just a footnote: Otters may look cute and cuddly but they are actually very chunky animals. Apologies for ending on a sad note but I came across a dead otter on one of Chelmsford’s main roads two years ago. I arranged with a contact at Essex Wildlife Trust to have it sent away for a post mortem but it was up to me to recover the animal. It was immensely heavy and this was of course, compounded by the fact it was dead weight. I managed to wrestle the body into the boot of my car and, nose to tail, it stretched right across the boot.

So, sadly, they will continue to be the victims of accidents but we have high hopes for our local animals and, with any luck, we shall have residents soon.

Writtle Wildlife Watch (February 2014)

Writtle Conservation lecturer, Alan Roscoe, updates us on his latest 'Writtle Wildlife Watch'.

"A couple of months back I mentioned the recent storms and flooding but such has been their impact I feel I have to mention them again before Spring arrives.

Clearly you don’t have to live on the Somerset Levels to be aware of the potential for damage and even here, in warm and sheltered Essex (where the sun shines every day!) we have had some clearing up to do. This week we were out with our first years clearing away some trees which had come down across the green lane which crosses our estate just to let local residents and horses through.

UK floods in 2014

There has been much debate on comments pages attached to BBC website news stories with many contributors. And, yes, I am among them – see if you can spot my comments! Unfortunately, to paraphrase Mrs Merton (c.1997), many people seem to have taken the story as an excuse for a ‘heated debate’. But apart from the rather predictable ‘I blame the farmers / RSPB / Environment Agency / insert name of enemy here’ comments, there have also been some really interesting observations about the root causes of flooding, the nature of our countryside, what we expect from it and how to mitigate – and I cannot, hand on heart, say ‘avoid’ – such significant floods in the future. The most recent piece on the subject is at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26466653

Perhaps now is the moment when we have that national (unheated) debate about our competing demands on our countryside, its aesthetics, its purpose and its future."

Writtle Wildlife Watch (January 2014)

Conservation Lecturer, Alan Roscoe, is back to provide us with a captivating update about wildlife around the Writtle College campus. Read Alan's discoveries for the start of 2014!

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"When I was a lad (as they say) nothing was quite as thrilling as seeing a Kestrel hovering by the side of a motorway, its elegant wings braced against the wind as its finely-tuned eyes scanned for prey below, and its tail working furiously to keep its head stock-still in the breeze. The species was all the more meaningful to this young birder as it was also the emblem of the Young Ornithologists’ Club, the junior section of the RSPB at that time. (Goodness, who uses the word ‘ornithologist’ nowadays?)

Image courtesy of Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Whilst many birds of prey have prospered in recent years though, the Kestrel has, for reasons which are not quite clear, declined at a rather unpleasant rate. Help is at hand however, as its plight has already been recognised and conservation groups are taking action.

Working with Essex Birdwatching Society and our colleagues on the College farm, we are now installing Kestrel boxes on our estate to help encourage the local population. 

This will supplement the Barn Owl boxes we put up a couple of years ago (see below).

Alan Roscoe monitoring Barn Owl boxes on campus

With any luck, we shall have some student volunteers this year to help monitor the nests. Which means that at least I will be spared climbing up those high ladders…."

Some like it hot - by Senior Lecturer Simon Hart

Simon Hart, Senior Lecturer in the School of Sustainable Environments, discusses the ornamental value of the Chilli pepper.

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Fresh chilli peppers (or chile if you prefer) are far more available than they have ever been as they are now being grown on a commercial scale in the UK.

Chilli peppers belong to the genus Capsicum, most falling into the species C. annuum, though some of the hotter types (eg. the scotch bonnets) are a different species,  C.chinensis.  Greenhouse trials carried out at Writtle College on behalf of Tozer seeds during summer 2013 featured over sixty different varieties, and this is by no means an exhaustive collection.

Growers have found that chillis do very well as a summer crop in greenhouses or polythene tunnels, they  give a reliable yield (the flowers are self pollinating) and providing  aphids are kept under control aren’t too troublesome in the way of maintenance.

Although famous for their variability in heat content, which goes from mildly warming to lethally hot, chill peppers also vary widely in size, shape and colour. As UK production becomes more widespread and availability increases more of the interesting colours and shapes are finding their way onto the market as fresh produce.

The ornamental value of fresh chilli peppers has been explored recently by BA Floristry students at Writtle College, who have been designing a range of chilli pepper based arrangements such as the example below.

The peppers themselves have been proving surprisingly versatile due to the wide variety of shapes, sizes and colours available.

Fruits are generally glossy, work well with similarly glossy foliage as background, but also bring an exciting variety of colour, shape and form to the design.

Below are a few of the different types the students have found work well in arrangements:

Scotch Bonnet type peppers are usually available in red, yellow and orange shades when ripe, though more unusually a deep glossy chocolate brown. Chefs use gloves when preparing these peppers as they are lethally hot, so take care when handling

Left - an unusual chocolate brown Scotch bonnet or Habanero type

  

Yellow fruited Cayenne type (right)

The red Cayenne peppers are fairly common, but the yellow fruited less so, this variety is small enough to grow as a pot plant and produces the peppers in clusters

Another Habanero type– the variety Hot Paper Lantern (left)

Hot like the scotch bonnets, but a more elongated fruit shape.  This variety looks quite dramatic if used as a length of stem with attached fruit.

Known for its high yield, the fruits are closer spaced along the stem than many other types. 

The unusual Cambuli (right) – highly decorative colour and shape, also note the particularly long stem on each fruit.

‘Vampire’ (left) – a chill bred in the UK by Tozers;  purple stems and foliage, purple fruit ripening to red, also unusual purple flowers.

Writtle Wildlife Watch (December 2013)

Writtle conservation expert, Alan Roscoe, has once again been observing the wildlife on campus at Writtle. Here, Alan reviews his December findings.

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"I am sure you have seen the recent pictures from around the country of the devastation caused by high winds, surge tides and heavy rain. Our human infrastructure can seem very frail when confronted with these challenges.

But have you ever thought about the impact on wildlife – and do you always assume it will be bad…?

One of the things which has been lacking in the British countryside in recent decades is dead wood – a great habitat for numerous species, especially beetles. But because we are such a tidy nation, we have been obsessed with clearing up any tree which falls over in high wind. Consequently there has not been much dead wood around, until recently, that is. But now we have plenty of it!

Stag Beetle pit creation. Copyright Tina Carter.

One of the insects which needs dead wood is the Stag Beetle. This wonderful creature is found in parts of Essex and to help it out, some of students this year used buried dead wood to create ‘Stag Beetle Pits’ on the Writtle College estate.

I see there is more rough weather to come but, as far as nature is concerned, it might not all be bad news."