Natural history museum

Wow, what lovely weather we've been having the past few days - and it's due to get warmer over the weekend.  If you're looking for an outdoor activity and can't wait for the OPAL Water Survey to start in two weeks time, how about giving the Natural History Museum's cherry tree survey a try? Cherry trees are so easy to spot at ths time of year as they are in full blossom. Find out more on the museum's website.

The sunshine will also be bringing lots of butterflies out, and I'll be out looking for them as I've signed up to record butterflies in my little patch of Sussex. A couple of weeks ago I went to a conference funded through the OPAL Grants Scheme where lots of butterfly recorders got together to kick-start the process of creating a new butterfly atlas for Sussex (a book of maps and photos that details where all the different species can be found in the county). I really enjoyed the conference and was impressed at the turnout and the enthusiasm of the Butterfly Conservation Sussex recorders. As a result I've been inspired to give it a go in my local area!  Will keep you posted with my progress.  I saw a Holly Blue last weekend, but unfortunately didn't have my camera with me so can't share a photo with you.  Will post some piccies as and when I get them.

Unfortunately I'm not spending as much time outdoors as I'd like because we're really busy at work.  The OPAL Grants Scheme closes to applications in the next 2 weeks so I'm busy answering enquiries and sorting out all the paperwork.  We also have two BioBlitzes (24 hour wildlife survey events) coming up at the start of June so we're busy booking marquees and generators, inviting local naturalists, recruiting volunteers, and designing activity sheets and displays. Busy busy, but good fun too!

Just a few moments ago I received an email from Pond Conservation, one of the groups that OPAL is working with to develop our Water Survey (which launches in May). The email was a report of their recent study into the reasons why a lot of frogs and fish may have died this winter due to ponds freezing over. This was the hardest winter for 30 years with some ponds staying frozen for several weeks at a time. When they finally thawed, a lot of pond owners found dead amphibians and fish. So Pond Conservation did a bit of research with the pond owners to find out why this might be and how we can prevent it in future. You can read a summary of their report here.  It makes very interesting reading, and some methods that people used to think helped, such as making a hole in the ice, turned out not to have any effect.  It seems that keeping your pond shallow, without too many fallen leaves and silt at the bottom, and with a good range of underwater plants, mosses and algae seems to be the answer (or at least part of it). 

I wonder if this loss of amphibians will have an effect on how many we see this spring in the OPAL Water Survey. The Water Survey pack includes a guide to amphibians as well as aquatic invertebrates, dragonflies and duckweeds.  The OPAL Water Centre team have been super busy developing the survey and doing their own pond research across the country.  You can read about a typical day in the life of the OPAL water centre team written by Simon.

Well the bad weather doesn't seem to have affected amphibian numbers in the museum's wildlife garden pond too badly - John just went out to take some photos for a Nature Live talk he is giving at the weekend and he said he couldn't believe how many there were - especially toads.  So here's a piccie of some frogs in the wildife garden pond showing that Spring has finally sprung!

This is an important week for me - the launch of the next round of the OPAL Grants Scheme.  A big part of my work on OPAL is supporting all sorts of different wildlife groups including natural history societies and recording schemes. There are hundreds of widllife groups all over the country, but a lot of people don't even realise they exist. You can find a group near you by searching the NHM's Nature Societies Online website, or by contacting your local Wildlife Trust or Biological Records Centre who will be able to tell you about some of your local groups. My job is to publicise these groups, but more importantly help them to publicise themselves locally and to support their work.  I run a scheme which awards small grants to wildlife groups to help them to develop publicity materials, run public events and all sorts of different activities. You can see the groups that we funded last year and read about their projects here.  If one of these groups is near to you, why not get involved?

So now I'm busy answering phone and email enquiries to help people develop their applications, and we've already had two application forms submitted even though the grants scheme only opened earlier this week and the deadline isn't until May! 

I'm looking forward to seeing how the societies we funded last year are getting on with their projects, and where I can I'm trying to attend the events that OPAL grants have paid for - first up is a butterfly recording conference in Sussex this April.  Case studies of the funded projects will gradually build up on the website as projects get into full swing, so keep an eye out for those.

Bye for now,  Lucy   

Do you have plans this weekend?  If you have an hour to spare, then why not take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.  All you need to do is to count the birds that visit your garden in one hour.  You can do it at any time this Saturday or Sunday (30th and 31st January 2010). 

The RSPB have been running this survey for 30 years now, and every year people like you submit their results to the RSPB website.  Everybody putting in just an hour on one weekend adds up to around 6 million birds being spotted each year. This helps the RSPB to see if some bird species are less common than they used to be, and knowing that some species are struggling and declining in numbers is the first step in being able to protect them.

And the best bit about it?  You can do it from the comfort of your own home.  You can settle down in the armchair with a cup of tea and watch the birds - no wet weather gear, warm clothes or expensive bird watching equipment is needed.  Just download the ID chart from the Big Garden Birdwatch website to help you identify the birds you see.

The key thing is to record the highest number of each species you see at any one time.  This stops you from overestimating, e.g. over the course of an hour if you see 5 blackbirds, but each time they're always on their own, you dont know if that was 5 different birds, or the same one coming back 5 times. In this case you would record 1 blackbird.  All the instructions are on the Big Garden Birdwatch website anyway.

So get the kettle on, and get counting!