The Felling Fellow.

By N.E. Beckwith (NatGeoFound) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I love trees and I love the woods, I've spent thousands of hours there, engaged in a variety of activities from walking to bird watching, camping to commercial felling.

I could write a modest book on the subject of felling trees and I'm sure that the forestry commission have got pamphlets, books and all sorts of training aids, even though I suspect that harvesting machines now fell a thousand trees for every one that is cut by a man with a chain saw.

And before we felled with chainsaws this was the only option;
"Felling snags on fire line around the Coquille CCC camp, Siskiyou National Forest (3226072285)" by OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons - Felling snags on fire line around the Coquille CCC camp, Siskiyou National Forest Uploaded by russavia. Licensed under No restrictions via Wikimedia Commons.

My simple rules and suggestions for felling are very few and very simple:

1. If in doubt, don't!

2. Gravity always wins!

3. Death can be Fatal!

4. Get some training.

5. Get proper equipment, especially protective equipment (eyes, ears, hands, feet and legs) a wedge ( or 2), a sledge hammer and a turning bar / felling lever.

I've cut thousands of trees as a pro feller, the majority of which were in a plantation and these are often but not always, relatively simple. They are usually straight and as a consequence of being in a plantation are not encumbered with a multitude of side branches to catch up and roll the main trunk as it hits the ground or worse, that hold the main trunk way off the ground when it comes to rest, which makes for a dangerous clear up!

Compare the twisted and tangled deciduous trees in Riddy Wood .....

...with the straighter conifers in a plantation, while easier from a felling and timber perspective the plantations aren't so biodiverse.
Espresso Addict [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons  

Exceptions of course are 'edge trees' and plantations on a substantial slope. First the edge trees which do grow side branches, often asymmetrically toward the outside world where there is plenty of light. This asymmetry of course, puts the weight on one side and tips the balance (no pun intended) toward the heavy side and whilst you can fell at 90 degrees to the weighted side, you can't go beyond that (unless you have a gale blowing in the direction you wish to fell but one hazard at the time!)

You have to have a decent hinge, strong enough to hold the falling trunk to the stump but not so strong that it resists the initiating force to get the tree moving in the desired direction. 

"StateLibQld 1 89188 Two timber workers felling a tree on the Atherton Tableland, 1890-1900" by Item is held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.These timber workers are starting their hinge higher up than I normally would on smaller trees but in this case they need to get above the huge buttresses on this tree to fell it neatly. This is another example of 'applied bushcraft' the skills that we would now consider recreational bushcraft are certainly being put to good effect here. Working all day with a chainsaw certainly isn't easy but this kind of massive scale felling with hand tools is in a whole other league. 

This initiating force can be a push or a pull and could be from a winch or a wedge, my preference is the good old fashioned wedge as I want everything precisely in my control and literally in my hands. If there is the slightest doubt as to the way it may go, you MUST have an escape route or better still 2. These must be clear paths that you can move along at warp speed without climbing, jumping or squeezing through gaps, because if that tree snaps off it's hinge, you have no control what so ever, gravity and wind now have it 100% and that escape route can be the difference between life and death! no doubt about it! So take some time to cut a track if needs be.

The beaver takes a slightly different approach to felling than we do, it works all the way around the tree until the remaining central wood fibers no longer support the weight of the trunk and gravity takes over, we need to be a bit more predictable and controlled than that.

Now this a blog post not 'war and peace' so I'm going to keep this brief and issue the warning that my comments should not be regarded as guidance or authoritative, just an account of my experiences which may or may not be useful or relevant. As most of the non routine felling jobs are unique in so many ways, the best preparation is a detailed risk assessment and then an assessment of any and all possible scenarios. In the case of a dangerous tree with a lot of rot and / or is hollow, you could easily spend more time in the assessment phase than in the the felling itself, this is where I start:

• What have you got to cut? I.e how big or bad is it
• Where is it now? Relevant to tracks, structures or trees that you want to preserve.
• Where do you want it to be when it drops? Ground position.
• Where is the worst possible place for it to go?
• Is the size, damage or weight distribution heavily influencing where it's going?
• Is there enough good wood to form a hinge?
• Are there any 'hang-ups' or significant fragile parts which could detach and drop during the fall or at any point in the felling process?
• Is this going to need a rope assist?
• Is the wood solid enough to take a wedge with any effect?
• Etc, etc, etc.......

Don't let that tree go anywhere that your head hasn't been already!

That old carpentry analogy "measure twice cut once" isn't enough, you may need to measure, assess and plan a lot more times than twice and it's worth it, you need to give it to gravity on your terms and not let gravity take it from you on his, that will always end badly!

It's possible to drop a tree all the way to the ground still attached to its hinge but often not, the butt may rise dramatically in the later stages of the fall, it may also back up or swing either way, dependent on which piece of the falling tree hits the ground first.

I hope that this paints a scary picture, it's meant to. In coming months we will try to capture some of the felling in Riddy Wood as we take down some dangerous and badly neglected trees and post them on the website, watch this space and that one and that one, because the tree could arrive in any of them if it goes badly.

Take care in the woods!

MG

Woodland Management: Not without its red tape (Felling Licences)

An adapted version of this post will also appear on the NEW Riddy Wood Project blog 

- if you've not seen it already check it out HERE!

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I will happily tell anyone who asks why I decided to work in the conservation sector that it was to allow me to play with chainsaws, 4x4's and fire for the rest of my career. So far that plan is working out fairly well. I've got those all important felling tools and a vehicle to get me into the woods, often the fire burns through the day to help reduce the sheer quantity of brash being generated by the thinning and coppicing and, most importantly, the tranquillity that comes from being the only person in the wood (often) and all the wildlife which goes with it. Wonderful! 

I have realised by now of course that it isn't all fun and games! The insects in the woods in the summer for example, are merciless. For us on the edge of the Fens its Mosquito's, I know in other places it is other species, midges perhaps, but they are ... unpleasant! It is hard work, but I can live with that, it helps me sleep at night. The safety gear makes me sweat like a woolly pig in a heatwave! - but better safe than sorry. The financial side of things is less than ideal, especially to begin with while firewood is seasoning: nothing is life is free! I'm certainly not in it for the money at present let's put it that way.

On a more serious and informative note, another facet of woodland management, and to a certain extent other conservation activities, I hadn't put too much thought into when I embarked on my chosen career path was the associated paper work. With my work in Riddy Wood, and our other woodlands too, we had to bite the bullet and look into the legal conditions of felling licences to ensure our project was all above board and correct. Here I'll try to give a brief but broad run down on felling licence legislation, how it applies to our work, why its there and the benefits to woodland management as an industry.

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First it is worth stating for the record that at present we at Riddy Wood DO NOT have a felling licence. Second it is certainly worth explaining that at present all our work is performed legally within the exemptions of felling licence conditions. The general rule is that a felling licence applies to all felling, but with exemptions. These exemptions include certain locations where permission is not required, certain situations under which a licence is not required but the relevant portion to our work currently is in regard to 1) the size of the trees we are felling and why we are felling them and 2) the quantity of trees, or more specifically the volume of timber, we fell per calender quarter. 

The majority of the felling we are carrying out at present is either thinning or coppicing. 

Thinning involves felling selected trees to reduce the density of trees in a given area allowing the remaining trees 'growing room' to establish and to reduce the density of the leaf canopy. When thinning, trees under 10 cm (4 inches) diameter at chest height (1.3 m above ground level) do not count towards the quarterly timber quota (more on that in a minute). 

Coppicing involves felling a broad leaved tree at ground level with the intention of allowing it to regrow, allowing regrown material to be harvested from it in a regular cycle. For coppicing trees under 15 cm (6 inches) in diameter at chest height are not counted in the quota. 

Another type of felling, Pollarding, is similar in principle to coppicing but trees are cut off above ground level to prevent regrowth being browsed, or eaten, by mammals such as rabbits or deer. This type of felling does not count towards the quota regardless of size. Our pollarding at present is limited but we may explore increasing the number of trees we pollard due to the heavy toll deer browsing has on regrowth in Riddy Wood. 

When trees to be thinned or coppiced are above the size limits described above a total of 5 cubic meters can be felled per calender quarter (Jan - Mar, Apr - June, July - Sept, Oct - Dec) before a licence is required. Therefore when we are felling if we encounter larger trees which are planned to be felled we keep track of both diameter and height to allow us to calculate what volume of timber we have felled,  ensuring we remain within the quota. At present, the woods having been unmanaged for so long, there are a some trees which are within our management plans which exceed this size, although so far not so many that we have had to delay any felling to keep within our legal limitations. 

A large proportion of the larger timber we have on the ground in the wood at present actually fell down of its own accord and we have simply processed it along with the other timber. Our first few work trips to the wood after we first took on the management were taken up largely with processing fallen trees, and several more have fallen down since then. This obviously doesn't apply to felling licence conditions as it is outside of our control. As I write this Storm Barney is moving across the UK in the footsteps of Storm Abigail (I think that was her name): when I arrive in the woods next week I wouldn't be surprised to find another one or two trees have been blown over or least damaged by the high winds. 

The video below is me clearing up one of the last trees to fall. Another has come down since!

Felling licences also do not apply to dead standing timber which allows us to remove some of the standing dead wood we have. We would never remove all of these trees because standing deadwood is an importance ecological resource for species living in the woods and is often in short supply in managed woodland: we plan to buck the trend in this regard by retaining plenty of deadwood, both standing and lying, for those species which utilise it. 

To this point the red tape component has been fairly easy going. We simply have to be aware of the limitations within which we are working, keep track of volumes felled on applicable trees and ensure we plan our work effectively so at not to risk pushing the boundaries. The time may well come when we do need to apply for a licence because working within the exemptions will be too restricting. When this time comes we have already got the ground work in place. 

For a start, a check with the local district council confirmed that no TPO's (Tree Preservation Orders) apply to any of the woodlands which we have taken on. This is good news for us because of the potential limitations placed on woodland management where these do apply. Further none of the land has any statutory protection or conservation designation (e.g. SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), NNR (National Nature Reserve) etc). Land so designated has management restrictions placed upon it to protect either species or habitat features found in or on that site. That's not to say that woodland management WOULD NOT be allowed, because it is very beneficial to a wide range of species and in fact it may even be legally REQUIRED in certain areas depending on the reason for the site designation. 

We also have a general management plan in place already (you can read it here), but it needs to be updated and expanded with regards to the spatial specifics; details such as exact coup sizes and boundaries, rotation patterns etc. to make it as comprehensive as we would like it to be. This is something which is ongoing - a habitat management plan is a working document, it should not be static but dynamic allowing changes to be made even after it is 'completed'. The principles we have laid down will not change, except in very specific circumstances for carefully considered reasons, but the spatial application may be altered to suit depending on the woodlands themselves. This is one of the things which makes practical habitat management so fascinating to me, it cannot be done effectively without intimate knowledge of the area the plan is written for! Gaining that knowledge is the process which keeps me on the edge of my seat so to speak. 

A habitat management plan would be essential were we to be applying for a felling licence. It would document for example details and locations of trees to be felled and why, but a felling licence goes beyond that. It is a legislative tool to protect woodlands. For example a felling licence places ongoing conditions upon the land where the felling takes place including restocking provision, timing of felling adjacent areas and others. 

I am confident that our plans would be in keeping with the guidelines the Forestry Commission (who grant felling licences in England and Scotland - in Wales it is now the remit of Natural Resources Wales) having discussed them with a FC representative a few months ago. An example would be the replanting of areas where natural regrowth isn't successful - with Ash Dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus formerly known as Chalara fraxinea) already confirmed in our woods and surrounding woodland there is a very real chance that the Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) we are coppicing will die in its early stages of regrowth. If this does happen we will replant these areas with different species, probably Hazel (Corylus avellana) to ensure that tree cover is not lost. Another condition mentioned to me was relating to the proportion of the woodland to be managed in any one year: it should not be above 20% of total area; our plan involves managing perhaps 5 - 7.5% maximum of any of our woodlands in anyone one year. 

We could discuss further the details of this application process but I think we have covered the basics and hopefully given you readers who may not have had similar experience a taste of what is required in managing a woodland legally. While it is red-tape, paper work, and even requires working with computers and in a office, it doesn't take away from the job satisfaction for me because it confirms that work is being carried out sensitively and appropriately and that the woodland habitat won't suffer as a result.  

Richard

NB: all details on Felling Licence applications can be accessed online through the Forestry Commission website (for England) - www.forestry.gov.uk.

Salmon!

Repeated from my other blog: Nature is never far away..., hope you enjoy!

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You know that excited knot you get in your stomach before something really exciting? I felt that this week. 

What was I doing? I was minutes away from ticking off something that's been on my bucket list for years. I thought I'd have to make a special trip - maybe to Scotland - to tick this one off so had ruled it out for some time much later. But...

On Sunday I got a tip off from a friend that at a weir on the Derbyshire / Staffordshire border Salmon were leaping. Bearing in mind that its hard to get much further from the coast in the UK I hadn't even thought to check that this spectacle would be available to witness just 30 minutes drive from my house. Needless to say I didn't need to be told twice and immediately made plans to get over there as soon as possible. Two days later that I was walking the short river side footpath up to the weir; that was when 'the knot' arrived. 

This was the view that greeted me as I made my way down the bank of the River Dove. Although I knew the Salmon (and Sea Trout too) had been seen a few days before we had also had a few days of torrential rainfall. I was expecting the water level to have risen, and I wasn't sure how this would have affected the behaviour of the fish. I needn't have worried as it turned out, they were still very busy. 

Just seconds after I approached the weir itself a massive Salmon leaped clear - box ticked, but I wasn't going anywhere! A few of the people there (word had got out, in fact I was relatively late to the party!) mentioned that when they had been a few days before, with lower water levels, the fish had been leaping more.

While the fish were leaping there wasn't a lot of succeeding going on - none in fact. No-one I spoke to had seen one make it, and if you take a look at the picture above you can just about see a steep step right at the top of the weir. I'm not a fish expert by any means, but I would be amazed if any fish could make it up and over that last seemingly insurmountable obstacle, especially with the water running as fast and as high as it was while I was there. 

I allowed myself the luxury of just watching for a while, I've missed too many natural spectacles by trying to get them on camera. Also when I first arrived there was a bit of queue for the good spots so I initially had to watch through a small screen of trees, leafless of course at this time of year so I could still see well enough but it would have been pointless with a camera. I never kept track, despite having intentions to do so, but I would say there was a leap or at least some visible activity every 2 minutes or less, with occasional flurries of activity which drew excited calls and cheers from the observers. 

Trying to describe the leaping itself is a bit of a non-event, it really is something you have to see to capture the magic. If I told you I stood for two hours by a river bank on a grey November day and watched fish of varying sizes jumping about and failing to get to their destination, you might think I had a very dull life for that to be a better option... but it was thrilling. Better than the cinema any day, and the tickets are cheaper! 

The suspense is tangible, you never know exactly what's going to break the surface next, or where, or when! You can't be sure whether it will be a tiddler 40 yards away in the shadow on the other side of the river or something like this...

                                                   

                                      

  

Now I wasn't there to take photo's - I was there to watch, but I wanted to make some record of breaking my Salmon duck, if you get what I mean. When I initially set the camera up I just left it on a tripod videoing so I could watch without being distracted. Later I attached a remote release and set it to continuous shooting so I could trigger the camera without having to have my hand on the shutter button. It was just a few minutes after I changed to this mode that this monster leaped just in front of me. I'm guestimating but this fish has got to be more than 2 feet clear of the water at the highest point of its arc. 

Still images just doesn't convey the power of these fish or what they are achieving here. Even the video's don't quite do it justice. I've managed to condense over an hour of footage down into just a few minutes. 

While the fish stole the show, the river wasn't entirely devoid of other natural interest, although not exactly teeming either. Not long after I arrived a pair of mute swans winged their majestic way over the weir and down stream, their loud wing beats clearly audible even over the rushing water. Later a Kingfisher whirred down stream looking for all the world like someone had put it on fast forward, they are so fast aren't they! Its brilliant blue wasn't looking at its best but I suspect this was mostly to do with the light on the day, which was, to be kind, soft - it was pretty grey and miserable to be honest, but as no rain fell I refuse to complain.  

Eventually I had to call it a day and get home and get on with some work. I'll try and get back before the run finishes - just because it's ticked off my bucket list doesn't mean I won't make the most of this awesome (in the true sense of the word) natural spectacle so close to home again.

Richard 

Bushcraft and the Law: Protected Species

For anyone involved in activities in the countryside it is a good idea to have a basic idea of species protection legislation. As ‘bushcrafters’ (is that a word?) we rely upon the natural world to provide us with resources, whether it be food or materials, for most of the activities we undertake. One of the purposes of legal protection is to ensure species or habitats are not over-harvested or exploited, which in extreme cases can lead to extinction. Cultures which many now consider to be primitive had and still do have an intimate understanding of sustainable harvest which would ensure a continuing supply of resources - this was one reason hunter gatherer communities were so transient, to ensure they did not exhaust supplies in a single area.

Another reason of course is to prevent those who actively seek to destroy or harm species, normally animals. In this I am not talking about a responsible harvest of animals to provide food. Protective legislation attempts to regulate hunting usually through ‘close seasons’ - periods during which species cannot be lawfully hunted - normally coinciding with the breeding season. But there are circumstances where additional protective measures are applied to prevent persecution or inhumane treatment, the best example in the UK probably being the Badger Act (1992) specifically brought out to combat problems with Badger baiting and other persecution.

The subject of The Badger Act seem completely at home in this video but the Act was brought in to protect them from unwarranted persecution and cruelty

Protection can be applied with a very broad brush or very specifically depending on circumstances, ranging from ‘all birds’ to single species of invertebrate. It is common practice all across the world to legislate for the protection of rare or threatened species or habitats.

I only intend here to consider the bits of legislation most relevant to bushcrafters, as there are literally reams of regulations which are highly unlikely to affect most people who enjoy these sort of activities.

One general note I will add before I delve into some specifics - there is a difference between illegal and inappropriate or inadvisable. Many things which are inadvisable or inappropriate are not illegal - that does not mean we can or should do those things as responsible users of the natural world. There may also be a few activities which seem perfectly harmless and maybe even natural which we are prohibited from doing because it is illegal - regardless of how daft the rules may seem, they are the rules.

Plants:

We often hear, or at least I do, that ‘it’s illegal to pick wild flowers!’

In reality it is a lot more complicated than that, but actually it isn’t… illegal that is... not always.

It is illegal to ‘uproot’ wild, unprotected plants (i.e. not specifically protected, and therefore most plants) without the landowner's permission. Picking however is OK, as is picking of fruits, leaves etc for food. When you start into the territory of material harvesting technically the same rules apply but ‘wood’ is the property of the land owner. The best case scenario, whether picking for food or material, is always to have landowner permission no matter how little you are harvesting just to ensure continuing good relationships - picking a handful of blackberries or a few wild apples won’t end up in a custodial sentence though!

A few wild mushrooms for your own consumption in fine but if you start harvesting and selling them without permission then you have broken the law. 

However, if a plant is protected i.e. specifically named on the appropriate Schedule of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981) (C&WA) - Schedule 8 in this case, it is illegal to ‘intentionally pick, uproot or destroy’ a specimen of that species, regardless of where it is or what land owner you have permission from.

Floating Water-Plantain a protected species under European Law; Christian Fischer [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I have no intention of reproducing an entire list of the plants of the UK and their protection status here - there are plenty of books and websites which cover such information but to mention just one specifically, the JNCC (Joint Nature Conservation Council) is a government body and therefore their lists of protected species should be up-to-date and (in theory at least) definitive.  

Animals:

Protection of animals is a little more complicated and rightly so. Again I have no intention of going into great detail on individual species protection conditions, it would take too long and it would bore both you reading it but more importantly me writing it! I will consider birds and mammals separately here because the rules are significantly different.

Birds:

Essentially all wild birds in the UK are ‘protected’ from ‘killing, injuring, taking or selling’ which includes the birds themselves and their nests and eggs. Exceptions to this general rule allow for the taking and killing of certain species (as listed in the respective schedules of the C&WA: schedules 1 - 7).

Depending on the species these exceptions will dictate dates between which they can be killed (season), some can be killed all year round, and the methods of killing which are legal. Also for some species specific reasons for the killing of the birds which make it appropriate i.e. damage to crops etc. Landowners permission will always be required.

See this page on the JNCC website for more information.

Mammals:

Mammals do not have the same general protection which birds do, but many species are subject to some protective legislation. The Deer Act (1963; amended 1991) for example dictates appropriate seasons during which the various deer species can be killed, as well as the legal methods. Even species with no specific protection, Rabbits for example, are subject to general rules regarding humane killing of wild animals.

For those animals which are specifically protected  the same protection as birds applies (i.e. no ‘killing, injuring, taking or selling’) with the added provision that ‘damage, destruction or obstruction of access to any place which an animal uses for shelter, protection or breeding’ is illegal. Schedules 5 - 7 and 9 - 12 of the W&CA (1981) are relevant for the legislation regarding mammals.

Again, see this relevant page on the JNCC website for more information.

In cases were exceptions to the rules need to be made, work can only take place under licence from the relevant statutory conservation body (Natural England in England; Scottish Natural Heritage in Scotland; Countryside Council for Wales in Wales). Typically these licences are granted for purposes of science, conservation, education or photography (i.e. wildlife filmmaking) only. With plants certain disturbances or damages are allowed under the provision that it is unavoidable in the undertaking of necessary and otherwise lawful activity. With animals that defence won’t necessarily stand.

See previous posts in the ‘Bushcraft and the Law’ series for more info on subjects such as access to land, and legal methods of trapping or shooting which tie into this subject.

As a final note, in this ‘rules gone mad’ world we live in these days different people have many different opinions regarding how controlled our lives are. Despite what personal opinion you or others you know may have about the appropriateness of the legislative protection detailed here, they are there for a reason and therefore we must comply with them - people ignoring these rules will only make the situation worse by forcing the hand of enforcement bodies to tighten rules and increase punishments in an attempt to reduce wildlife crime. These protective measures are laws and breaches of them are therefore criminal - bear that in mind.

If you would like additional information please see the links to the JNCC website above, along with other information which can be found elsewhere on the website.

I hope this blog has been informative.

Richard

BushScience: Smartphone scientists

Smartphone:

noun
a device that combines a cell phone with a hand-held computer, typically offering Internet access, data storage, email capability etc (Dictionary.com). 

a cellular phone that is not only more intelligent and productive than its' owner but would also be rescued from a flood before the owners' mother-in-law (Urban dictionary).

See also: Smartphone Drone / Zombie

A person that is constantly focussed on his / her smartphone, ignoring the environment and especially other people (Urban Dictionary). 


Regardless where you personally stand on smartphones (and I realise there are some who would love to take that last sentence literally) I think its probably fair to say they are here to stay. For starters...

"Hi, my name is Richard and I have a smartphone..."

I use it everyday and have exactly the same issues with them that many other people do: short battery life, no signal when you really need it, doesn't fit in my pocket etc etc.

I use it for taking pictures (although NEVER 'selfies'!)
I use it for Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Linked in and various other 'apps' of that sort.
I use the maps and GPS / Sat Nav functions.
I use the internet.
I text.
I even (really pushing the boat out here) use it to make phone calls!

To me, and I'm sure to many others, it is more than just a personal toy or electronic brain transplant:
I use it to receive and send e-mails regarding work.
A lot of the social media applications I use are work related; the @Riddywood twitter account, the
Bushcraft Education facebook account, this Bushcraft Education blog etc.
Many of the photo's on this blog are taken using smartphones.

They really can be effective tools as well as toys for teenagers and twenty-somethings.
I want to tell you how they can be used as a tool in real world scientific study and monitoring, and how you can be a smartphone scientist!

My Masters degree dissertation was titled "Utilisation of carrion by Silphidae (Coleoptera) in lowland heathland, UK". I know - a thrilling title if ever there was one, loosely translated I was studying how one family of predominantly carrion feeding beetles in heathland environments colonised dead stuff. I enjoyed it anyway, but I also relied on my phone extensively to gather my results.

A map of my study site overlaid with
position of 'dead stuff'' as recorded
on my phone.

It entailed placing loads of dead rabbits under shopping baskets (to stop the larger scavengers such as foxes or crows getting there first) on an area of heathland and catching beetles which came to visit using pitfall traps (plastic cups dug into the ground). A very complicated experiment - not! Below are some thoughts I had then and since oh how smart phones can be used in real world conservation science!

1 - It was essential that I was able to find my dead rabbits again - there were 32 of them in total in an area the size of over 120 football pitches (88 hectares), most of which was covered in vegetation. Remembering exactly where they all were would have been a challenge to say the least so I logged the precise co-ordinates of each location with the GPS on my phone.


2 - During my time on the heathland I saw several species that I did not recognise, by taking pictures on my smart phone I was able to identify these species when I got back to where I was staying where I had access to ID guides - remember to set your phone to geo-tag your photos, that way you won't have to remember exactly where you saw it!

For most people this is going to be the most useful or most widely used tool, to illustrate just how easy it is to get decent images from smart phones have a look at the images to the right, all of these were taken using a smart phone and provide sufficient detail to make an ID to family level at least and to species for most (ID's at bottom).

3 - But even by doing this I had missed a couple of tricks:
There are numerous apps you can download which provide ID tips for a wide range of plant and animal species, including tracks and signs.

4 - As it turned out there weren't any at that time for the species I was trying to identify but if I had known in advance what I was going to be trying to identify I could have searched for pdf ID guides, available from various websites, and saved them to my phone for viewing later using a pdf viewer like Adobe Acrobat.

5 - If getting a correct ID isn't time restrained there are apps and online communities which will assist - iSpot being perhaps one of the biggest that I am aware of. With these you can upload a photo direct from your phone and other users can help to get a correct ID. A very useful resource and one I have used many times.

6 - For some groups there are also species recording apps which feed into national recording databases - the BTO's Bird Track is a good example.

7 - During my project I noted down my observations and numbers the old fashioned way - paper and pencil. I could (if my battery life had been a bit better - take note Smart Phone manufacturers!!) entered these figures onto my phone and then transferred them to my computer to allow me to compile and analyse the data. If a more simple analysis had been appropriate I could of used a spreadsheet app like Google's Sheets and done the entire project on the phone!


This is just a short run down on how our smart phones, so often under utilised, but over used (if you understand my meaning) can be put to use in real world scientific monitoring and recording - and I really have only just scratched the surface, largely because I'm not aware myself of all the features my own smart phone has! You don't need to be an expert to use any of these features, just take a picture and upload it to where experts can see them. If you set your phone to geo-tag your photos then the job is done. Between the species record (image), location (provided by the geo-tag) and time and date (saved with the image info) a complete record can be made. Easy!

Every app I have mentioned is free to download and often there are multiple choices which will do the same job so you can choose your favourite. IOS or Android, Windows or whatever other operating system your phone runs - all have a suite of apps that will enable you to contribute as a 'citizen scientist'. And if you want to go the whole hog, there are equally as many more detailed ID apps which you can purchase, replacing the need (to some extent) for bird books or wildflower guides.

Link a range of these apps with a water-proof and / or drop proof case (and a back up battery!) and you really are set! Some of the newest phones are water proof these days which is brilliant.

When you get out there being smart phone scientists send us examples of your pictures or species you have recorded via our Facebook page or the Riddy Wood Project Twitter account @Riddywood so we can see to! Enjoy!

Richard

 Photo descriptions: Top to bottom - Red-headed Cardinal Beetle, Lesser Stag Beetle, Ant Beetle, Wasp Beetle, Rufous-Shouldered Long-Horn Beetle, Large Red Damselfly, Angle Shades Moth. 

For more pictures and more species records check out our Biodiversity pages on the Riddy Wood website.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Bushcraft Education Team are very pleased to announce that Bushcraft Education is no longer just a blog;

On the 20th May 2015 Bushcraft Education Ltd. was formed.

The company was formed with Geoff as the Director of education and Richard as Director of Conservation. 

The Bushcraft Education blog was always about using bushcraft to teach, not necessarily teaching bushcraft, rather using the fact that bushcraft is a very engaging topic to teach about other things, such as science. This is still a major aim now that we are Bushcraft Education Ltd. and has become an even bigger feature of the blog through the 'applied bushcraft' series. 

We hope to promote opportunities for environmental education and engagement (where environmental can be taken to mean any education or engagement activity which relates to, or is undertaken in, an outdoor or natural environment, including but not limited to 'Bushcraft', Ecology, Conservation, Natural Science, Sustainable Land Management, Traditional Skills, Wild Food sources and others).

Our current flagship enterprise is The Riddy Wood project which Richard is leading, and which aims to restore areas of ancient woodland and to facilitate research and the delivery of environmental education. 

We are looking forward to inviting volunteers from Reaseheath College into Riddy Wood next week to help us with some of the work which needs to be carried out to make the place ready for our first formal courses a little later in the year. 

We hope that soon we will be able to invite you to come come and attend some of our courses and workshops and look forward to sharing our passion for the outdoors and particularly bushcraft with many people over the years to come.  

BushScience: Why woodland isn't just woodland (NVC Classifications)

Geoff wrote a month or so ago about ancient woodland indicator plants, and the usefulness of plant identification (an essential Bushcraft skill) in other areas, including ecology and conservation. He specifically mentioned the National Vegetation Classification (NVC) as a means of describing woodland habitats more specifically, and asked me to write a bit about how they are used in ‘real world’ settings.

NVC was first proposed in the 1980’s and formalised in the early 1990's as a more detailed way of describing particular types of habitat based on the species of vegetation found there. For any sort of meaningful management or monitoring to take place a more specific description than just ‘woodland’ or ‘grassland’ is essential. Comparing lists of plant species and soil data between sites was too long winded so a method was needed to describing common, and rare, types of habitat. What emerged was the NVC, essentially a list of different habitat codes, each describing a slightly different community of plant species which could be assigned to an area to give ecologists or other site managers an idea of what could be found there and the most appropriate way to manage and conserve, or in some circumstances change, those conditions. These species compositions are affected by environmental variables such as geographical location, topography, moisture levels, soil type, stage of succession, historical management influences and  climatic variables, but the codes are assigned purely on the observed species. This is known as a ‘phytosociological’ classification, i.e. the observed ‘plant society’.

In this picture from Riddy Wood we can see at least
3 species of tree (Oak, Elm & Ash) and a wide variety
of ground flora including at least Bluebell, Greater
Stitchwort, Dogs Mercury and others. This is just
one example of a woodland plant community.

The NVC works by splitting each broad habitat type (e.g. woodland) into distinct communities and sub-communities, with each having a alpha-numeric code and a name (usually consisting of the scientific names of the dominant species in that community). So for example W8 (Woodland type 8) describes Fraxinus excelsior - Acer campestre - Mercurialis perennis woodland (Ash - Field Maple - Dogs Mercury), but there are 7 sub-communities which are described as W8a, W8b etc. down to W8g.

In total there are 12 broad habitat types, divided into 286 total communities, some of which are further split into sub-communities. So it takes a bit of getting used to! For further information on the in’s and out’s of the NVC see this page from the Joint Nature Conservation Council (JNCC).

It is not a perfect system, in the real world nature doesn’t compartmentalise itself or stick to rigid boundaries, not very often anyway, so these communities will often grade into each other with no clear boundary. Not do plants familiarize themselves with the other species they are ‘supposed’ to associate with. It is this limitation which prevents the NVC being as widely used as you might suspect. Nevertheless it remains a very useful and widely used descriptive tool for habitat management.

In scientific research, an area where they may seem very useful, these classifications are not widely used: this is largely due to the need for very specific data to allow comparative statistical analysis to be meaningful. While these classifications offer a far more specific description than broad habitat types, there is still variation within classifications which for a scientific approach is too general for reliable and meaningful comparison.

They are widely used by ecologists working in development and planning. In-depth habitat surveys, sometimes referred to as Extended Phase 1 Habitat surveys are commonly conducted when an area of land is to be disturbed or affected in some way by building or other development work - these are normally carried out by ecological consultants who advise companies on planning applications. An in depth knowledge of what is present is required for decisions to be made - the decision may be that the area is of sufficient value or conservation concern that the development is not allowed to go ahead, or can only do so with alterations to leave the highest value areas undisturbed. A ‘lesser quality’ or more common habitat may be allowed to be developed, but a mitigation, or biodiversity offsetting, plan be required which dictates a habitat has to be replaced or created elsewhere. In these cases knowing precisely what was destroyed or damaged is essential if you are to try and recreate it elsewhere. There are also of course situations where an area is deemed sufficiently unimportant biologically that no conditions are placed on its development. This is probably the most common use of NVC classifications in real world industry.

In conservation they are sometimes used as a target - a goal to be reached in the restoration or recreation of habitats. A hypothetical example may be a newly acquired nature reserve which was formerly heathland but had been intensively managed as pastoral farmland. The years of management, including planting different grass species, the application of fertiliser and other agricultural chemicals will have fundamentally altered not only the species composition but also the soil conditions which hosted the plant community. A target may be set to return the area to a more typical heathland plant community e.g. H1 Calluna vulgaris - Festuca ovina (Heather - Sheeps Fescue) heath, a type of lowland dry heath. The management actions which would be written into the habitat management plan would then all work together to do whatever it took to restore that community which could include actions such as soil profile inversion or soil stripping, efforts to reduce soil nutrient levels and sowing seed mixes to restore the correct species. If you think that sounds like a long winded process, your right, but there are rarely effective short-cuts in landscape scale habitat management! 

An area of lowland dry heathland in Suffolk where I conducted some
research on Beetles last summer. The Heather is of course a dominant
and iconic heathland plant but I noticed that another one, Common Gorse,
was missing. When I spoke to the site manager (from Suffolk Wildlife
Trust) he confirmed that there is a lot less than they would expect, that it
found in much higher densities nearby, and that they are not sure why
exactly it isn't so common on this site. They have even tried to increase
the quantities by sowing seed but with very limited success. Goes to
show nature can't always be fitted neatly into a box! 

We’ll be conducting some more in depth vegetation surveys as part of The Riddy Wood Project this summer and will likely be using the NVC as a starting point for describing what we have got to work with. Catch up with us on the new Riddy Wood website to see how those surveys are progressing and follow us on Twitter @Riddywood to get instant info on some of the new species we discover as the work goes forward.

Hope this has been useful or interesting, or even both!

Richard