Summer 2018 NEWS FROM YOUR LOCAL WILDLIFE TRUST AND FROM AROUND THE UK Dragons and Damsels Hertfordshire and Middlesex’s most colourful residents 8 >> WILD >> AMWELL ABOUT WORMS NATURE RESERVE Find out why these Get to know Hertfordshire’s wriggly creatures are so best nature reserve for important 13 dragonflies 18 PROTECTING WILDLIFE FOR THE FUTURE Summer 2018 contents NEWS FROM YOUR LOCAL WILDLIFE TRUST AND FROM AROUND THE UK CONSERVATION 5 New species alert Find out what exciting new species have been found across Hertfordshire. 4 Wild Trax Read how we’re inspiring the next generation of wildlife lovers with our partnership project. 6 Nature Recovery Network See The Wildlife Trust’s plans to make our future wilder. Dragons and Damsels ROSS HODDINOTT ROSS 10 My Wild Life Find out more about these Find out about local macro amazing insects! photographer, Gail Ashton’s, 500species2018 project. More on 8 18 Amwell Nature Reserve 20 Nature’s Calendar 22 The Nature of Soil Discover this nature reserve that The Trust’s Tim Hill shares his See what lives in our soil. supports internationally important wildlife highlights for the next Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 July numbers of wintering birds. few months. 10:00am-4:00pm Panshanger Park HERTS & MIDDLESEX WILDLIFE TRUST Join us for a FREE family festival at the beautiful Panshanger Park Grebe House, St Michael’s Street, Autumn 2018 issue Registered Charity No: 239863 for a weekend of walks, talks and conservation activities to St Albans, Herts AL3 4SN copy deadline: Registered in England: 816710 01727 858 901 [email protected] celebrate the wildlife of Hertfordshire and Middlesex. 21 September 2018 www.hertswildlifetrust.org.uk All rights reserved. No part may be Cover image: reproduced without written permission Find out more at: Editorial Team Josh Kubale Banded from the editor. The publishers do not and Charlotte Hussey demoiselle necessarily identify with or hold hertswildlifetrust.org.uk/festival 01727 858 901 x 240 © Ron Baber [email protected] themselves responsible for the views [email protected] expressed by contributors, In partnership with correspondents or advertisers. Membership Alan Cotterell 01727 858 901 x 234 [email protected] Design TGDH www.tgdh.co.uk Printed on FSC © Certfied Stock Find us on Facebook and Twitter From the Chief Executive Bats 22,000 Members, 2,000 volunteer days, thousands of people enjoying events, and new business Our Barbastelle project is full steam ahead with staff partners are just some of the highlights of the last year which you can read about in our Annual and volunteers putting up 24 bat boxes at Balls Wood, Review included in this edition. All of which have meant that we’ve made positive three potential maternity colonies detected and a strides in giving wildlife a better future, including the rather exciting return of license to radio-tag barbastelle successfully applied for. some species which were once lost from our patch. There’s plenty more planned with acoustic monitoring, mist netting and harp trapping planned over the Volunteers are at the We’ve recently written to our local to worms and snails, these incredible heart of all of this, and MPs about the potential threat to creatures are all around. summer and box checks scheduled for the autumn. we are immensely Local Wildlife Sites (Page 7) and have Watch this space! It’s the perfect time of year to get fortunate to have such had some positive responses. I would out and look for wildlife in the sun – Barbastelle aren’t the only bats in town and we have lots of a dedicated group of encourage you to add your voice and do let Herts Environmental Records surveying and events planned over the next year to ensure that volunteers, giving so ask your MP to add their support too. Centre know what you find at the Trust creates the best habitat possible for these protected much time to looking This edition has a focus on www.hercinfo.org.uk animals. Nathusius’ after our nature invertebrates, some of the most Thank you for your support. Pipstrellle bats arethe reserves, surveying wildlife, helping important, and often overlooked, focus of a new project in in the office and the Grebe House wildlife. From butterflies and spiders the Colne Valley which will Wildlife Garden, and much more. include surveying, tagging and monitoring. Wild Trax Wild Trax is a new and exciting youth project based in Aylesbury & Tring. It is New species a partnership scheme between Herts & Our Records Centre Manager, Ian has been busy in his spare Middlesex Wildlife Trust, Berks, Bucks time – at Hexton Chalk Pit he made first site records for the & Oxon Wildlife Trust and the Natural treehopper Centrotus cornutus and plant bug Strongylocoris History Museum at Tring, with funding leucocephalus making Hexton only the second site for this chalk from the Rothschild Foundation. grassland species in the county; at Panshanger Park he found Our goal is to aid young people aged 11-18, to eight new species, including four fly species, two woodlice, enjoy and help the natural world while pursuing a spider and a fern. CARLE IAN their passions. We aim to provide a friendly At Danemead, Ian found one of only four species environment in which young people can of snakefly in the UK which was a new site record Plant bug socialise,showcase their skills and develop new and whilst out with the Herts Invertebrate project ones, while having fun and working together to Ian found the nationally scarce down shieldbug, help their local community and its wildlife. another completely new record for Hertfordshire and So far the project has been working with particularly exciting as the insect was thought to be several schools in the area, finding out what young extinct in the east of England. people would like to do, helping them make their school people carry out with us will be recognised by Gail Ashton (Page 10) found a fan-bristled robberfly grounds more wildlife friendly and setting up taster IAN CARLE awarding them a Wild Trax certificate at King’s Meads – a first in Hertfordshire - and a sessions at our reserves. We want to demonstrate that, no and a certificate from vInspired – a nationally renowned leaf-rolling weevil was recorded at Balls Wood. While matter your interests, you can help nature, so Wild Trax will volunteering scheme. This project is a great way for young this isn’t a first for the site, it is a nationally rare incorporate digital media, blogging, photography, arts & people to gain new skills and show off their brilliance to species and one of our most important species on Down shieldbug crafts, construction, as well as classic practical conservation future academic bodies and employers! the reserve. activities such as surveying and habitat management. We hope to give opportunities to experience all of the above If you know a school or youth group, or even an individual, These records are essential to caring for these special through various taster sessions. We will then encourage the in Tring or Aylesbury who would be interested in getting sites and ensuring that our wildlife is provided with CARLE IAN young people to design their own nature-benefiting project involved with our youth project either as a participant or the best habitat possible. Please let us know what Treehopper (individually or in groups) and support them in carrying it sharing their expertise as a volunteer please contact Beth, you see – be it insect, plant, bird, mammal or other at out. We know that time is precious so all the work the young Wild Trax Project Officer, at [email protected]. hercinfo.org.uk 4 wildlifematters Spring 2018 Spring 2018 wildlifematters 5 Our vision for the future Campaign begins for 1 Nature is normal 6 Recovering seas 25,000 stand up for Children have trees to Sightings of whales and climb, fields to explore other sea creatures are Local Wildlife Sites and ponds to investigate. increasing. Nature’s recovery An incredible 25,000 of you responded 2 Green developments 7 Fertile soils in just two weeks this spring when the We all need the future to be more wild as an urgent priority. All housing and other Nutrients are staying Government proposed to take all reference Please help us build momentum for a Nature Recovery Network development creates a locked in soils rather than to Local Wildlife Sites out of the National net gain for wildlife. eroding and blowing Planning Policy Framework. As we stand on the brink of the biggest in May. 48 MPs heard The Wildlife Trusts plants and animals, and for everything away. ever shake-up of environmental rules, explain the need to rebuild nature after it brings us: better health, climate 3 Wilder cities This change The Wildlife Trusts are calling for decades of destructive practices. control, flood management, enjoyment, Support from Green roofs, green walls, 8 Restored uplands would have politicians to introduce new laws to employment and more.” Labour’s “We know from research across the pocket parks and trees Instead of just close- Hilary Benn... removed all build a wilder, better Britain. globe that a healthy, wildlife-rich natural The Westminster Government recently are common. grazed grasslands, the protection Central to this would be a requirement world is essential for our wellbeing and consulted on future English planning trees and peat bogs are for England’s for Local Authorities to produce local prosperity,” said Nigel Doar, Director of policies and public payments to farmers. 4 Buzzing countryside back, reducing flooding 42,000 Local Nature Recovery Maps, showing where Strategy at The Wildlife Trusts.