Contents / Diary of events FEBRUARY 2016 Bristol Naturalist News Photo © Gill Brown Discover Your Natural World Bristol Naturalists’ Society BULLETIN NO. 547 FEBRUARY 2016 BULLETIN NO. 547 FEBRUARY 2016 Bristol Naturalists’ Society Discover Your Natural World Registered Charity No: 235494 www.bristolnats.org.uk HON. PRESIDENT: David Hill, CONTENTS BSc (Sheff), DPhil (Oxon). HON. CHAIRMAN: Roger Steer, Winpenny 3 Diary of Events Cottage, Bagstone, Wotton-u-Edge, GL12 8BD 4 Society Talks [email protected] 01454 294371 Welcome to new members HON. PROCEEDINGS RECEIVING EDITOR: Dee Holladay, 15 Lower Linden Rd., Clevedon, BS21 7SU [email protected] 5 Society Walks Phenology HON. SEC.: Lesley Cox 07786 437 528 [email protected] 6 SOCIETY AGM HON. MEM'SHIP SEC.: Mrs. Margaret Fay New Treasurer needed 81 Cumberland Rd., BS1 6UG. 0117 921 4280 [email protected] 7 Chairman’s Notes HON. TREASURER: Mr Stephen Fay, Nature in Avon: Call for articles 81 Cumberland Rd., BS1 6UG. 0117 921 4280 [email protected] 8 BOTANY SECTION BULLETIN DISTRIBUTION Botanical notes Meeting reports, BSBI Hand deliveries save about £800 a year, so help New Year Plant Hunt, Noel Sandwith, is much appreciated. Offers please to: Brandon Hill Trees, Call for Records. HON. CIRCULATION SEC.: Brian Frost, 60 Purdy 11 GEOLOGY SECTION Court, New Station Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3RT. 0117 9651242. [email protected] He will 12 LIBRARY Proceedings online; be pleased to supply further details. Also Offer of books to BNS Library; contact him about problems with (non-)delivery. Book Club; MAMMAL items in the Library BULLETIN COPY DEADLINE: 7th of month before publication to the editor: David B Davies, 14 INVERTEBRATE SECTION The Summer House, 51a Dial Hill Rd., Clevedon, BS21 7EW. 01275 873167 [email protected] Notes for February Grants: The society makes grants of around 15 MAMMAL SECTION £500 for projects that meet the Society’s Meeting Report; Facebook group charitable aims of promoting research & education in natural history & its conservation in 16 ORNITHOLOGY SECTION the Bristol region. Information and an application Meeting Reports; Future Dates; form can be downloaded from: 18 Fieldwork; Recent News http://bns.myspecies.info/search/site/Grants 19 MISCELLANY (and bristolnats.org.uk) Email completed ID Skills wanted; Botanic Garden; applications to [email protected]. 20 Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project : Members Health & Safety on walks participate at their own risk. They are Cover picture: Harvest Mouse nest, by responsible for being properly clothed and shod. Gill Brown – see her Field Meeting Report Dogs may only be brought on a walk with prior on the Mammal Section page. agreement of the leader. Bristol Naturalists’ Society Discover Your Natural World 2 Registered Charity No: 235494 www.bristolnats.org.uk Diary of events Back to contents Council usually meets on the first Wednesday of each month (please confirm the date with the Hon. Sec. if you plan to attend). Any member can attend, but must give advance notice if wishing to speak. Visitors & guests are very welcome at any of our meetings. If contact details are given, please contact the leader beforehand, and make yourself known on arrival. We hope that you will enjoy the meeting, and consider joining the Society. To find out how to join, visit http://bns.myspecies.info and click on membership. JANUARY 2016 Mon 25 Botany AGM + Talks Botany 19:30 page 8 FEBRUARY 2016 Thu 4 Walk: Frenchay Common & Frome Gorge Society 10:00 page 5 Wed 10 Talk: The Enigmatic Swift Ornithology 19:30 page 16 Thu 18 Talk: Trees (“The Good, the bad, the \ugly…”) Society 19:30 page 4 Sat 20 Walk - Blagdon Ornithology 10:00 page 16 Sat 20 Reserve visit: Hares in Somerset Mammal TBA page 15 Mon 22 Talk: St George’s Flower Bank Botany 19:30 page 8 Wed 24 Thos Hawkins – ‘mad, bad fossil collector?’ Geology 19:30 page 11 MARCH 2016 Wed 9 Talk - Steart Ornithology 19:30 page 17 Sat 12 R Bland walk: Toll Roads & Fountains Society 10:00 (see below) Thu 17 Society AGM + Talk (Bumblebees) Society 19:30 page 4 Sat 19 Walk - Blaise Ornithology page 17 APRIL 2016 Sun 17 R Bland walk: Trees of Westbury Park Society 10:00 (see below) OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST: Richard Bland’s Walks Richard Bland plans a series of 11 two-hour Downs walks through 2016, one each in March and April, six in May (part of Bristol Walking Festival) and one each in June, July and August. All must be booked direct with him: (0117 968 1061 [email protected] ). Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015 exhibition Until 10 April 2016. The exhibition is at M Shed, not Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (adults £5, concessions £4, under 16s free). Death: the human experience exhibition until 13 March Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. The exhibition includes references to wildlife such as the Death’s Head Hawk-moth. Museum Winter Lecture postponed: New Dinosaur Discoveries talk by Ben Garrod. Postponed from 7 Jan. Look out for a new date to be arranged in Feb. or March, which we will publicise via the Museum website. Book via Bristol Museum website. This talk promises to be an excellent evening which will link to a BBC programme at the end of Jan. Bristol & District Moth Group 2pm Sun. 21 Feb. Bristol Museum & Art Gallery – photos & comments on 2015moth sightings. Please contact Ray Barnett if you wish to attend. 3 SOCIETY ITEMS Back to contents / Back to Diary SOCIETY TALK 7.30pm, Thursday, 18th February THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY AND THE ARBORIST Speaker: Carl Pedley NB - Venue: Frenchay Village Hall, Beckspool Road, Frenchay, BS16 1NU There is a car park attached to the Hall and plenty of parking on the street outside the Hall. Buses 18, 46, and 319 go to Frenchay Hospital but there is then a walk to the Hall. If you require a lift from the bus stop please contact the Secretary. hat links an organism, a species, a population, a community, an ecosystem, a biome and a biosphere? One answer might be a tree. W Carl is an Arborist; a highly trained tree surgeon and plant health specialist who studies, cultivates and looks after the trees and shrubs of our rural estates, gardens, parks and hedgerows, i.e., the extremely complex ecosystems that are rather dismissively, called “Amenity Trees”. Using evidence from the tree research lab where appropriate, he will be examining the tree as a set of ecosystems within an ecosystem and its links and functions connecting the tree to and with the wider environmental stratification system. He will look at issues such as the importance of trees as habitat and for the environment; their requirements for good health; measures to keep trees healthy; how trees cope with the demands placed upon them; some of the diseases, both the old and the new, that our trees are increasingly falling victim to and how these are being tackled - or not - as the case may be; the mechanisms by which these are transmitted; the political or economic decision-making affecting bio-security, such as importing Ash trees from areas suffering from what was originally called Chalara Fraxinea but which, as it became better understood, was re-named twice to become Hymenoscyphus Fraxineus; problems occurring when populations get out of control and become pests; homogeneity and resistance; parasites, hemiparasites, symbiotic relationships … and/or anything else that you want to ask him about. Welcome to membership of BNS to those who’ve joined recently: Mr. Clive Burton (Interests: Botany, Invertebrates); Mrs. Melanie Cooper; Mr. Steve Hale (Ornithology); Mr. Mike Townsend & Mrs. Margaret Townsend (General, Botany, Invertebrates, Mammals, Ornithology); Ms. Monique Brocklesby, Mr. Eugene Byrne & Ms. Lauren Byrne 4 Back to contents / Back to Diary SOCIETY MID-WEEK WALK Thursday, 4th February 2016 Frenchay Common and Frome Gorge, 3 miles. uses, nos. 18, 46 and 319 stop outside the former Frenchay Hospital (the venue is directly behind the hospital). Parking for cars is available on the B common near St John the Baptist parish church (BS16 1LJ) on Begbrook Park/Beckspool Road, grid ref. ST637775. Meet at 10am on the common near St John Baptist parish church. The walk is within the bounds of Bristol and contrasts an old-fashioned village with its church and village green surrounded by cottages and other houses for the gentry with the wildness and renowned scenic splendour of the valley of the River Frome. Even after heavy rain there is surprisingly little mud to contend with. The church and all the cottages are built of the locally quarried Pennant sandstone. Our route takes us down to Frenchay Bridge over the Frome and up through woodland, seeing the remains of the many quarries, then across a field of grass before descending back to the river and its gorge. There are opportunities to do bird watching and winter twig identification and all sorts of interesting insects and plants, returning to the village along the gorge. We finish with a walk round the village and seek refreshment at the White Lion Inn with its gleaming white “citified” Edwardian scrollwork. On the walk there will be some ‘mud’ but one finds that it is, mostly, very different from the ‘normal’ glutinous stuff, being largely composed of leaf mould. As usual, wear appropriate clothing and footwear for the weather and the conditions and note that if the weather is poor we can meet at the same time and place one week later, on 11thFebruary. Please keep in touch: Tony Smith; telephone 0117 965 6566 PHENOLOGY ovember was the second warmest November since 1853, and the dullest month since December 2006.