Nature in Avon Volume 74 The Plants of Urban Footpaths – Richard Bland Bristol Naturalists' Society Registered Charity No. 235494 www.bristolnats.org.uk Anyone interested in natural history or geology may apply to join. Membership Categories are:- Full Member Household Member Student Member Corresponding Member For details see Membership section of the website. Besides many general indoor and outdoor meetings, other meetings are specifically devoted to geology, plants, birds, mammals and invertebrates. Members may use the Society's large library. Further information is available on the Society's website (www.bristolnats.org.uk). 2 Editorial A naturalist, according to the Oxford dictionary definition, is ‘one who makes a special study of animals or plants’. Geology and the study of fossils doesn’t get a mention however. This issue of Nature in Avon certainly shows us that the definition should be very much wider and gives a fascinating commentary on the activities of naturalists around Bristol. Gill Brown provides a delightful detailed study of otters living in the Land Yeo (I have lived close to the Land Yeo for 20 years and never knew they were there!). Des Bowring has studied his local patch in Montpelier and reports on an amazing array of wildlife on his doorstep. Richard Bland has been walking several local pathways and provides a detailed and sometimes surprising account of the plants he found. Richard Ashley has spent time on the shore at Clevedon and explains how the curious Liesegang Rings are formed. Recording is an important part of what naturalists do and Ray Barnett gives us a full report of the local invertebrate life around Bristol. Mark Pajak reports on the astonishing diversity of Bristol spiders with fascinating details of how tricky they are to identify. Not all of us would be keen to try of course – I read today that there is a even a phone app. to combat arachnophobia (lots of pictures of spiders every day!). Most naturalists are involved in some kind of conservation work and Rupert Higgins has been monitoring the restoration of meadows at Folly Farm and Dolebury Warren. Clare Dinham reports on B-Line which encourages the restoration of meadow species to halt the loss of our pollinators. Naturalists have an vital role in educating and enthusing the public, and in particular interesting young people in the natural world. Alex Morss gives an exciting glimpse of what can be achieved when experts and the public get together to record the local wildlife. The University Botanic Garden is also very much involved in education and Nick Wray gives us an account of what is involved in setting up a new botanic garden with a strong educational remit. Monitoring the effects of climate change is also part of the naturalist’s role and Richard has provided in-depth analysis of recent trends in our weather and the effects that he has observed on wildlife. I hope you enjoy this issue. I would like to thank the Editorial Committee for their invaluable assistance and Richard Bland for his encouragement and help. Dee Holladay 1 The Otters of the Land Yeo – A personal view Gill Brown When we bought our home in Nailsea 25 years ago it was the location that sold it to us. Situated on the edge of the town it looked over the Land Yeo valley towards a wooded limestone ridge. At first I was too preoccupied with work, then a young family, to explore the area as much as I would have liked, or to learn much about the wildlife. As the children grew that began to change. I remember family dog walks along the Land Yeo encouraging the children to look out for otters in the river. At the time I had no idea they were there, and it was nothing more than a bit of fun with a liberal dose of wishful thinking. The Land Yeo 2 The Otters of the Land Yeo – Gill Brown I now know there are records for the area dating back to 1987, three years before we arrived, but coming from Essex, an area devoid of otters, I had no idea that they were beginning to gain a foothold in the West Country. It wasn’t until 2005 when I caught a brief glimpse of an otter on Backwell Lake that I realised that they could be found in so close to home. After that sighting I found out about the North Somerset Otter Group and trained as a surveyor. This was when I discovered that there were records of otters on ‘my’ stretch of the Land Yeo. I began to hear of sightings then, sadly, a large dog otter was killed on the road at Wraxall Manor. He was such a splendid specimen that a licence was obtained for possession and taxidermy for educational purposes. I borrowed him for a week to illustrate some talks and he took up the whole of my living room sofa. ‘The Nailsea Otter’ on my sofa From then onwards I became more and more aware of the otters of the Land Yeo. I was delighted the first time I discovered spraint on the stones under the aluminium bridge which I crossed with my dog almost every day, then had the sad task of retrieving an otter that had been run over at Jacklands Bridge for the Cardiff University Otter Project. It was so flattened that it resembled an old fashioned ladies stole with head, feet and tail attached. Not my first otter casualty, but one of the saddest. Fortunately it wasn’t too long before otter signs began to appear on the river again. Occasional spraints indicated the presence of at least one animal, then in April 2012 I was out with a more experienced otter-surveying friend who spotted a holt. I had passed it on many occasions, but failed to notice the tell tale signs. 3 The Otters of the Land Yeo – Gill Brown It was some time before I saw footprints, although I regularly checked the mud at the river’s edge when the water level was low enough. The first I encountered came as something of a surprise, mainly because I wasn’t yet familiar with the habits of otters. I was walking along the riverside footpath with my dog on a frosty morning in December 2012 when I noticed an unusual impression in a patch of ice. It looked like it was made by an otter, but I didn’t trust my instincts because I didn’t think they strayed that far from the water’s edge. A few yards further on I found another print – this time it was unmistakable, it was 10cm long, evidently made by a large animal which I presumed to be a male. I mentioned it to Claire Shellis, a colleague who surveyed the river upstream, and she said she had noticed similar riverside footprints on the same day. The next development came when another friend offered me the use of her trail camera. With permission from the landowner we attached it to a waterside tree about 30m downstream from the holt. We checked the SD card three days later and as we went through the images we were delighted to find several of a small otter swimming upstream towards the camera. Encouraged by this we changed the setting from stills to video. I was amazed by what we found. Icy Otter footprint on the riverbank I had assumed the holt was one of several lying up places, too close to the path and passing dog walkers for an otter to raise cubs safely. I couldn’t have been more wrong; amongst the videos we recorded there were several of a disappearing tail, a couple of the otter scrambling out of the water, and one with an almost indistinguishable movement at the bottom right hand corner of the frame. I replayed it several times and was eventually able to make out our otter, this time followed by two very young cubs. 4 The Otters of the Land Yeo – Gill Brown Footprint of female Otter Unfortunately I had to return the trail camera, but Claire, who has had many years of surveying experience, and I used field signs to follow the progress of the family. We were fortunate that the female had a distinctive foot print with a ‘wonky’ toe which made this much easier than it might otherwise have been. One cub moved upstream towards Barrow Gurney towards the end of its first year, but the other stayed with its mother for several months longer, Claire was lucky enough to see them fishing together in a weir pool shortly before they separated. Trailcam image of Otter at Jacklands Lake 5 The Otters of the Land Yeo – Gill Brown Eventually I bought my own trail camera, and was asked by the owners of Jacklands Fishing Lakes if I would like to set it up there. Before long I had footage of a much larger otter, presumably the one responsible for the big footprints, and the siring of the cubs. Interestingly on a couple of occasions it was followed by a very sleek fox which appeared to be scavenging the remains of any fish it had left. This was probably the explanation for a dead trout that had been found abandoned on a footpath in Towerhouse Wood. In December 2014 I noticed the distinctive footprint of our female otter showing that she had crossed from the Land Yeo to a rhyne that led to her natal holt. I went back to check the spot every day, and on a very frosty morning, between Christmas and the New Year, I saw tiny prints on a wooden platform close by.