Once again, geoconservation volunteers from the Black Country Geological Society have been beavering away on Portway Hill to expose more of the dolerite rockface. For more information about the geology of the Rowley Hills, visit our geology page. Here are a few photos of the results of their work!
Image © Peter Trimming via Flickr Creative Commons.
Here is a great opportunity to get involved with some hands-on ecology work! The first ever official survey of Otters and Shrews in Birmingham and the Black Country’s canals has just been launched by the Canal & River Trust and the University of Birmingham. They are looking for volunteers to help out with survey work; you will receive full training – click here for details.
Some training sessions have already been arranged; these will consist of a powerpoint presentation of how to survey for Otters, place Shrew traps, take habitat measurements, and anything else you will need to do for the survey. If possible, the nearest canal may be visited to look for Otter and Shrew signs. The dates and times are as follows:
Wednesday, 25/01/17, 10:00-12:00, University of Birmingham
Wednesday, 25/01/17, 13:00-15:00, University of Birmingham
Wednesday, 25/01/17, 18:00-20:00, University of Birmingham
Saturday, 28/01/17, time to be arranged, Wildside Activity Centre, Wolverhampton.
Apologies for the short notice; however there may be further training opportunities available. For the most up-to-date information visit the Otter and Shrew Birmingham Canal Survey Facebook group or email:
Samantha Mason: ssm385@student.bham.ac.uk (Survey coordinator).
Paul Wilkinson: Paul.Wilkinson@canalrivertrust.org.uk (Canal and Rivers Trust Ecologist).
The Friends of Rowley Hills wish you a Happy New Year! 2016 was a good one for us; thanks to our funding from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All project we were able to deliver many exciting events for the benefit and enjoyment of the local community and carry out more vital conservation work on the Rowley Hills than ever before. We look forward in 2017 to continuing with our work to conserve and enhance the hills for the benefit of wildlife and the local community.
Here are a few photos from one of our recent Lottery-funded events – the Christmas crafts morning at Oakham Library which was well-attended and enjoyed by all!
A group of enthusiastic volunteers from the Black Country Geological Society were hard at work on Portway Hill last Saturday. They did a great job clearing vegetation that was obscuring the dolerite rock exposures, and improving the footpath using eroded material from the rockface – it doesn’t get more locally sourced than that! Here are a few photos of their efforts.
We’ve just added plenty more Lottery-funded new events to our website, including volunteering days for the winter season – we will be continuing to work with the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country on improving Portway Hill’s access, habitats and key features.
The next event in the diary though is this Saturday when there will a free Halloween-themed family fun day at Bury Hill Park, with lots of activities including clay art, creepy crawlies and scary drawings! Come along any time between 11:00am and 3:00pm, and in the meantime check out our Events page to see what else we have planned for the coming months.
At this time of year, if you’re lucky, you might encounter tigers in your garden…..no not that kind of tiger! We’re talking about Scarlet Tiger (Callimorpha dominula) moths, one of our most spectacular moths. These colourful creatures are day-flying, their caterpillars feed on a range of herbaceous plants, and they are on the increase. The photo below was taken in a garden local to the Rowley Hills; the bright scarlet underwings are hidden beneath the forewings but sometimes you might find a Scarlet Tiger with its wings fully spread as shown in this photo. There is also a Scarlet Tiger Project in Stourbridge, formed by local residents who have successfully protected and enhanced habitat for Scarlet Tigers in their local area.
Do let us know if you’ve seen any Scarlet Tiger moths!
Scarlet Tiger moth (Callimorpha dominula) (image © Julia Morris)
It’s exciting times here on the Rowley Hills at the moment. On Saturday the Black Country Geological Society held their Geoconservation Day on Portway Hill and were joined by representatives from the Wildlife Trust and Friends of Rowley Hills. The part of the old Blue Rock Quarry site now owned by the Wildlife Trust has superb examples of vertical columnar jointing and spheroidal weathering and the day was spent clearing Brambles and other vegetation from the basalt exposures and consolidating the Public Right of Way that runs through the site.
Later this summer as part of the process for the Black Country’s bid to become a UNESCO Global Geopark, assessors from China and Finland will be conducting an evaluation mission and visiting Portway Hill Quarry along with other Black Country geological sites such as Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve and Saltwell’s Nature Reserve.
A further Geoconservation day is to be arranged on the Portway Hill site prior to their visit. We’ll keep you posted when this is to take place.
We’ve got loads of great events in the calendar over the next few months and we hope to see you at a few of them. The next one is a litter pick on Portway Hill tomorrow, and hopefully the weather forecast will hold for that! If you’re planning to come to any of our conservation volunteer days, please fill in your name and tick the dates you are coming to in this Doodle poll. There’s no limit to the number of people who can attend, it just gives us an idea of how many to expect!
Rowley Hills map showing paths and access points
Here is a guest blog post kindly written for us by John Davison of Selly Oak, who is a keen Swift enthusiast spreading the word about what we can do to encourage these acrobatic but sadly declining birds. Swifts will start arriving any day now after their long migration from Africa so now is the perfect time to start looking out for them in your area! For further information about Swift conservation please visit http://www.swift-conservation.org/.
I moved into my very ordinary semi in B29 a few years ago. The roof is plain clay tiles on timber batten on timber rafters. The rafters are supported on the top of the outer walls on a timber, the wall plate. The ends of the rafters can be seen from outside and this is because when built, air was intended to flow through the loft space. This circulating air dries the back of those tiles after heavy rain.
It was after I had moved in that I found that in the summer, visitors arrive. These visitors, birds, have travelled hundreds of miles. By chance, because my roof was as first built and not later stopped up with soffit boards, the visitors set up nest on my wall plate. The Swifts are rarely there as they are almost always on the wing; nests are for chicks.
Swift © Graham Catley
You can see the Swifts, careering across the sky above a housing estate by Selly Oak Park, from May onwards. Perhaps you have Swifts in your area. They eat (only) insects, they stay airborne, and with their sometimes incredibly fast flight, are sometimes mistaken for swallows. Their acrobatic stunts are called ‘low-level screaming parties’.
Sadly what I have noticed is that the numbers are declining. This is also documented: Common Swifts (Apus apus) are declining in the UK and are an amber listed species of conservation concern. The RSPB asks the public each year to enter their sightings of Swifts into their survey form at http://www.rspb.org.uk/helpswifts. One aim is to protect existing nest sites when people are refurbishing their homes; another is to provide new nest sites in new developments in areas where Swifts are already present.
This issue, the new nest sites, is crucial. Housebuilding in the UK collapsed during the years 1990 to 2012. Very few new homes were built for people, let alone ones with places for Swifts to nest in. The situation is changing. The government estimates that 1.4-1.8 million more households will need accommodation by 2020. A building boom will be necessary to provide for them all. From the point of view of saving declining Swift populations, the problem is that new buildings are useless for Swifts. However, new housing projects can include Swift nest places if we ask for them. If the roof form of a new building does not suit, commercially-available Swift nest bricks can be incorporated. This can happen if more of us become Swift enthusiasts, and make it happen.
Birmingham and the Black Country, with its bodies of water, has plenty of insects for Swifts to eat. So too has Cambridge, the heartland of the Action for Swifts group, where more than fifty Swift projects have been carried out in commercial and private buildings, schools and church towers. In one case, a thriving colony of Swifts in old houses was saved as the old houses were demolished and new ones erected by phasing the project over three seasons and by building Swift nest accommodation into the new buildings. Over 200 nests were built into the new houses, and so far 44 breeding pairs have been recorded in them.
Building for Swifts © swift-conservation.org
I want to see more Swifts in Selly Oak, and I am discussing with some neighbours (who have blocked up their eaves) the installation of Swift boxes. I ordered boxes from http://www.swift-conservation.org and I will then need access to a ladder to install them.
You too could host Swifts and play a part in stopping their decline. What we do want is a Rowley Hills Swift group!
It is a privilege and a joy to share a summers day with these amazing birds.
John Davison
We’ve just about finished updating our membership system and would like to say a big WELCOME to all our new members! If you applied for membership in the past few months, we apologise that there has been a delay in processing your membership, but you should now start to receive email updates from us.
We have quite a few events happening this month and we hope you’ll be able to make it to a few:
Friends of Rowley Hills 