Conservation

Solar arrays – what’s the problem?

                       Solar arrays – what’s the problem?

Villagers, including ramblers, are increasingly expressing concern about solar arrays in the community. Here are the ecology issues.

But first, here is my background: I was the ecologist on 60 of the 1000 large scale solar farms in England in Wales. Locally in East Sussex I was the ecologist for the Pashley Farm (Ninfield) solar farm.

Solar Ecology Facts:

  1. All these large solar farms are becoming nature reserves in their own right.
  2. This is because they were only granted planning permission on the basis of addressing ecological planning Conditions.
  3. The Conditions were for enhancements such as ponds, beetle banks, reptile and amphibian shelters, bird and bat boxes, badger swing gates, log piles, hedgehog homes, new hedgerows, buffer zones, wildflower meadows.
  4. Note: Even without enhancements the biodiversity goes up from year one, as the solar farms are all fenced and secure and wildlife moves in naturally.
  5. Solar farms / arrays should only go on poor grade soil land, or brownfield, not Grade 1 or 2 (so as not to take away any food production). And never in protected areas such as AONBs, SSSIs or nature reserves (e.g. such as the one proposed inside the Hastings Country Park nature reserve). There are advices and codes (see bibliography).
  6. There is little adverse environmental impact from solars, as they above the ground on posts, and in many cases grazed by sheep below, so farming continues as normal.  Soil conservation is assured.
  7. There appears to be no adverse environmental impact on wildlife (birds) from ‘glare’ (see refs).
  8. Planning permission for solars is granted for 25 years in most cases (some exceptions).
  9. There is usually a Condition to restore the site back to what it was – ‘to revert it to its original condition’ (typically oilseed rape, or winter wheat); it will be a conservation nightmare as it will have become biodiverse through the conditioned enhancements.
  10. Thus solar farms are nature reserves – all 1000 of them. Fenced and secure, where wildlife thrives naturally and has been deliberately encouraged.

Access – Rambling

Solar farms are mostly not open access as they are on private land.  With the loss of the Feed in Tariff (FIT), many local authorities are maximizing their own council land, realising they could provide community electricity and sell it. Similarly, villagers are also creating their own community solar arrays. Where footpaths and bridlepaths are beside, or through, a solar farm, then this can always be accommodated in the design – creating a safe and fenced-off walkway. Remember all solar farms are dangerous ‘power stations’.  See aerial Google.maps for walkways through solar farms as in the Fareham area of Hampshire. Ecological interpretive boards were provided there to help observe flora and fauna.

Monitoring planning applications – what you can do

There is no ecological objection to solar arrays on private land – they can only be good for biodiversity especially with enhancements.

Pros:

i) clean, sustainable energy;

ii) land protected from other development for 25 years – a benefit! Solars are temporary.

Cons: eyesore??  See below – participate in the planning process

When consulting planning applications for solar arrays then it is best to:

  • Ensure that the site has a Phase 1 Habitats Survey to determine any protected species present e.g. badgers, newts.
  • If protected species present, what avoidance or mitigation is applied?
  • Ensure that application design plan incorporates each enhancement.
  • Ask for a bund to restrict visual intrusion where necessary.
  • Ask for a screening hedgerow (native species – oak, holly, field maple, hornbeam).  (great opportunity here for insisting on filling gaps in hedgerows – good for wildlife corridors).
  • Remind LPAs to have a generous buffer (e.g.10m) between arrays and protected areas such as Ancient woodland (local policies often apply), and instigate wildlife enhancements such as in 3) above.
  • Protect all single trees on site – they can be accommodated on most solar farms,
  • Ensure badger gates are incorporated where badgers are present (see 1,2).
  • Ensure developer adheres to best practices (see Biblio).
  • Does the connection to the grid go through badger setts (can be up to 1km long), or through or past protected habitats etc.
  • Ask for an Interpretive board to explain what wildlife there is to be seen.

Publications on solar arrays and biodiversity by John Feltwell (2013-2015)

Feltwell, J. 2013a.  Are photovoltaic solar arrays an influencing factor in avian mortality? The Newsletter of The Kent Field Club. February 2013. Number 77, p.18-27.

No impact on birds

Feltwell, J. 2013b Solar Farms and Biodiversity. Guest blog on Solar Power Portal. 16  September 2013.     http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/guest_blog/solar_farms_and_biodiversity_2356

                    Solar farms boost biodiversity, even make nature reserves.

Feltwell, J. 2013c Résumé of solar farms in England and Wales.  Briefing given at National Trust roundtable, 17 September 2013. http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/solarFarms.cfm

Feltwell, J. 2013d. Solar farms for bumblebees. Buzzword, The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s  Members Newsletter. November 2013. Issue 23, p.13-14.

                   Solar farms excellent for bumblebees and other insects

Feltwell, J. 2013e. Biodiversity on solar farms – building tomorrow’s solar farms.  Solar Business  Focus UK. Volume 10 – 2013. 6-7.

                    Solar farms boost biodiversity, even make nature reserves. Solar are the new ‘fallow’

Feltwell, J. 2013f.  A comparative biodiversity study of a working solar farm and a wheat field in West  Sussex, July- November 2013. (Unpublished Report, dated 7 December 2013).

Increased biodiversity on a solar farm compared to an organic wheat field

Feltwell, J. 2014a. Solar farms: gain or grain? Solar Business Focus UK. Volume 11 – 2014. p.40-41.

           Solar farms do not take more than 0.14% away from the UK’s agricultural crops

Feltwell, J. 2014b Observations on the effects of photovoltaic solar panels on invertebrates at Ebbsfleet Farm, Sandwich, Kent 2010-2012. The Newsletter of The Kent Field Club. Number 79.

February 2014. p.4-17.  No impact on invertebrates  (there are 32,000 terrestrial inverts in Britain)

  1. E. Parker and L. Greene (with Feltwell, J. 2014c as co-contributor) BRE (2014) Biodiversity Guidance for Solar Developments. Eds. G. E. Parker and L. Greene. 9pp.

                      Essential reading for all developers and planners….  Introduction of the BMP  (Biodiversity Management Plan).

Feltwell, J. 2014d, reviewed by John Arthur LLP. Solar farms and eco-law. E-Law, Issue 84 (September-October) pp.27-30. An On-line publication by UK Environmental Law Association.       

                       An up to date résumé of solar farms and UK and EU law

Feltwell, J. BLOG on solar farms and biodiversity http://www.britishrenewables.com/landowners/blog/

13 Nov 2014 Thoughts on Biodiversity,    15 Dec 2014 Sustainable Solar Farms,     15 Jan 2015 NPPF and Biodiversity

 

Bibliography

BRE (2014) Agricultural Good Practice Guidance for Solar Farms. Ed J Scurlock, http://isea.co.com/news-docs/Agricultural-   Good-Practice-Guidance-for-Solar-Farms.pdf

(retrieved 28 Oct 2021)

Evidence review of the impact of solar farms on birds, bats and general ecology 2016 (NEER012)   file:///C:/Users/John/Downloads/NEER012%20Evidence%20review%20of%20the%20impact%20of%20solar%20farms%20on%20birds,%20bats%20and%20general%20ecology%202016.pdf (retrieved 28 Oct 2021)

       Dr John Feltwell, A Wildlife Matters Flier  dated 29 Oct 2021  http://wildlifematters.com   – free to circulate

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Death’s Head H/Moth … 2021

Howse, P.  2021, Bee Tiger: The Death’s Head Hawk-Moth through the Looking-glass. Brambleby Books. pp119. ISBN  978-1-908241-62-7  9-781908 24 1627  £13.99

 

                         

There have been precious few books on a single moth, with the exception of perhaps the Silk moth, Bombyx mori or one of the moon moths or emperors or some of the glamorous day-flying moths. This is not so much an entomological treatise on the Death’s head hawk-moth than a comprehensive discourse on skulls, bones and all interpretations of these patterns and messages as we may see them;  it is all in the sub-title, ‘through the looking glass’. Mimicry, which is the author’s passion, and nature’s gift, is full of visual interpretation of the dynamic living world and thus subject to vagaries in our understanding. There is a tendency to anthropomorphosise. And so it is with this hawk-moth. It is a large lumbering moth which has evolved to be a honey thief within honeybee colonies. For a large lumbering moth it must have an acute sense of smell to search out and find honeybee colonies, and as for its large size, it does need this to go deep in a hive and plunder the goods. It may of course be too big for bats to handle, as bats weigh less.  Unusually for hawk-moths the death’s head has a very stubby proboscis which it pierces the capped brood and feeds unmolested by the bees. Philip Howse, describes how the morphology of the moth, and its sounds, mimic the piping of the queen bee and it may thus sooth the behaviour of the colony.  Of the bright colour of this moth, the contrasting yellows and black we are told mimic the warming colours of wasps and hornets – more for the daytime predators, birds and reptiles than bees.  And, as for the scary death’s head, this is also for daytime predators – especially if seen from in front, rather than as we conventionally view a moth as settled or set. The classic medusa head of ancient Rome and Pompeii are invoked, especially with hair entwined with snakes. Photos of heads and skulls are shown, including Picasso’s ‘In Voluptate Mors’. Philip Howse is a poet and he publishes a few of his lines as well as many others, and cites quotations from a host of others including Homer, Faust, Proust, Jung, Darwin and more recently Miriam Rothschild who also was enthralled by the moth.  The book is relatively short with nine blank pages at the back (printing problem?) and there is a bibliography, index and glossary of 28 colour plates.   There are nine chapters, three of which are linked, the honeybees’ tale, the bat’s tale and the bird’s tale – all expressing how mechanisms have evolved in these groups over millions of years to feast and forage. The author goes to extraordinary lengths to describe the colour vision of birds and then at the end of the chapter to show how birds might view the moth. The same for the bat’s tale chapter, and exposé of the bat’s capabilities in detecting prey on the wing, all backed up with up to date technical research and discoveries.  With an exciting cover, and a good in-depth read around the subjects, this book will appeal to entomologists, naturalists and members of the general public. The author is Professor Emeritus in Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton and is the author of a number of general natural history books.

 

Book reviews, Conservation, Insects

Much Ado About Mothing

Much Ado About Mothing; a year intoxicated by Britain’s rare and remarkable Moths. 2021. By James Lowen. London, Bloomsbury Wildlife. £18.99. 384pp.  ISBN 978-1-4729-6697-1   9 781472 966971

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We have already had a butterfly enthusiast run around Britain in a year to shoot all the butterfly species, in the name of Patrick Barkham in his ‘The Butterfly Isles’; he reviews this book on the cover as ‘Here is colour, wonder, surprise – and fun’.  Now we have James Lowen setting himself the target of chasing rare and remarkable moths around the islands, from Cornwall to the Cairngorms. Not that he is chasing all the moths – an impossible task with about 40 times more moths than butterflies.

Lowen was initially inspired to all things moths by a poplar hawk-moth which he had to hand. Most people are enthralled by the beauty and evolution of animals, and essentially this is what this book is about, it celebrates the enthusiasm that one man has for moths. James is completely moth-centric. He exudes moth enthusiasm the way other people pursue particular wildflowers, fungi, bryophytes or even tardigrades.

James is an all-round naturalist, whose grass roots were in Yorkshire which set his seed for the living world, and he has explored South America and the poles; he writes for various papers and has a number of books to his name.  His conversion to moths has been recent and profound, not least encouraged by the enthusiasm of his daughter, Maya who figures in the book, especially in the eight pages of colour photographs in the middle of book which figure 15 species of moth, but which mostly shows venues, equipment and techniques. Oh for more illustrations for a group with 2,500 species.

There are 20 chapters starting with winter-spring and ending in autumn. Although only four chapter headings give a clue about the subjects (Hawk-Moths, Kentish Glory, Clearwings and Blues – read Clifton Nonpareil), the rest are very discursive and story-like, on how a site visit was formulated, with advice from whom, how they got there, what it was like on arrival, the type of habitat and finally the exaltation of finding the target.

The book is well researched and his sorties to various far flung habitats is usually to link up with regional moth experts to explore last known locales and pabula. Local contacts from wildlife groups and from Butterfly Conservation (which also conserves moths) and RSPB (yes moths too) and national projects such as ‘Back from the Brink’ are often the source of his targets.  He has included classic lep stories and research involving Miriam Rothschild and Bernard Kettlewell and waxes lyrical about the new arrival the horse-chestnut micro. Where would he be without his treacle ropes, actinics and other entomological paraphernalia.

His writing is florid and descriptive to an intense or even excessive level; his descriptions of moths are flowery and romantic, whether it is the Old Lady, Scotch burnet, Netted carpet, Crimson underwings, Merveille du Jour or hawk-moths. In his quest to find moths James clocked up 14,000 miles over 258 days and visited 139 locations across 27 counties of equivalent.  A job well done.  But only touching the surface of moth biodiversity.

The book is ideal for general readership. A good read for moth-ers without the scientific clutter. The book will be of interest to naturalists, entomologists and lepidopterists and as a book on moths it is unique and unrivalled. There is an index, a bibliography and list of acknowledgements which runs to four pages. The cover is exciting and colourful. It’s a good book to hand, especially with the colourful and exciting cover.

From the flyleaf blurb it says…’no animal may be better placed to inspire the environmentalists of the future.’  Good luck with that then!  Moths will still continue to have a bad press (as most are brown, hairy and scary to the general public), even though they are more biodiverse than butterflies and in many cases more colourful than butterflies such as the day-fliers which James covers in his travels.  Let’s hope this book has started a revival in their fortunes.

 

Book reviews, Conservation

‘Gone’ by Michael Blencowe

             

‘Gone – A Search for what remains of the world’s extinct creatures’ by Michael Blencowe. ISBN 978-0-7112-5675-0  9-780711 256750. Ivy Press, Leaping Hare Press, 2021.   192pp

Focusing on just eleven animals, the author provides an interesting narrative on species that have now disappeared, some rather quickly since being discovered ,such is the impact of man.

The author, from the Sussex Wildlife Trust, describes the Booth Museum in Brighton where the tower clock has stopped at three minutes to midnight – a reminder of the overall global decline of nature and the little time to find a fix.

There is another Sussex connection, since the chapter on the dodo is enlivened with the author’s encounter with the world’s expert on dodos who lives in Battle, Ralfe Whistler who has various dodo artefacts.

This selection of doomed animals is just the tip of the 413 species of animals, plants and fungi lost in Great Britain in the last 200 years (quoted on page 176). This does not seem enough loss compared to the overall publicised position. The UK government admits (2021) that 14 out of 42 biodiversity indicators show a long term decline of habitats and species.

Michael has visited many other museums around the world, for instance to see the whole skeleton of the now extinct Stella’s sea cow in the Helsinki (Finland) Natural History Museum. These were huge blubbery mammals weighing several tons, floated on the surface and ate kelp. It took just 27 years between discovery to their butchered extinction.

Blencowe has visited the formidable collections of Lord Rothschild at Tring to see the two specimens of the Spectacled Cormorant, and the Smithsonian Museum, and brings the book right up to date with new discoveries in Japan on recently found bones.

Blencowe has a very discursive style of writing and puts notable events in the text as a reminder of what was happening in the world at the time of more recent extinctions. The book is incredibly well researched with every timeline explored resulting in the ultimate demise of the species. It is a revelation of man’s effect on wildlife.  There is much fascinating detail on expeditions, who ran them, what they doing, and which discoveries were made. The book will appeal to a wide readership, older children and adults, and as a definitive account of these ‘gone’ animals. It is a good book just to pick up and read a single species chapter. Excellent for a train journey.

The book is dedicated to Michael’s long-lived pet tortoise (Tootles) which leads the reader to all about the Pinta Island Tortoise (Galapagos) and the inevitable demise of famous ‘Lonesome George’ on 24 June 2012.

The book includes a world map showing where the selected species lived (Galapagos, California, Iceland, Reunion, Japan, and three in New Zealand, and two in Russia) and the positions of twelve museums (four in southern England, three in New Zealand), to visit. Surely, a bee-line will be needed in Brighton to visit the Booth Museum.

The pages are interspersed with delightful colour prints in various muted colour shades of various greens and browns by Jade Thery,  all nicely displayed on the page. There is a Further Reading section. Altogether the book is a very satisfactory good read and good to have in any natural history library.

Book reviews, Insects

Ladybird Books & App

 Three ladybird books & and a Ladybird App. – all coloured red! Two of the books are by different Helens.

 ‘Ladybirds’ by Michael E. N. Majerus. Collins, 1994. ISBN 0-00-219935-1 (originally £14.99 in pb) 367pp.

 ‘Ladybirds’ by Helen E. Roy, Peter M.J. Brown, Richard  F. Comont, Remy L. Poland and John J. Sloggett. 2012. Naturalist’s Handbook 10. Ladybirds. Revised from Majerus and Kearns 1989. ISBN 987-1-907807-0707. 9 781907 807077. Reprinted by Pelagic Publishing. £22.98 142pp

 ‘A Field Guide to Harlequins and other Common Ladybirds of Britain and Ireland.’ By Helen Boyce. 2021. Published by Pelagic Publishing. A Pelagic Identification Guide.  ISBN. 978-1-78427-244-9   9 781784 272449. 106pp.

 

‘European Ladybirds App’ v.   2021. v1.1.1(1) The app was hand crafted by Karolis Kazlauskis, and authored by a team of 14 scientists from UK, ITA, CZ, SK, BE and PT with financial support from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and Anglia Ruskin University (Faculty of Science & Engineering). Two of the authors, Roy and Brown are co-authors of one of the books above. It is free, simple and quick to download and is conceptionally easy to use. Thirty nine species and forms of ladybird are illustrated with common and latin names. A digest on each species describes size, legs, colours, spots, plants on which it is likely to be found and and food, and habitats. After an initial registration with name and address the app knows where you are an applies a 6-figure OS map reference, and all that is required is to note which species found, in what sort of habitat (a choice is given) hit send record, adding a photo if you wish. This is a user-friendly app which you can carry on your android for field identification and reporting records.

There are other ways to record ladybirds, for instance in the long running UK Ladybird Survey via www.coleoptera.org.uk/coccinellidae) or via the iRecord app.  

 The classic and highly collectable book on Ladybirds by the late Michael E.N. Majerus stated in 1994 that there were 42 species in Britain. It remains the best original book on ladybirds. The figure is now updated by Helen Boyce’s book who states that there are now 47 species of ladybird in Britain and Ireland, but only 26 of them, now including the Harlequin are conspicuous – thus setting the scene for her book.

 The Helen Boyce book is a short but succinct book of colour photographs and explanations in double-space text for identification; the Helen Roy et al book is much longer and more of a digest and thorough scientific treatment of ladybirds with chapters on ladybirds in the environment, their enemies, variation, population and evolutional biology and identification with keys to adult British ladybirds, all adult British Coccinellidae and larvae of British ladybirds. The field and lab techniques are particularly useful. The Helen Roy book is a fair substitute, and up to date too, for the Majerus book which might be difficult to find cheaply. It is all that beginners would need to get started on ladybird identification, a good concise book.

 If you have difficulty identifying a Harlequins from other Coccinellids there is a 32 pages of subtle chararacteristics in the Harlequin book, such as i) only Harlequins have two ‘shoulder spots’, ii) they never have ‘Angel Wings’, iii) they are 5-8mm long, iv) ‘the only black ladybird that has full, round white ‘cheeks’ is the harlequin v) harlequins do not have white spots on their wing cases vi) they have ‘pinched’ dimples on the rear of the abdomens and viii) they have a lip on the elytra.  There is also a photographic guide on how to distinquish harlequin larvae from other ladybirds, and the most interesting one are the branched spines known as scoli. There are references and index in both of the more recent books.

 All readers have a an affinity with ladybirds, and after befriending an individual the question is often which species is it. Both books will help at this stage, though in the field the app is invaluable and the best choice, even though both books will fit into a jacket pocket.  The classification of ladybirds according to the number of spots is deceivingly simple, but as with many things in nature the more you look the more alternatives come forward.

 All these books are useful.  In a world before Harlequins (introduced into the UK in 2003 and spread to many areas at 100km a year) and in a world that Dr Majerus did not know about, the widespread occurrence of Harlequins introduced another level of variation amongst ladybirds, If you thought that the range of variation amongst ladybirds was great, then Harlequins are at another level. Thus the need for a book on Harlequins and how to distinguish them. This aim has been discharged well.

 Do the books have an answer to this intriguing colour variation?  Helen Roy et al say that ‘factors producing these variations are unknown in many species’. There is much discussion about genetic effects, but the environment has something to do with it too. It is ‘expected that ladybirds will be negatively affected by climate change’ and it was interesting to learn about the dark melanic forms of ladybirds, especially that ‘darker forms are associated with cooler humid climates’.  

 2-spot and 10-spot and the Harlequin are the most variable of ladybirds, and some reliance is had in the Helen Roy book of the old classification of the German entomologist who listed 119 colour forms in his research in 1926-37. By 1945 more than 200 colour forms of the Harlequin ladybird had been listed for Europe with only three in the Britain.

 The colour red has been evolved especially for aposematic purposes by these ladybirds, and also in combination with black and white, and yellow. It is as if ladybirds have cornered the red market for defence in a lively world of predators, but it is not the case. Many other insects use red for great effect.

 

 

 

 

 

Book reviews

Forager’s Garden A Locke

The Forager’s Garden, Grow an Edible Sanctuary in Your Own Backyard. By Anna Locke. Permanent Publications. 2021. 194pp. £9.95 RRP. ISBN 978-1-85623307-1  9 781856233071          

The author has a herbal medicine degree and is an expert on permaculture and has produced a fine example of an easily accessible book for beginners to grow food. The book is not about foraging about along waysides and woodlands to bring back bunches of edible plants a la Richard Mabey’s ‘Food For Free’. It is more about a wake up call to bring useful plants into the garden and let them perform, or run riot; or let them arise and colonise the garden, in a form of rewilding. Rewilding is one of three principles of permaculture and there is a small section in this book but that subject is covered elsewhere in Isabella Tree’s book on ‘Wilding’ as a different kind of feeding off the land. However, amongst the many colour photographs, and black and white artworks, there are plenty of ‘wild’ looking parts of the garden up against walls, gravelly edges, which is just what Anna proposes, willowherbs, foxgloves, apples, pears and plenty of  ground cover, no neat lawns here.  There are 15 chapters which range from wildflowers, trees, and managing the wild garden, composting, pruning and being at ease with the space; and lists and tables to consider on species selection. There are also plenty of plans for layout in small places, but the ideas can go large to fit most spaces and enthusiasms. The author’s experience of a garden designer in London brings a lot of professionism to the book, and common sense for which beginners will be grateful. There are some neat tricks for water collection and distribution for off-grid gardens, reminding me of ideas that might be found in the alternative energy site in Wales, or in drought years, or in the Mediterranean (Anna has inspiration from Sicily).  Anna Locke practices in Hastings and manages the Ore in Bloom society. There are references to local places such as the Hornsburst Wood Forest Garden and the Bohemia Walled Garden Association which show, with before and after images, how gardens can be turned round to being useful for food production. But the wild turnaround can be applied anywhere. The book is for the UK and US market and the species chosen and all the ideas are applicable both sides of the Atlantic.  I like Anna’s enthusiasm for plant guilds that naturalists would also call suites of species, or just an example of rich biodiversity where in nature everything grows together. Bringing associated species together in gardens (for instance with plug plants), or just encouraging them to find their place and spread naturally, is presumably an aim for any wild garden, except here there is a preference for food. There is no need to eat the foxgloves (steady on there – danger!) but daisies, bugle and sorrel are recommended as food.  Clearly Anna likes nature, and her acknowledgement ‘To the field that held me’ reminds me of Robert Louis Stevenson who so liked the woodlands on his camping trek through the Cevennes mountains, that in the morning he laid coins on tree stumps as a thank you for such a nice environment. I too, know that feeling. Give me a wood or meadow any day.  For those beginners who get inspired by this book, they can save themselves a lot of money by foraging in their own back yard. This book also ticks the principle boxes for ‘regenerative agriculture’ and ‘community resilience’.  If you have a very large back yard you could at least have some wild boar to do some of the hard digging for you. The book is recommended for all those would would like to live the foraging life and commune with nature.

 

 

 

 

 A

Conservation

April-May Wildflowers

TWENTY  COMMON NATIVE WILDFLOWERS of East Sussex

Hazel (Corylus avellana), Snowdrop (Galathanus nivalis), Colt’s foot (Tussilago farfara), Primrose (Primula veris), Buttercup (Ranunculus sp), Dog’s Mercury (Mercuralis perennis), Wood Anemone (Anemone nemoralis), Dandelion (Taraxacum officinalis), Wood Sorrel (Rumex acetosa), Sloe or Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) (with Peacock butterfly) Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scriptus), Yellow Achangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon), Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), Bugle (Ajuga reptans), Daisy (Bellis perennis), Holly (Ilex aquifolium) flowers (with honeybee), Milkmaids or Lady’s Smock (Cardamines pratensis), White Deadnettle (Lamium album) (with bumblebee), Dog Violet (Viola ), Red Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum).

 

Book reviews, Conservation

Uplands & Birds 2020

Uplands and Birds by Ian Newton. No. 142 in The New Naturalist Library. London, William Collins. 2020. 598pp.

The author is a seasoned NNL writer, having already penned four volumes, Finches (1972), Bird Migration (2010), Bird Populations (2013) and Farmland and Birds (2017), and guess what from those titles, he is ‘an ornithologist and applied scientist, and a leading expert on bird ecology and migration, specialising in finches, waterfowl and birds of prey’ as the flyleaf states. He started work with NERC in 1967. This must be some sort of record for NNL writers. This is a big book only beaten by ‘Farmland and Birds’ (630pp). There are 17 chapters, mostly on birds – the title could have been reduced to ‘Upland Birds’ but the intriguing chapter on ‘Sward-makers’ is all about how deer, sheep and goats have formed the hillsides, and there are chapters on hill-farming of the valleys and uplands (the ‘Lower Fields’, and the ‘Open Hills’) and an excellent chapter on Native Woodlands from the post-glacial period to the present day. Whilst maps show the uplands down the west of Britain, we are told that peat bogs cover one tenth of the land in Britain and that they are increasingly appreciated as carbon stores.

Topically, there are two chapters about grouse on raptors, management and gamekeepers, and another chapter on rewilding. He explains there are now about 300 moors, of which managed grouse moors cover less than one-fifth of the British uplands, mostly in Scotland, but also in England, and now, none in Wales. Management of grouse moors comes down to five actions, 1) rotational patchy sward burning, 2) drainage of damp peat bogs (ceasing), 3) contolling of vertebrate predators of grouse, including ‘foxes, mustelids, corvids and, illegally, also raptors..’ (Newton has written elsewhere extensively on raptors in uplands) 4)  treatment with anthelmintic drugs to reduce infection by the strongyle worm Trichostrongylus tenuis, and 5) treatment of sheep with acaricide. Newton thinks it would be sad to see grouse moors disappear if there is no compromise from both sides; they are are actively working to find a way to manage grouse moors without killing raptors.

Newton prefers to use the term ‘rewilding’ though he says that some splitters like to think of rewilding as ‘an attempt to replicate what might have existed in the Mesolithic’ – if we really knew, and ‘wilding’ which is ‘just letting existing nature take its course’. The most cited rewilding experiment is the Knepp Estate in West Sussex (1,400ha), where they take the view it is wilding, as in their book ‘Wilding’ (reviewed here in 2020). However, as Ian Newton explains this is just a tiny fraction of what is already in progress with examples such as 60,000ha in Speyside, 29,334ha at the National Trust’s Mar Estate and 23,000ha in Glen Tromie.

It is good to see that The Flows are mentioned in detail – under ‘birds displaced by forestry’, and how many of the botanically rich peat bogs were sadly lost to tax breaks, but Newton explains that RSPB removed 2,600ha of conifers and a further 2,000ha have been approved for clearance. He states that ‘nearly one-fifth of the British uplands are currently under conifer plantations’. By replacing peat bogs with forestry eventually increases species numbers and overall bird densities increase with forest age he says – but it can be painfully slow – and he admits that ‘afforestation of former open land leads to the replacement of one bird community with another’ – yes botanically also!  In his ‘Farming and Birds’ book he has a section on insect declines, which sets the scene, somewhat, for the change in avifauna populations seen today.

The book is well illustrated with colour photographs of upland habitats, management of uplands and fauna of the uplands. There are subject and species indexes and a comprehensive table on the ‘Breeding Habitats and Winter Distributions of Upland Birds’ according to the different habitats regions. The book is ideal for libraries, naturalists and ornithologists, and it is a welcome addition to the NNL. It is a comprehensive assessment of birds in the uplands,all supported by peer-reviewed evidence.  What will be the author’s sixth NNL book?

 

 

 

Book reviews, Conservation

Bill Gates’s climate book 2021

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need. 2021.  By Bill Gates. Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books. 256pp. ISBN 978-0-241-44830-4 and 9 780241448304.

 

 

The author, if you didn’t know is a ‘technologist, business leader and philanthropist’ as he describes himself. He is also co-founder of Microsoft. The author is more well known in the world of computers, than his books, previous titles being ‘The Road Ahead’ and ‘Business @ the Speed of Thought’, both with co-authors. But this is now his own book written through Covid 19 and as up to date as one could expect. With Climate Change he says we should remember just two things,51 billion and zero – 51 billion tons being the amount of carbon we add to the atmosphere each year, and zero is what we should aim for.  The chapters have simple titles such as How we plug in, How we make things, How we grow things and How we keep cool and Stay warm. In a sense it is really a simple book with everything set out in a basic formula. It is best not to cherry-pick chapters to read, as it really is meant to be read from the beginning, and his ‘Green Premium’ is a thread that runs through the book. Once you understand the Green Premium you can then cherry-pick, and have a fascinating read. The Green Premium is the difference between for instance fossil fuel prices and the higher priced advanced biofuel prices. That is the extra you have to pay for ‘greener’ products.  For each chapter there is this simple formula: how we got there, why these materials are so problematic for the climate: then the Green Premium is calculated to reducing emissions, how emissions are driven down to make the various materials (steel, electricity, or electric vehicles (EVs) without producing carbon.

Here is a man who has spoken to all the experts and listened to all their advice and is written from a unique perspective. He is also fortunate to be rich enough to pursue his engineering passions through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Gates has a fascination with engineering. He particularly likes cement, and waxes lyrical about the longest floating bridge in the world in Seattle, being made of cement with hollows. It seems he investigates everything. We learn that he likes to visit power plants for fun. He repeatedly pours money into new start-ups on the basis that they might perform and do good in the world, often loosing millions. During this Covid 19 pandemic he, via the Melinda and the Gates Foundation committed more than $445 million in grants to fighting the disease, and ‘hundreds of millions more’ to get vaccines.  He has also put $1billion into approaches to offset emissions to zero, all part of his plan to reduce his own personal footprint. He acknowledges that he has big houses and jets around the world, and his foundation was singled out by The Guardian for his effect on the world, and he has more than offset these shortcomings.  In 2015 he encouraged 24 heads of state who formed ‘Mission Innovation’ which now funds $4.6 million annually on clean energy research.

Gates comes out is with simple sentences that sum up world figures, such as on Offshore Wind, that it it is only 0.4% of the world’s energy output in 2019, and that it is only 1/32,000th  of the contribution to America electricity. And on storage batteries, he comes up with a hypothetical scenario if Toyko’s electricity fails from an extreme weather event, how many batteries would be needed to keep the lights on for three days – 14 million, or that is more than the world’s storage capacity in a decade. So we have not got there yet with batteries. There is a lot on solar power, that the cost of panels came down 10 times between 2010 and 2020. The existing old grid is often the problem to moving electricity, for instance to achieve California goal of 60% renewable by 2030, and New York’s goal of 70% green energy cannot do it without enhancing the grid. He loves his calculations and puzzles. Which is the cheapest in the US, a gallon of milk, a gallon of orange-juice or a gallon of gasoline?

The book has a 1950s feel to it, with well read pages and soft and slightly coloured paper – it feels like it should come with the pleasant smell of an old and familiar book – but it is a FSC of paper mix from ‘responsible sources’. There is an index and references to sources for each chapter (and eight blank pages at the back, surely not for notes?). There are quite a few graphs and pie charts and a few black and white photographs, but not overpowered with too many images, and no colour photographs (which it does not need).

Strangely, the book is a cross between a basic textbook on climate change and a ‘Which? guide to which EV car to buy, or boiler, or which energy source to buy, air source or ground source, with a New Scientist article thrown in. The basic worldwide facts are presented from one of the best informed person on the planet. The book is very  US-Centric throughout especially in figures (but bracketed-up with European equivalents by editors) but that is not a detraction; it is of interest how this philanthropist ticks. The book is very readable and is highly recommended for youngsters aged 12 up to adults.

 

 

Book reviews

Entangled Life, 2020

Entangled Life. How fungi make our worlds, change our minds, and shape our futures. By Merlin Sheldrake. 2020. ISBN 978-1-847-92519-0. £20. London, The Bodley Head. 360pp. Hardback.

Dr Merlin Sheldrake was awarded his PhD from Cambridge University on fungal networks in the tropical rainforests of Panama, not that South America has a monopoly on fungi, their ramifications are virtually worldwide, and around us all the time, thus the inspiration for the sub-title.  The book is presented in eight chapters with titles such as Living Labyrinths, Mycelial Minds and Wood Wide Webs – the latter concept appeared as early as 1999 and is much talked about today where scientists discuss how perhaps up to 250 trees can all be connected, how trees help each other out and how these networks, links and cascades all work together as a superhighway.

The book is deeply discussive investigating all sorts of theories, such as  ‘Beer before Bread Hypothesis’ that brought man in from the neolithic (the former), or the ‘Drunken Monkey Hypothesis’ which explains man’s fondness to alcohol (from our earliest ancestors’ ability to smell rotting fruit and thus food – and the single mutation 10 million years ago of the enzyme (ADH4) which allows us not to be poisoned by alcohol), or, indeed Schwendener’s Dual Theory to explain the make up of lichens (fungus plus algae – as believed then). Even Beatrix Potter was not impressed with that. In the ‘Intimacy of Strangers’ chapter Sheldrake provides one of the best introduction to lichens I have seen anywhere, and comes out with this statement: ‘A portion of the minerals in your body is likely to have passed through your body at some stage’ – a sobering thought after he has explained about lichens mining the minerals on their substrates and releasing these into the environment. After all lichens go back 400 million years in their fossil history, and that today they encrust ‘8% of the planet’s surface.’ and that the record breaking lichen lives in Swedish Lapland and is over 9000 years old.  It seems that the dual-theory needs to be undated as recent researchers have found there are other ‘partners’ in lichens. After scientists ground up lichens and checked the DNA they found plenty of bacteria  (‘jam-packed full of bacteria’) and yeast. Lichens are thus ‘microbiomes’.

I was particularly taken by Sheldrake’s appreciation of Monotropa fungi, since I had photographed this very rare fungus on a mountain top in the Cévennes (Gard, France). He called it a ‘mycoheterotroph’, as it is a fungus that makes no energy itself and it is entirely dependent other sources; and he compares it to some blue Voyria species in Panama. Such a tongue-twister name is ‘An unlovely name for such characteristic plants’. I agree.  Apparently 10% of plant species share this phenomenon. Although Sheldrake calls fungi plants, he does explore the slippery way that fungi are named, but after all the debate, the concensus is that they untidyly fall into a separate kingdom, if one really must put species into boxes in the first place.

                 

The book has 16pp of colour images in the centre of the book (I would have like many, many more), a bibliography and index. The ‘Notes’ are, in some cases, more interesting in back stories and supporting scientific information, than the text and are arranged by chapter.  The flow of the book is made more readable and enjoyable, and it stands as a very good read from a scientific enthusiast who is intimately enveloped in the world of mystical mycelia. It has a serious scientific edge to the book and it will be of great interest to those who like the fascination of fungi and their latest scientific advances. It is highly recommended, and will become a key work. The pyschodelic cover is a masterpiece.  John Feltwell 7 February 2021.