Farewell, young coders Tony and I were braced this morning for some poor results on the regular Ebley riverfly check, given recent experiences. And, indeed, that expectation lived up to billing. I took a sample first, and we didn’t need to analyse very long before we realised there was literally nothing. We managed to get a score of 2 with gammarus, and only found a single olive after that. So with a score of 3/4, we breached the trigger for the site. So we took a second sample, and swapped roles with Tony in a slightly different part of the site.
Decreasing Riverfly samples Met up with Graham at 9am for our regular riverfly check at the Ocean. Given the poor informal samples I had taken last week with Leonard Stanley school, I wasn’t holding out too much hope. And indeed, it was clear pretty quickly that the count was very low. Hardly any gammarus – less than ten which is remarkable. But we did actually find examples of three other species, which meant the overall score was 4 and did not trigger. This is a good example of how perhaps the individual counts tell more of a story than the score.
Surveying Church Field Today was the annual re-survey of Church Field in the Slad Valley with the Stroud Wildlife Survey Group. This is a community nature reserve, and the botanical survey informs the grazing and other habitat management over the next season. Just casually looking around, you can see the difference grazing has made in the last season. Large clumps of knapweed, field scabious and lady’s bedstraw right across the site, and also large areas of thinner meadow grass. There were enough of us to split into four teams, which would enable us to get around all 29 in reasonable time.
Setting up quadrats Not too much on the agenda today. I had a call with Emma in the morning to discuss some of the next plans for Dursley Code Club, and what I’ll do over the summer and next term. In the afternoon, I headed over to Church Field to prepare the quadrats for the botanical survey tomorrow. We have 29 quadrats which are re-surveyed every year, so we wanted to put flags at correct GPS locations. It’s a bit fiddly to get the Northing/Eastling coordinates correct, especially on a phone GPS.
Primary School Riverfly Went up to Ebley early this morning to host a visit by Year 4 pupils from Leonard Stanley Primary School. Met up with Tony, Lois and Tamsin and agreed the agenda for the day.
Sweltering river monitoring Set to be the hottest day of the year so far, I set out early for my regular river monitoring for the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. I could feel burning on the back of my neck even before 9am as I walked along the bank of the Cam. Along the way, I pulled some Himalayan Balsam – a token effort given it has taken hold there. If we ever do manage to establish a community group to monitor the Cam, then we need to look strategically in starting with Balsam at the top of the catchment.
2025 GWT conference The annual volunteer conference today with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. Taking place this year at St Edward’s school in Charlton Kings, the agenda was a series of talks in the morning, some lunch and then a visit to a nearby farm in the afternoon. We started off with a message from the CEO, who couldn’t be there, and then an interactive session on what gives us hope for wildlife in Gloucestershire, and also what additional skills volunteers can offer the trust. This was a good opportunity to interact with others attending.
Stock proof pond fence Been a while since I had been to a Friday session at Fromebridge with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. Only a few of us today, but the task was to start on the stock proof fence that will surround the new pond. The vegetation around the pond which we planted back in May was looking pretty impressive, especially given the drought and the exceptionally low water levels in the pond. We took quite a while to get going, mainly by measuring exactly where the end posts would go on the first run. We need to allow 3.
Walking with the Wildflower Society Headed up to Stinchcombe in the morning to support Kathy who was hosting a Wildflower Society meeting on the Hill today. We started in the golf clubhouse with some coffee and had a presentation from Kathy about the grassland restoration work that’s been undertaken and the importance of collecting survey data to track how well grazing management works in the future. We split into two groups and I led one across the course and along the ridge towards the SSSI. However, this was a group of botanists and progress was extremely slow.
Summer solstice 2025: Volunteer Responsibility Amnesty Day Today is Volunteer Responsibility Amnesty Day. It occurs twice a year on the longest and shortest day and is a chance for volunteers to reflect on the list of things they do, and decide if some changes need to be made to prevent them burning out. I volunteer with several organisations. It’s a really important way to get structure, identity and purpose after you stop work. But it can get overwhelming. There are just so many interesting things to get involved with, it’s easy to over commit.
