As we head into the cooler months we review the ecological
monitoring information that we gathered during the spring and summer of 2014.
Monitoring is an important part of the work we do as it allows us to look at the
potential affect that our management may have on habitats and wildlife. It also
means we can build up a clearer picture of what species use the estate and in
what ways so that we can target our management to be as beneficial as possible.
Some projects have been well documented on the blog, the Curlew project being
one of our focuses for this year, but many other things are counted, measured
and recorded.
 |
| Female black darter at little Barbrook reservoir. |
Some monitoring is carried out annually such as upland and
woodland birds, snipe, woodcock, ring ouzel, whinchat, dragonflies, and red
deer. While some is carried out every 3-4 years, vegetation
recording for example, changes in habitat are slower and working in this way means we have more
time to focus on different habitats by studying them on a 3-4 year rotation. During
2012/13 we recorded the upland vegetation; looking at the plant species and the
structure of vegetation over the moorland as we battled through Molinia
tussocks and traversed ditches.
 |
| Flowering hares tail cotton grass |
In 2014 we started studying woodland structure; recording features such as
tree species and size, canopy cover, presence of shrubs and deadwood, as well
as the ground flora. This time the challenge being head high bracken and
midges.
Other specific species may be looked at if they become of
increasing importance, Willow tit for example, were added to our monitoring
early this spring as the RSPB were keen to learn where they are breeding due to
concern about their decline.
We even have data that is recorded every 10mins 24 hours a
day, luckily we have some clever gadgets which do this automatically for us!
This kit is used to study the hydrology on the mire and uses pressure to record
data on flow rates and water levels. We simply have to find the kit on the mire
every few months and download the data.
Some of our data feeds into national databases; our bird
data is entered into a national RSPB database and so informs the national
picture of what is happening to our birds. Other data is used in local landscape
partnerships, such as our hay meadow recording, where we pass our data onto the
NIA (Nature Improvement Area) a grant which funds different projects in the
area, including our hay meadow restoration.
 |
| Bee on yellow rattle in Curbar meadow. |
Needless to say we could not possibly run such a
comprehensive programme of monitoring without our volunteers who put in hours
of hard work. Many came to us with fantastic skills such as bird
identification, which we have put to good use, while others, new to monitoring,
have been trained to enable them to use their new knowledge to contribute to our
understanding of the estate. We are also increasing the work we do with groups that
have been carrying out their own monitoring in the area before the partnership
existed, such as Derbyshire amphibian and reptile group.
It is still too early to draw any conclusions about long
term trends between our management and the impact it has on the habitats and
wildlife of the estate, but we continue to use all the new information to
inform our decisions on what we want to achieve and how we are going to get
there.
