Events 2012
Snake's Head Fritillary Counting April 2012
We have counted the snake's head fritillary population at North Meadow National Nature Reserve since 1999 and are starting to see trends that seem to show a big expansion in the numbers of seedlings the year after a summer flood (follow this link for more info on findings). However we don't know if this trend is the same on other sites. Further, as it is likely that bumblebees are the main fritillary pollinator and as they are declining in the wider countryside, we have teamed up with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to try and establish bumblebee monitoring on some floodplain meadows.
Therefore, we are expanding our fritillary counting exercise to two new sites in 2012 and planning to include bumblebee surveys at these sites to investigate which species are pollinating fritillaries, and which plants they are visiting throughout spring and summer.
Therefore the Fritillary counting days this year will be:
Lugg Meadows (Herefordshire) 14th April
Clattinger Farm (Wiltshire) 23rd April
North Meadow (Wiltshire) 24th April
We are very keen to invite volunteers to come and help with these counts (we cannot do this without help!), and to recruit volunteers to help with the bumblebee surveys. Training will be given and no previous experience is necessary. This is a lovely opportunity to come and sit in a fabulous meadow counting flowers and contributing to real scientific data collection. Send us an email (Floodplain-Meadows-Project@open.ac.uk)
if you are interested and we will provide further details.
Management of Floodplain Meadows 14th - 16th May 2012
We are running this course again in 2012, with a two-for-the-price-of-one offer for staff from organisations represented on our Steering Group (Natural England, Environment Agency, The Wildlife Trusts, The Grasslands Trust, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Field Studies Council and the RSPB). For more information and to book, follow this link. To find out more about previous courses, please visit our Facebook page. In additon to the usual programme we hope to have talks on the history of floodplain meadows and bumblebees and other invertebrates of floodplain meadows, and this is an excellent opportunity to meet others involved in managing this habitat. This course is usually fully booked and we are not planning to run it again next year, so book early to avoid disapointment.
Events completed
David Gowing Inaugural lecture
Professor David Gowing (The Floodplain Meadows Partnership Director) presented his inaugural lecture on 20th September 2011, entitled 'Floodplain Meadows: diversity, function and heritage'. This lecture is available to view if you follow this link http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?whichevent=1737&s=1
Fritillary activities 2011
During April a number of organisations ran walks and events to celebrate the rare Snake's head fritillaries found on some floodplain meadows. The Floodplain Meadows Partnership attended some of these. Follow the link to see how our fritillary counting day on 19th April went: www.youtube.com/watch. There were events in Wiltshire, Staffordshire and Oxfordshire. To find out more follow the links:
Fritillary activities at North Meadow (Wiltshire), where 80% of the UK population of Snake's head fritillaries are found.
Fritillary Sunday at Ducklington in Oxfordshire
Walks around the most northerly population of Snake's head fritillaries in Staffordshire
Other events now completed
Oxford Farms Open Farm Sunday, June 12th.
Mottey Meadows Hay Festival on Saturday 18th June.
Photo credit: Mike Dodd
Workshops 2011:
The Management of Floodplain Meadows (16th-18th May 2011)
This was a practical course aimed at professional conservation advisors and site managers responsible for the management or restoration of floodplain meadows. We explored the latest research on floodplain meadows, got to grips with floodplain meadow soils, and spent a day in the field learning what the plants can tell us about management, water regime and soil history of the site. Monitoring methods were discussed and we practised botanical, hydrological and soil monitoring techniques. We visited a second site where meadow restoration has been attempted and discussed restoration methods. A number of presentations from the workshop are available here:
Introduction to the Floodplain Meadows Partnership: Emma Rothero
A Summary of the research to date: Prof. David Gowing
Events 2010
Floodplain Meadows Conference
The Floodplain Meadows Partnership held our first ever conference in April this year, at the Open University campus in Milton Keynes. Final attendance topped 160, so we were really pleased with the response. We were able to offer the registration
fee at a reduced rate thanks to sponsorship from the Open University, and that plus an excellent line up of speakers, meant we ended up being much more popular than we had anticipated, with new registrations even the day before the conference itself.
Aside from a few hitches on the catering front, the day went smoothly with a very thought provoking introduction from John Rodwell and an excellent session from our international speakers on meadow projects and research around Europe. They demonstrated to us that restoration can be done, even without using chemicals to clear the ground first and that active intervention is really required to get the increases in species richness that we are after. An afternoon session of practical case studies to encourage us to believe that restoration of meadows is possible and happening in the UK, resulted in our European colleagues having their eyes opened to the hive of meadow activity on this side of the channel. A final session on policy, including some interesting debate on meadow archaeology and heritage meant that the day finished as expected with much food for thought for all involved.
The day was excellently chaired by various members of our steering group (thanks to Richard Jefferson, Natural England; Ann Skinner, Environment Agency; and Miles King, The Grasslands Trust).
We are currently investigating whether the presentations can be translated from DAT to mpeg format so they can be downloaded from the website as audio files. Below are some of the presentations as pdf versions. Please note all presentations are the copyright of the speakers, and should not be reproduced in any way without the permission of the speakers concerned.