Toby and Stewart were out with the Cheshire Bat Group on Sunday when the group found the first confirmed Lesser Horseshoe Bat roost in Cheshire for a number of years.
The group found a single bat free hanging in a cave during part of the regular annual round of monitoring surveys. A subsequent search of a nearby cave found a further single lesser horseshoe bat roosting.
All in all a good days work for the group and good find for Ged Ryan who spotted the first bat.
Keep an eye on the groups facebook page for more info.
Mike Crabtree, our landscape architect, is a chartered member of the Landscape Institute (LI). The LI is the Royal Chartered body for landscape architects and promotes professional development to ensure landscape architects deliver the highest standards of practice.
Chartered membership of the Landscape Institute is an internationally recognised badge of excellence, formally recognising a member’s technical and professional competence as a landscape architect in the UK.
Landscape design is an important part of any development project and has a major impact on the final appearance of a project as a whole. Good landscape design can improve the working or living environment for people using the area and landscape design can also help to improve the quality of habitats for local species of wildlife.
Examples of landscape design by United Environmental Services Ltd:
The Government’s policy on Bovine TB and badger control in England has been announced by Secretary of State Caroline Spelman MP. To help control the disease, the Government has decided to proceed with a policy of enabling farmers and landowners to cull and/or vaccinate badgers, under licence, in areas of high incidence of TB in cattle.
David Williams, Chairman of the Badger Trust said: “We are clearly very disappointed by this decision but now that it has been made, we will be studying it with our legal advisors to determine what action we shall take.”
The independent newspaper have reported that the Christmas island pipistrelle bat is near extinction with only 20 bats remaining, under the bark of one tree on Christmas Island, off the coast of Australia. Experts have differing opinions on the best way to preserve the species.
Starlings flocking and coming into roost at Moore Nature Reserve, Warrington, Cheshire. Filmed by Stewart while walking the dog in November.
Most of the starlings were coming in from the east along the reserve from the direction of Runcorn and joining the main flock. The birds were coming in low in a steady trickle. When they eventually started to drop from the sky and pour into the reed beds a sparrowhawk turned up and waited perched on the ground between two banks of reeds.
We decided to leave before the sparrowhawk got a meal. The aerial display was well worth watching and is always an amazing sight.
UES’ Graduate Ecologist, Kathryn James, has been accepted as a graduate member of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (IEEM). Kathryn is the most recent member of the UES team to become IEEM qualified.
IEEM is the professional body that represents and supports, over 4000 ecologists and environmental managers in the UK, Ireland and abroad. Members are required to meet specific levels of training and experience, as well adhering to a professional code of conduct.
UES welcomes Kathryn James as their new Graduate Ecologist. Kathryn is currently completing a MRes in Aquatic Ecology and Conservation at Swansea University, having recently completed a BSc in Zoology at Cardiff University.
“Since coming to UES my survey skills have increased dramatically; I have honed my identification skills and have learnt how to juggle a diverse and challenging workload.
I’ve enjoyed the sheer range of clients and projects I get to work on and the fact that no day is ever the same. I particularly enjoy going out on bat surveys and learning about different botanical species, which is an aspect of ecology that I had not delved into before.”
Stewart attended the Bioblitz event at Norton priory on Friday evening to help with the bat surveys.
The event was organised by Cheshire Active Naturalists (CAN). The aim of the event was to record as many species of wildlife as possible on the site, with a target of 1000 species. Experts and specialists in many different field gathered at the site for the weekend event.
Stewart spent Friday evening recording bat species present on site . A total of six species of bat were found including common pipistrelle bats, soprano pipistrelle bats, Noctule bats, Brown long eared bats, Daubentons bats and whiskered / Brandts bats. Bats were seen to emerge from the buildings on site during the evening emergence survey. Most species of bats were recorded during the activity surveys around the canal and woodlands on the site.
The event was a great success for the CAN group and many members of the public attended a number of walks to search for species in the area. At the last count around 600 species had been recorded, but some samples were still being examined to determine the exact species.
More details of the event can be found on the Cheshire Active Naturalists website by clicking the link below.
The Health and Safety Executive has released a bulletin detailing some cases, prosecutions and best practice advice across a number of industry sectors.
The Health and Safety Executive have issued a bulletin covering some of the health and safety incidents and court cases which have happened recently. The bulletin has cases from several different industry sectors and links to good practice and relevant legislation.
