When is pond not a pond? An existential crisis and the probolem of choosing the best

Here is an example of how the Druridge Bay field ponds fluctuate in area depending on the rainfall. This might be an even more existential questions: can you have a pond that has no water in it, is it still a pond? Yes it is, although I am not sure how long you can go before saying it is no longer a pond. My personal preference would be years. I am sure there will be ponds in some desert habitat that only fill very rarely with long hard dry years in between. The pond in the photos above is just in the field to the right hand side of the entrance to Ellington Caravan Park. It is wet most years and well established. On the left is the pond in mid July 2012. Yes, those are rain drops smudging the lens. Still, it is not lashing rain so this must have been a particularly dry day given the deluge of 2012. On the left July 2014. No water an there had not been for a while, instead carpet of weeds that weave a distinct carpet over the exposed earth. Mayweeds and annual meadow grass, bistorts and cudweed. In 2012 the plant life was dominated by other species growing luxuriantly in the damp summer, although the overall tick list was much the same.

Which is the better pond? That could be a classic question asked of conservationists. Is it the overflowing quagmire of 2012 with thick tufts of toad rush and even underwater starworts? Or maybe the dried out mayweed and cudweed carpet of 2014. Both are good, both are typical of the Druridge fields. The differences between years do not matter, they are part of the natural disturbance and change. The real challenge will be if the local wildlife is exposed to weather conditions so different to anything they are used to that they cannot cope. The plants seemed to cope with 2012 but I do not know about the invertebrates because I was not monitoring them Butterflies took a massive hit, but butterflies like it sunny and dry. I am worried that the invertebrates may have been hit harder than we know, especially those with flying adult stages to their life history

Extreme weather and a not at all extreme graph: how rainfall influences the extent of the Bay's ponds

The first blog graph. I like a good graph, although these days it is very easy to create endless variety of rubbish graphs in colour and 3D.

This one shows how the areas of ponds varies between years and seasons at a site on the Bay, in particular the effects of extreme weather

Our autumn has been peculiarly warm, disconcertingly so. The fog is clammy rather than cold and there have been very few days when any wind strong enough to have shaken the leaves down. Instead I have stood in Newcastle and listened to the crisp patter of aspen leaves falling so neatly and gently you’d think it was a cheesy CGI effect. Unusual weather seems to be the norm. 

The example in the graph is from up on Druridge Bay at Blakemoor Farm. Every November and May between 2010 and 2013 I walked a zig zag route across the Blakemoor fields, a nine mile trek to find every pond and wetland down to the smallest pools of around 1m². Their areas were measured and in the graph you can see the total area for ponds in four types of fields The black area is the ponds in amongst the dune grassland, the dark grey from the arable fields or cereal and oil seed rape, the pale grey from permanent pasture and the white the area of ponds in amongst natural wetland. In all four cases the areas change markedly with the local rainfall. Over the three years of walking back and forth the Bay was hit by a distinct sequence of extreme weather; unusual drought from 2009 to March of 2012, then sudden and sustained rainfall resulting in a record breaking wet year and finally a 2013 heat-wave.

Much of the contemporary work on pond has been spurred by concerns at the loss of ponds from the British landscape over the last 100 years. The seasonal change at Blakemoor show a more complicated story, even the suggestion that extreme wet year can be good for the pondscape. However the damp and cold probably did more harm throughout the summer than any benefit provide by more and larger ponds.

Druridge Bay continues to reveal surprises and challenges about even such familiar habitats as the farm pond

 

Great Expectations, Banks Mining open cast and "all the infections that the sun sucks up"

When the escaped convict Magwitch ambushes the boy Pip at the start of Dicken’s Great Expectations he does not just appear on some anonymous street corner or leap out from behind a tree. Instead he looms out of the miasma fog of a Thames estuary salt marsh, more resembling an ancient bog creature than a man, coated in mud, dripping slime to menace the boy who would become his great friend (that's them from David Leary's superb 1946 film). Dicken’s choice of a marsh is no co-incidence. Certain habitats have always had particular associations. Think of a hay meadow for the joys of early summer (Cider with Rosie) or a windswept moor for doomed, gothic romance (Wuthering Heights). Wetlands ooze a particular menace; unruly, unkempt, their inner workings barely visible. They can swallow up a man or women and leave not a trace. Dancing lights lure the unwary to their doom. Diseases rise from their foetid waters. In the Tempest Shakespeare has Caliban curse his vanquisher, Prospero,

“All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inch-meal a disease.”

Then again Shakespeare would know all about the foul airs of bogs and fens since his famous globe theatre was then in unlovely Southwark, a mixture of very dodgy taverns, stinking fish ponds and even stinkier clientele.

One problem with wetlands is that they can be a hard sell, not just existing wetlands but also the possibility of creating new ones, for example managed retreat of the coastline or inland sites designed to hold flood waters. Wetlands provide a wealth of benefits: flood control, food, building materials, mopping up pollution, wildlife and recreation but these may not be obvious, except to specialist visitors such as bird watchers or flood control engineers.  New sites might even risk creating worries by visibly flooding.

The Banks Mining Open Caste proposal includes a wealth of environmental data and an emphasis on restoration, much of it focused on wetlands. Not a hint of Magwitch.

Low Newton and the new and old first years

Two days of autumn murk, the rain barely able to decide if it should be fog or cloud. Then two days of brilliant low sun, searing across the landscape, picking out every curve and trench, hollow and bump. Three weeks into their new course and we took the Environmental Science first years for a walk over the southern Cheviot foothills, then, the next day, along the coast to Low Newton. The sea was perfect pale blue with huge rafts of gulls, made white specks by the sun, bobbing off shore. This little dune slack pool is tucked behind the high dunes at Low Newton, a deep, warm hollow protected by the steep dune seaward and a cosy mess of wet woodland north and south. Red Admirals showed off with glide fly-bys around us

The pond was dug out some fifteen years ago by the National Trust who own the site. They could have dug out the whole area of the slack but, instead, put in six separate pools of varying sizes. Each one is now rather different. Clusters of smaller pools usually have more species of plants and animals than one large pond because each pool goes its own way. The pools at Low Newton are now chocked with bur reed and bulrush, over a vivid carpet of moss. Ideal pools to bury carbon, the moss layer keeping the sediment wet and anoxic even if the site dries out.

Post grad Scott came along on the walk, outlining his work to the students. That's Scott on the left. Two days of hard working, (and one night in Wooler of hard pool and pints), and they were still keen to note down the first hand account of research, a revealing mix of physical struggle in the mud and delicate geochemistry in the lab. Six years ago Scott himself was stood there, a first year himself.  An inspiration to our newer recruits. They probably learnt more in 10 minutes talking with Scott then in a two hour lecture. The one thing they can all do, whatever their future holds, is dig a pond.

Pretending it is summer with Druridge Bay's late butterflies

Autumn is not my favourite time of year. Where some people see a mellow, fruitful, contemplative landscape I just see it getting darker in the morning. Ruthless midwinter is just fine, the completed dark a stage set for lights and sparkle, but autumn is just grey and damp.

September however has been dramatically warm and sunny, the low rays casting each day into a silver and gold wonder. This speckled wood butterfly for instance, still out in good numbers and fresh specimens too, newly hatched and perky, flying up in battling pairs. Before 2008 speckled wood were a remarkable novelty in the north east but are now well established along the coast. They are one of the most reliable sights throughout the summer and multiple broods keep hatching so long as the warmth lasts. It is the expansion of butterfly and dragonfly ranges north into Northumberland that has me convinced that the climate is warming. These are sun loving species, not especially fussy about habitat: it is not some change to the landscape that had lured them from the warmer south Speckled wood, for example, are perfectly at home in gardens and parks. Along the Bay they do well at sites such as Hauxley with a mix of dappled hedge shade and open grass. Their caterpillars feed on common grasses, whilst the adults hold territories along the edges of paths and rises. This one is using the sun fuzzed seed pods of a willowherb as a launch pad to see off rivals

I do my best not to take them for granted. In 2008 I was startled to find on in Newcastle. In 2010 I broke my mobile phone, sitting on it in my haste to photograph one at Hauxley. Now speckled woods are a familiar, everyday companion. On the other hand I’ve not seen a wall brown for a couple of years and these more orangey cousins of the speckled wood look to be in trouble.

The butterflies briefly help pretend it is still June and July but the evening chill is creeping up on them. I know that the Bay is often at its best for bird watchers in Autumn but the colour is leaching away and the last flowers look scraggy and folorn.

The Druridge Bay open cast proposal and exactly who owns the elephants

In the United Kingdom we are fond of elephants. They are the staple stars of natural history TV, their close knit family lives, endearing babies and charming eye lashes creating a ready empathy as we watch their triumphs and challenges. Their struggles in the face of drought and lions, or, worse, our industrial poaching for ivory only endear them further. Elephants seem to have a sense of their own mortality and existence, which are very rare properties in the animal world. It comes as a surprise to many people in the UK that elephant big game hunting is nonetheless legal in much of southern Africa, and that some conservationists positively support this sport. The logic is grimly simple. If hunters pay a lot of money to shoot an elephant and then a substantial chunk of that cash goes to the local people on whose land the pachyderm was shot then the local people will put up with living next to these large, fast, greedy, clever leviathans. We are fond of elephants in the UK.... but we don’t have them in our back yard.

The problem is with approach to conservation is exactly whose land an elephant is on (or, technically, was) when it was shot. Trophy hunts linked to conservation have often run into problems once people realise the potential pay out. The idea works best where it is wholly clear whose land it is and who counts as local. Which is also part of the dramatic tension at Druridge Bay as Banks are about to submit their planning application. Who is a supporter and who against, and how local do you have to be to count?

Or, as Ronald and Douglas Smith put it when describing objectors to the mine proposal in an interview for Look North:

 

“It’s the people as moved up from Newcastle”,

“Haven’t got a clue what they’re on about”

These are good points, familiar to many a conservation debate. Town vs countryside, locals vs outsiders, bunny huggers vs despoilers of the countryside.

The Smith brothers’ opinions matter a great deal. South east Northumberland is an area rather cut off and left behind by economic powerhouses further south. Jobs are needed, there is a proud mining heritage, the economy needs a boost. So will the objectors be immediately check mated? No. The trouble with the outsiders/local argument is it all depends where you draw those lines. Which is exactly where the problems start with who owns a valuable elephant.

Funny how the challenges of wildlife in Drurdige Bay or southern Africa can be so similar.

Druridge Bay, Banks Mining and the open cast die is cast

Druridge Bay is about to become an amphitheatre for a classic battle of ideas and ideologies that that fought over a countryside for hundreds of years. The battle will not in some exquisite Coliseum but down and dirty in an open cast mine, more the scenery for 1970s Dr Who than Gladiator. Banks Mining are about to lodge their planning application for a new open cast between Cresswell and Druridge villages. Look North did a fine job of tracing out the battle lines: jobs, tourism, landscape, wildlife, energy, community, money. Their storyline captured the contested views of what might or might not happen very neatly, a microcosm of environmental debates from around the world.  There were firmly held views, with anti-mine protestors dismissed as know-nothing outsiders whilst equally local opponents of the mine worried that alternative businesses would be snuffed out.

For conservationists the open cast proposal represents a complex and unnerving dilemma. The best wildlife sites along the Bay are restored open cast mines, from Hauxley at the north through East Chevington and Druridge Pools. The potential of a new site, restored as a fine reserve once mined out is obvious. On the other hand that might not be the outcome. Hauxley, East Chevington and Druridge Pools were all handed over to the care of the Northumberland Wildlife Trust or National Trust. Trouble is that Banks do not own the proposed new site and cannot offer this prospect as a definite prize to aim for  beyond the short term horizon of mining. I suspect conservationists will be caught in the cross fire, at least in the short term. Fail to oppose the mine and we will be challenged by protestors who can draw on the deep roots of anti-nuclear power and sand extraction campaigns on the Bay. Fail to support the mine and we will be portrayed as anti-jobs, lacking the vision to see the future benefits.

I suspect this very blog will haver between these two poles, not least because of both the brilliant potential for a new wildlife site but the deadly uncertainty that it can be delivered.

Meantime the light has changed to autumns spun gold, warm in the day but the edge of cold in the air giving the lie to pretending it is still summer.