Weekly walks and surveys for Garden members and Volunteers

Measuring the age of Oak trees

A beautiful sunny day after a fabulous May Day bank holiday.  So a debate as to what clothes to discard, then off up towards the biomass centre with lots of botanical interest on the way.  Of course, not only in the Garden but everywhere you looked there were Dandelions, with their splendid golden-yellow heads.  But [...]

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The more you look the more you see

A few years ago a student gathered together the Garden species data that had been collected over the years and put them into a spread sheet.  This data represented both ‘proper’ surveys and observations made by individuals on an essentially ad hoc basis.  Some areas are more complete than others but it is obvious from [...]

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Recording Wildlife

Although the temperature has still not done much more than get back up to the mean for the time of year, many plants are finally responding.  Plants love CO2. With most greenhouse crops, net photosynthesis increases by about 50% as CO2 levels rise from about 340 to 1,000 ppm. So perhaps one reason why Spring has seemed to be getting [...]

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Signs of Spring – at last!

This week we were faced with a howling gale – well, it was very windy – but at least 10 degrees warmer than all of our previous walks, and still dry.  Although Jan and Keith were not able to join us, we were very glad to welcome Marigold Oakley.  As well as being a Garden volunteer [...]

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Hunting for Hares

The combination of the continued low temperatures - the first week in April was colder than March – and dry weather has meant that most plants have remained in a state of suspended animation and the grasses have become increasingly brown. So we had few expectations as to what we might find on our weekly walk. But four years ago [...]

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The Hungry Gap

For birds the most difficult time is usually around February and March each year when both seeds and insects are at their scarcest, hence the term, ‘the hungry gap’.  But this year,after a cold winter and with temperatures for the past fortnight being close to zero, and quite a bit below when you add in the [...]

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Courting Kites

Another bitterly cold Tuesday but yet again dry!  Although John had a cold and couldn’t come, we were very glad to welcome Howard Mead.  And thanks also to Sue Davies, Marigold Oakley, Liz Taylor and Dr. Michael Isaac who have expressed their interest.  Once Spring does finally decide to arrive we will need all the [...]

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King Alfred’s Cakes

This week we started our weekly wildlife walk from the stable block as usual but headed towards the energy centre. The first item of interest was the large oak which stands in solitary splendour by the staff car park. Lots of green leaves waving around – not oak leaves but polypods – that is ferns [...]

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Otter Prints and Otter Poo

Wildlife surveys have an important role to play in the conservation and improvement of our Countryside and during the construction of the National Botanic Garden of Wales in the 90′s a number of these were undertaken, including bats, birds, badgers, mammals, insects, amphibians and reptiles.  Since then, apart from the occasional wildlife walks and bat counts, there have [...]

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