Hamstead Hall students leave their mark at Sandwell Valley

Since day one I have been hankering to get the railway bridge at the entrance to the nature reserve spruced up. Finally, the blank canvas of concrete has been transformed this week by a mural artist with the help of local school children.

Once a long stretch of greyish nothing, the bridge is now a bright and vibrant corridor, which is far more representative of the wonderful wildlife the reserve holds.

Where to begin, if you remember I blogged about Network Rail coming to prep the bridge with masonry paint back September (thanks guys). Well since then we have been very busy indeed. Children from the local primary school, Grestone primary and secondary school, Hamstead Hall Academy came to the nature reserve to try their hand at some natural art. Taking inspiration from nature the students created pictures that I sent to the mural artist to inspire a design that would transform the crossing.

Thursday morning came with thick cold wet mist that hung over the bridge like a cloak. The guys from Spearfish arrived at 8am and informed us that the walls were too damp and the spray paint that they were using to create the mural would not stick. Credit has to go to our community engagement intern, Jasmin, and Cass who quickly grabbed as much absorbent material they could get hold of and got to work wiping down the walls.

Rich Roberts, the artist, then got to work outlining the design of the mural. Myself and Cass, from Spearfish began to fill in the shapes that soon came together as one huge amazing piece of artwork. It was as though the bridge had come alive.

In the afternoon more students from Hamstead Hall Academy came to the reserve to try their hand at spray painting and to help get the work completed. Jumpsuits on, and facemasks in place, they soon got to work. I actually heard one of them say it was one of the best things they have ever done. J

Unfortunately the sinking sun stole the day away from us prematurely and we had to call it a day at 4.30pm. Rich and Cass had to come back for a second day to complete the work.

The pictures speak for themselves....it looks absolutely AWESOME! Come and have a look for yourselves, you know where we are!

A Natural Christmas at Sandwell... come join us!

Christmas is coming... it comes round fast and we have the perfect event to get in the spirit!

Sorry about the odd framing, took a photo of the wreath we made
on a phone and can't crop it... not that technical. 

On Sunday 7 December, 11am -3pm, we have once again planned our fantastic and popular Christmas Fayre event. But this year there is a difference. We have used natural materials to decorate the classroom in a more environmentally friendly way. We have used recycled materials and plant material that can be found in green spaces, so that we may inspire you to help protect nature when you decorate for Christmas.

At the event you can make your own willow wreath to place on your door to welcome your Christmas guests or put in your kitchen to make it festive. We will be using natural material that have been harvested in a way that won’t harm the natural area it came from. There will also be lantern making from recycled jars to brighten up your mantel piece and many other crafts and activities for the whole family to get involved in.

Follow our festive trail around the reserve in search of Father Christmas, before returning to the classroom for a hot cup of chocolate and a mince pie or two. Here you can buy your RSPB Christmas cards where all profits go towards nature conservation and have your face painted like some of the nature you have seen around the reserve or further afield. We ask for a small donation towards the crafts and activities that will go towards the resources.

This will be a wonderfully festive event, a perfect way to get in the spirit and gather ideas for your 2014 Christmas.

Andy Hay (rspb-images.org.uk) 

Pop along, stick your nose round the corner, say hello and get stuck into our festive activities. Have a chat to our staff and volunteers about how you can create a natural Christmas and get ideas.

We’re so excited for this event and look forward to seeing you there!

Jazz 

Wintery images of Sandwell

Good Morning all... 

The reserve was looking extremely magical this morning with frost covering every bit of nature and fog softly covering the valley. I had to take a few photos to share the beauty of the reserve so that I could share the views with you. Nature is so incredible all year round and the winter can be so spectacular! 

Foundations are in... an update on the building work

As I walked round the site on Tuesday I was expecting to see the same blank canvas of a building site; the empty footprint where the old centre had been removed has looked the same for the past two weeks. However I was so excited to see things have happened, the old foundations had been revealed!

Large trenches had been dug around the original foundation; maroon red bricks were visible from the edges, hidden for nearly 30 years. There were also a large number of fluorescently jacketed builders, contractors and managers looking hard at work. It was a rather cold morning, still some builders were wondering round in t-shirts... how? I don’t know, I was freezing!

The following day I returned for another photograph of the building work to put towards our time-lapse photograph. The scene of the construction site was full of heavy machinery, including diggers, dumpers and cement mixers. Foundations were being laid! It’s so exciting to watch the daily development of our new visitor centre. I have always been told you need good, strong foundations to build a sturdy building and with the amount of cement mixers we’ve seen going through I can rest assured these foundations are well cemented.

Keep up to date with the work on site but signing up to our blog. Simply enter your email in to the box on the right hand panel to make sure you get emailed when a new post has been put up. 

Glasses, long beaked birds and Sandwell, What happened there?

It was a rather windy and stormy day last Thursday. The night was starting to draw in and the light was slowly fading. We weren’t far off heading home when a man knocked on the door of the closed visitor centre. As he wondered in holding a large brown box I thought to myself, ‘what on earth is in there?’ The gentleman began to explain how he had found this bird wondering round the town centre. ‘On his way into specsavers’ he explained, ‘definitely not a pigeon’, ‘what could it be? In a town centre’ I wondered. Gradually he tentatively opened the lid of the cardboard box to reveal a beautiful mottled brown bird, about the size of a bag of sugar, rather timid and its defining feature, a disproportionately long beak. A snipe! In specsavers? It obviously needed a couple of new pairs of glasses.

Apart from being a little confused and un-phased by the three tall humans standing over it, the snipe seemed in fair health. We made the decision to take it down to a quiet part of the reserve to release it, close to the marshy area by the lake which offers some particularly good feeding. Historically the marsh in Sandwell Valley has always been excellent for wintering snipe, well into double figures. Every year volunteers flush the snipe out of the marsh in order to count the numbers, usually hard to spot feeding amongst the mud and long vegetation.

Image by Andy Hay (rspb-images.org.uk)

Once we made it to the chosen release area, my colleague and I placed the box to the ground, opened the lid and after a little encouragement the snipe tottered out and headed carefully into the undergrowth never to be seen again. Well we hope he/she has been seen again, but they’re pretty hard to tell apart from one another! Miss/Master Snipe definitely brightened a grey day in the office. 

Jazz

Hip hip hooray for volunteers!!!

Ever thought to yourself, ‘this looks dreadful, someone should pick all that litter up’, or ‘I wish they wouldn’t build on my local green space, someone should do something to stop that’, or ‘kids don’t know about the different trees and plants anymore, someone should be teaching the next generation about nature’...............well guess what?

Someone did!

Our incredible army of volunteers, over 17,000, decided to be that ‘someone’ and for over 125 years RSPB volunteers have been offering their time and passion and skills to support our work. Because of volunteers, the RSPB runs 200 nature reserves, fights developments that threaten native wildlife and even pioneers projects to save the albatross; and this is just the tip of the Iceberg. I started volunteering when I was at university because I was worried about wildlife and I was tired of wishing ‘someone’ would do something.

We have nearly 100 volunteers at Sandwell and they help us with everything from putting up fence posts to surveying wildlife, from answering our phones to educating the next generation about the birds and the beasties that make nature amazing. The list goes on, and on...

Susan Spencer receiving her 5 year service award.

One of our team has just received her 5 year long service award, so I thought I would use this opportunity to tell you a little bit about this wonderful volunteer.

Since 2009 Susan Spencer has volunteered on Sunday afternoons in our lakeside hide, binoculars at the ready and on hand to show passing visitors the wildlife that can be seen. Although Susan works Monday to Friday, she is happy to come down to Sandwell on Sunday afternoons as a way to unwind and relax. This visitor volunteer role is very important indeed. Susan, like the other hide volunteers, is our front line support and key to enthusing local people about the nature reserve and its incredible wildlife.

Like many of our volunteers, Susan wears many volunteer hats; she is now the (first ever) RSPB Sandwell Valley community forum Chairperson.

The community forum has been running for nearly two years. The forum represents different sections of our local community. They have identified target themes which include; youth, learning, family, wellbeing, history, volunteering, conservation, ethnic minorities and local residents. Our aim is to use the forum to direct the work we do at Sandwell Valley nature reserve so we can become a successful community resource, as well as an important home for wildlife in the midlands.

Sandwell Valley Nature Reserve is unique, unlike the majority of our nature reserves; this one sits tantalisingly close to thousands of homes, busy motorways and businesses. Working with the community in mind is so important. We want more people than ever before to visit, using the site for meetings, picnics or just somewhere to escape to for a couple of hours. Susan Spencer and the rest of the community forum will hopefully help us achieve this goal.

Susan has worked for more than 30 years in the voluntary sector and social housing in Birmingham, London and Wolverhampton. She has specialised in community outreach and engagement in disadvantage communities, working in Birmingham’s inner city and with minority and ethnic communities. We are so grateful that you choose to support the RSPB, so THANK YOU Susan Spencer.

If you feel like you want to be ‘someone’ too, then email me at nadia.shaikh@rspb.org.uk. 

What’s in a name?

Well quite a lot actually. Names are very important; we have named all the plants and animals here (and I don’t mean Marjorie the mallard), for example, the ‘rams horn snail’, it does exactly what is says on the tin. Naming the wildlife is really helpful because it allows us to keep accurate details of the flora and fauna in the valley; even down to the last mushroom, they all need names.  

We name landscape features like mountains and rivers, the river Tame for example runs through the nature reserve. Names give identity and familiarity to the world and it allows it to understand it better and to recall places we have been to. Not to mention the fact that you and I have names.

So what am I going on about? Well, there is a point in there somewhere. Since I started my role back in February this year, I have been on a quest to search for a name for the new visitor centre; I wanted it to be something positive and memorable; inspiring and relevant. This building means a lot to a lot of people so giving it a special name felt like the right thing to do.

The hunt was on.

We started by asking EVERYONE for their suggestions. We asked visitors, staff, volunteers, people on social media, basically anyone who came into contact with us. It was actually harder that we initially thought, coming up for a name for a building was tricky, as buildings often adopt names over time naturally anyway, but this hadn’t been built yet. The tool shed, for example, is know to staff and volunteers here as ‘the tardis’ because (you guessed it) it seems so much bigger on the inside.

After a couple of months we had gathered over 100 suggestions. Our next job was to whittle it down. We wanted to get local people to vote for their favourite, and 100 was just too many to choose from. We recruited our community forum volunteers to go through the names and choose the best two. After lots of deliberation and lots of tea and coffee (and biscuits), ‘the view’ and ‘nature’s reach’ made it to the final.

The vote was on!

You decided, the votes were counted and verified, we are happy to announce the name of the new visitor centre..................

Nature’s reach!

Nadia

Is winter here to stay?

We’ve had the proper first frost of the year. Made official by Nadia needing to use her credit card to scrape away the frost on her car. This cold spell has also drawn in the less urban birds into Sandwell to feed on the fruit that is abundant here. It didn’t take me long to stop as I headed out for my fortnightly wildlife walk in Sandwell. Just over the railway bridge the trees were alive with birdsong. Flitting between the trees was an array of small brown jobbies that wouldn’t settle long enough for me to look at. Eventually I heard the wonderfully chirpy cheeps of long tailed tits. I love these little birds; to me they are a ball of fluff on the end of a lollipop stick and they flutter around in their family groups. Redwings are also quite abundant in the trees here, looking thinner than I remember, but it has been over a year since I’ve seen one. My Mum questioned the other day, ‘what are those birds with the red under their wing?’, this is the aspect of redwing that makes them quite easy to remember  once you’ve seen one.

Red campion

A ‘di-didi-di-didi’ song was also frequenting the wooded area, a song I couldn’t identify until I spotted it. There in the branches sat (only for a brief moment as nothing ever sits still) one of the loveliest treasures you might spot in the woodlands. There sat a tiny, round bodied punk with a gold streak on its head, and weighing less than a wee grape, a goldcrest, and not just one. 

Cotoneaster

Another lovely sight this morning was red campion, one of the few plants still flowering at this time of year. Red campion isn’t really red; it’s pink, small and rather common. I often see it flowering all year round, I’ve been told this is probably due to our often mild climate. It was looking rather frosty, poor red campion, this morning. 

Finally, after years of not knowing this plant has been identified for me. We have one in our front garden and as I was growing up I would always admire the bright red berries almost swamping the branches of this small scrub. Cotoneaster is a medium evergreen shrub, is part of the rose family and has finally been identified for my by the trusty RSPB office staff.

The winter makes the valley such a gem in the mornings, with that frosty touch and morning sunlight catching the dew on the grass. The part I really love is seeing the water vapour rise off the River Tame, Forge Mill Lake and even the bench in Kingfisher Corner this morning. 

The building site

BUILDING WORK UPDATE: The old centre is down and the site is looking rather bare, waiting for the extra foundations to be laid ready for the new centre to be erected.

Jazz

Breaking ground at Sandwell Valley

The day has finally arrived (we can hardly contain our excitement), we are so happy to announce to the world that building work on your new RSPB visitor centre has begun. There are diggers on site and ground has been broken.

When I first saw the big blue digger chugging its way up the Sandwell Valley driveway last week it hit me for the first time properly, like a Peregrine Falcon smacking into its prey in mid-air. Crash!! 

This time next year we will be in our swanky new visitor centre!! Not that I haven’t enjoyed working from our temporary SPA in the interim period. (that’s SPA for ‘semi-permanent accommodation’, not the type of SPA where you leave feeling revitalised, pampered an refreshed).

It was only when I walked up to the construction site and saw the digger pulling down the remnants of the old building that my excitement was tinged with sadness. The old building had stood for 25 years and, from what I have heard, gave birth to thousands of happy memories. Hundreds of welly-clad school children piled through those doors on school trips that might have sparked a lifetime of love for nature.  It is so fantastic, like a phoenix from the flames; the new building will rise from the same footprint as the old building over the next 6 months.

We absolutely could not do this without support, and it has come in many different forms over the past 4 years. It is thanks to the staff and volunteers at RSPB Sandwell Valley who, after the fire, continued to work from home. We kept going because of those volunteers, who continued to turn up, open the hide, lead guided walks and do wildlife surveys, despite no facilities on site. It is the support of the local community also, who carried on visiting and supporting our work. It is also because of all those thousands of RSPB members that I am writing this today. And of course, thank you to the funders who, like us, recognised that Sandwell Valley is a really special place for people and wildlife; they dug deep and helped make the dream of a new visitor centre a reality.

The Breathing New Life into Sandwell Valley project has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Ibstock Cory Environmental Trust, Edward and Dorothy Cadbury Trust and other Charitable Trusts.

Our partnerships don’t stop there; I have to mention the actual people on the ground too. We are pleased to be working with Harpers construction and Katar consulting throughout out the rebuild.

Now then, you’ll be expecting regular updates I suppose? Look no further than this blog, because that’s precisely what you’re going to get.

So we've been hit by a hurricane...

So we’ve been hit by a hurricane... well the tail-end of one, how did you find it? I mean as far as bad weather went, I can say we’ve seen worse, but I’m rather grateful for our tail-end of the storm as it seems to be causing few travel disruptions and damages caused by its such strong winds.

The beautiful sunrise from the reserve this morning

I should have guessed that, after writing this, within minutes the gails started, it looked like storm force 10 from the office window as all the leaves rushed down the street. Then it began to hail and some really unfortunate news stories about issues caused by the weather popped up on BBC news. Typical, next time I’ll keep my mouth shut!

Anyway, the reserve is defiantly more covered in leaves now than it was a couple of days ago and they leave incredible golden dusting! As I’m writing this I’m looking out the window at the trees half bent over by the wind and a tiny, juvenile grey squirrel is all hunched over with it’s tail bent round itself to shelter from the wind. My, it does look a little cold up there and here’s me in a nice toasty office.

The Dewy Grass Caught the Sunlight Wonderfully

My nature walk round the reserve was a rather different one this week, more of a well-paced amble round the reserve. I even got to chat to Trevor, one of our wonderful wildlife garden volunteers, who was struggling to find a suitable place to plant an apple tree that had been rescued by the builders from the demolition area. Mrs (or Mr) Robin was also there to greet me in the wildflower garden, searching for worms in an area I presume Trevor had just been digging.

I took a different route around the reserve today, heading along the public bridle path that backs onto the nature reserve, just near the construction site. Here I decided to stop, as I had seen a few small brown birds flitting between the trees. Sure enough within a couple of minutes birdlife returned to the hedgerows and I was surrounded by a mixture of songs, including a robin and also a chiffchaff, who normally fly back to their wintering grounds in late August to September so this was a surprise. Then I was greeted by a mysterious bird, it had a blackcap, so I initially thought it must be a blackcap, but it didn’t look like ones I had seen previously, so I jotted down its description, with black markings on its flanks. As always it was too up in the trees and too fast for me to get a photo; as my Dad has always told me and as the saying goes… “never work with children or animals”… they never stay still long enough. When I got back to the office I looked in the book... it was a female bullfinch! 

The Gills of the Un-identified Mushroom

The light was wonderful on my walk and caught the dewy grass and cobwebs beautifully down in Kingfisher Corner. I also managed to find a mushroom!!! Noted someone had already found it for me but had dropped it on the ground. When I came to look in my ID book I realise quite how diverse and complicated mushrooms and their identification is. If anyone has a clue on what this mushroom may be please post below. I shall have to spend my extremely long coach journey tomorrow reading up on fungi!

The Un-identified Mushroom

Jazz

Free Wild Art Event- What's happening there...?

My creativity ran 'wild' with some leaves earlier today

Nature is incredible, it’s intricate designs and array of colours decorate the world year round. Here at Sandwell we have a large green space that is accessible to all, all year round, every day of the week and we want you to have the chance to see what natural art you can make from nature.

On Monday 26^th October we are holding a FREE EVENT! All are welcome, bring your friends, family and neighbours along to get out of the house, out into nature and create some wild art.

Come for a walk, bring a picnic and make the most of the free hands on activities that we will have going on. Help decorate our reserve using nature and share your ideas for new art work that we will be developing to be placed around the reserve.

Help home those little people and fairies around the reserve and your gardens and make hidden houses and furniture out of natural materials. Create nature masks out of the wonderful autumnal leaves that you find all over at this time of year and let your creative juices run riot decorating wildlife biscuits.

Watch a local artist at work as he sculpts woodwork for the reserve. Robot will be creating artwork to be placed on the reserve over the coming months and will be joining us to give you the chance to try your hand at woodcarving.

We would love to hear your thoughts about what art work you might like to see on the reserve, so come along and put your ideas into our suggestion box.

Image by Olivia Betts (rspb-images.com)

This is a free event for all ages, with loads of different practical activities to get involved in.

We can’t wait to see you there and let our creativity run wild!

Jazz

p.s. Don't forget to check out our Facebook page (RSPB Birmingham, Black Country & Warwickshire) to be kept up-to-date with whats going on at RSPB Sandwell Valley. 

Working together to give nature a home

What season at Sandwell?

Storytelling corner

Autumn is upon us. 

I was going to attempt my fortnightly walk yesterday but as, I am sure, you are well aware it was rather autumnal and wet. After cycling in and getting very cold, I decided to go for my wildlife walk today; yet another autumnal and rainy day. Instead, I embraced the rain, put on the enormous RSPB rain jacket and trundled out in my wellies to see what I could find.

Only a handful of plants are flowering now and, although it’s very invasive and I shouldn’t morally admire it, the flowers of the bind weed, funnel shaped and glowing white, did decorate the hedgerow quite elegantly. The hawthorn trees were all draped with glossy red berries, ready to feed the birds for the winter. After passing through kingfisher corner I headed down towards the marsh screen and came across the autumnal delight that has covered storytelling corner. While many of the trees still have green and golden leaves on, many have already fallen and have decorated the ground with a mix of reds, browns and yellow. It’s like a treasure trove of colour! I quite enjoyed looking at the contrast between the golden floor and the green leaved trees.

Broom

The paths towards the marsh screen are lined sporadically with broom, well, what I thought to be broom (see picture). A member of the pea family and a plant that I had help ID’ing some 3 years ago at university; but when trying to decide if it was broom I remembered someone mentioning something called mare’s-tail, so I thought I ought to check to make sure.... It was defiantly not mare’s-tail, but at least I now know that. Mare’s-tail is found in some slow running streams and lakes and it’s thin and pointy leaves come out of the stem in ‘whorls’ (three or more leaves arising from the stem at the same point).

oxeye daisy

In the garden I managed to find a few more plants in bloom, even a couple of oxeye daisies, muddied by the rain, were giving it a go. Some red clovers and red campion (which is a good one to spot most of the year round) were brightening up the boarders.

The walkway down to the hide is also looking rather spectacular, with still enough leaves on the trees to make it feel enclosed, the path is rather atmospheric, lined with the trees summer creations and full of colour.

I was hoping to find some mushrooms to ID this week but unfortunately failed. However next time I shall attempt a more intense fungi foray. 

I hope you enjoy your autumn walks as much as I do. Please post your findings and interesting points on here as I it may teach me a thing or two about what I might find out there!

Jazz

The Bridge gets a Face Lift

Hi!!

Nadia here! 

Before

We have wonderful news. The railway bridge at the entrance to the reserve is getting a facelift. For those of you that don’t know; there is a railway bridge just on the edge of the nature reserve, and lets just say, it doesn’t win any prizes for it’s looks. If the engineer that designed this particular bridge is reading this, I am sorry, but being from the north east, you have the likes of the Tyne bridge to compete with - an engineering triumph.

After & The fantastic Network Rail team

We are working with local schools to design a mural inspired by nature. An artist is going to come and work with the school groups to create something a bit special. We can’t wait. But before we could put the overalls on and get out the rollers I needed to ask for permission. To my delight, Network Rail were more than happy for us to paint the bridge, and not only that, they agreed to come along and give it an undercoat first.

Last week staff from one of the Network Rail offices descended on the reserve in a glow of orange and within minutes the brushes were out and they were hard at work. We were very impressed with the speed and efficiency in which they got the job done; and a cracking job they did too. Of course we supplied the team with cake and biscuits and a cup of tea, it was the least we could do.

We are incredibly grateful for this, so THANK YOU Network Rail for helping us make this special nature reserve just that little bit more beautiful.

The mural is not finished yet, but i’ll be sure to let you know when it is.

Working in partnership to give nature a home

The Big Challenge

                                             

On the weekend 28^th/29^th September we were joined by over 100 students taking part in the NCS Challenge.

NCS http://www.ncsthechallenge.org/ is a project set up in 2009 to bring lots of 15- 17 year olds together and challenge them to take part in lots of new experiences.

The task and activities they take part in help them to discover and build on new skills, such as communication, working within a team, public speaking, practical tasks, helping others and  much more. They graduate from the programme and the experiences they gain are now recognised by many employers and universities.

So over the weekend, they visited us at Sandwell, and our wonderful staff and volunteers at the RSPB provided them with a taste of working outdoors on a nature reserve.

Armed with rakes, trowels, hoes and gloves they set off with Warden Kate and Visitor & Promotions Officer Chris.

After being fueled up with sugar, caffeine and Chris’s pep-talk we headed out onto the reserve in 2 teams.

Team 1 went and did essential path maintenance on our busy footpath. They cleared edges, trimmed back willows, and neatened the place up to make it inviting for our visitors.

Team 2 ventured into the big meadow to rake up the cut grass. This is an important job as we cut the meadow every year and remove the cuttings to allow a diverse range of plants to grow. If the cut grass was left, it would create a ‘thatch’ and block light for most species to germinate. We did a great job, work hard (well, most of us did!) and cleared 1/3 of the meadow (about half an acre)

They all worked hard, as you can see from the pictures, and with the beautiful sunshine, everyone enjoyed working out in the fresh air....though there were a few screams about spiders!!

Alex

Sandwell Valley Bat Detectives

Sandwell Valley Bat Detectives!!

I thought I should just check in to let you all know about a youth bat event we did the other week. A big part of my role is to get local young people out and enjoying local wildlife. As such I have arranged a series of events for local youth clubs to take part in. Two weeks ago we had a bat night and ‘after party’. Here is a short account of the evening.

Morgan Bowers a bat expert from ‘brum bats’ came along to talk to young people from the local youth group and a local scouts group about the bats that live in Sandwell valley. Morgan takes in rescued bats to rehabilitate them before releasing them back into the wild; she was kind enough to bring a bat in for us to look at. For most of the children this was the first bat they had ever seen; for me it was an absolute privilege to see their faces light up when Morgan carefully reached into the ‘bat basket’ and pulled out the nocturnal delight.

There are 18 species of bat in the UK, and this particular visitor was a serotine bat called ‘vlad’ (an exceptionally good name for a bat). After watching him chomp rather nosily on several mealworms we put him back in his basked and headed out, intrepid explorers equipped with bat detectors, we made our way to the marsh screen to see what species of bat might be flying around the reserve. This is a nice sheltered spot and we suspected that it would be visited by bats filling up on moths; the last of the summer’s bounty before the autumn really takes hold of the landscape, sending both the insects and bats to sleep for the winter.

Alas, it was not to be. 30 bat detectors held eagerly aloft by 30 young hands sadly detected very little at this first location. Despite the myriad of flying insects, the bats proved elusive, deciding to feast elsewhere that evening. As time went on, we were losing light fast, as a last attempt to glimpse our night time friends we made our way to the flood bank to see if we could catch sight of one flying around the river Tame. Just as we were about to give up, the unmistakable ‘tick tick tick’ on a couple of the bat detectors got the group buzzing again. There was a small Pippistrelle flying around. It really is amazing to see young people this excited about wildlife. Eyes wide open, straining against the impending darkness, desperate to catch a glimpse of the distinctive silhouette of a bat.

A few children saw it, but it was fleeting and then lost into the inky night sky. It was time to head back to the classroom for some hot chocolate and treats. Not a great deal of wildlife, but a huge success in my books, young people outdoors on a nature reserve and having fun (and not at home watching the telly)!

If you’re interested in bats I would encourage you to visit the ‘brumbats’ website and get involved,  http://brumbats.wordpress.com/

Nadia

Working in partnership to give nature a home

 

Whose been visiting?

Bird sightings week beginning 21st September 2014

Cormorant, Canada goose, black headed gull, tufted duck, mute swan, lapwing, carrion crow, moorhen, gadwall, starling, buzzard, great crested grebe, wigeon, kingfisher, little grebe, jackdaw, pochard, Mediterranean gull, mallard, teal, heron, swallow, great spotted woodpecker, snipe, herring gull, pintail x 2, shoveler, grey wagtail, skylark flying over, coot, lesser black backed gull, magpie, wood pigeon, stock dove, green sandpiper,  water rail, kestrel, pied wagtail, green woodpecker, jay, sparrowhawk and blackbird.

What's about at RSPB Sandwell Valley?

Bird sightings week beginning 14^th September 2014

Cormorant, black headed gull, lapwing, lesser black backed gull, swan, gadwall, coot, carrion crow, stock dove, moorhen, starling, mallard, tufted duck, heron, jackdaw, buzzard, great crested grebe, shoveler, snipe, kingfisher, little grebe, jay, pintail, ruff, wood pigeon, house martin, Canada goose, teal, wigeon, herring gull, green sandpiper, grey wagtail, chiffchaff, kestrel, magpie, jack snipe, raven, green woodpecker, Mediterranean gull, sparrowhawk, robin, parakeet, water rail( heard).

I'll be out and about so come and vote

Have you voted yet? Well now’s your chance... tomorrow (Wednesday 24^th September) I’ll be out at Forge Mill Farm from 10am and our local Tesco Express, The Great Barr Express, from 1pm. The model for the new centre will be with me as well as the all important voting box! If you can’t make it tomorrow then drop in to our temporary centre or give us an email at sandwellvalley@rspb.org.uk and have your say in what your new visitor centre is called.

Forge Mill Lake (By Chris)

Who am I? I’m Jazz, the Community Engagement Intern here at Sandwell Valley Nature Reserve. I started back in June this year, you may have met me but you may not have. I’m often out at my table, sat around the wildlife garden, with the model for the new centre giving out information and getting you to vote on the centre name. You may meet me tomorrow.

A bit about me...

I recently completed a degree in Conservation Biology and Ecology at the University of Exeter down on the Cornwall Campus. I was raised in the midlands by an avid birdwatcher (not quite twitcher status) so; therefore, I should know a lot more about the birds that frequent our reserve than I already do. I have a great appreciation for birds, their delicate feathers, fluctuating social lives and how some teeny tiny ones travel thousands of miles. I have tried to look in many identification books and absorb the information but nothing quite beats going out and watching the next tale unfold with another unidentified flying creature. Then there are the insects, plants, mammals and especially the fungi this time of year to spot and identify and ponder over a book for another hour or so. 

However, fear not for my lack of identification skills as I am now surrounded by many knowledgeable people. Every 2 weeks I plan to spend an afternoon, wondering round the reserve, seeing what’s about and chatting to ‘those in the know’. I give myself a target of one unidentified species to identify each time, to consolidate the most recent highlights (some in my opinion, others in my colleagues) and to point out the bits you should have a look at when you pop down to the valley. 

Starting next week, I’m going to get out there and hopefully you’ll join me and help me through this blog as I try to hone in on my identification skills and general appreciation for our side of the valley.

Jazz

P.S. if you’re an early bird then head out to the reserve early in the morning. I was cycling in at 7.30 this morning and it was such a spectacular view. The light was golden, the birds were all chilling out (literally, it was freezing!) on the islands and steam was rising from the lake, catching the suns rays and making it so atmospheric. (I'll try get a photograph for you tomorrow) Ooh Autumn is a wonderfully special month. 

Sandwell Valley