Case Studies
Read Case Studies of wildlife surveys and get inspired to do your own!
Group/Individual: Stephen Burrell (Thwaite Common Toad Patrol)
Location: Thwaite Common
Residents of the village adjoining Thwaite Common organise a toad patrol every spring to assist with the safe migration of these amphibians to their local breeding grounds. Residents were moved to take action after witnessing hundreds of toads becoming victims to road traffic on local country lanes.
Group/Individual: Seasearch East
Location: North Norfolk
The snake pipefish (Entelurus aqueorus) is a very slow moving, gentle relative of the seahorse. It can be up to 60cm long, and is very colourful when alive, bright yellow/green with iridescent turquoise stripes and it is a very poor swimmer.
Group/Individual: Martin Ogilvie and Trevor Stevens
Location: Saxlingham Nethergate
As part of its Natural Connections project, Norfolk Wildlife Trust worked with the parishioners of Saxlingham Nethergate to run a series of workshops and moth trapping events. These proved so successful that NWT loaned moth traps to interested people to enable them to continue recording moths throughout 2008 and 2009. The results of this activity were quite startling with a total of over 200 species of macro moth being recorded including many species of conservation concern.
Group/Individual: Ross Jolliffe
Location: Saxlingham Nethergate
You could try positioning a remote camera in a strategic spot in your garden which will record the comings and goings of wildfire over a period of time.
Group/Individual: Norfolk Wildlife Services
Location: Saxlingham Nethergate
During 2008, a habitat survey was carried out in Saxlingham Nethergate.
Group/Individual: Pauline Walton
Location: Briston
Pauline Walton lives in Briston and has a keen interest in birds. She has recently helped Norfolk Wildlife Trust, as part of its Natural Connections Project, to map the birdlife found within her parish by regularly walking a route along local footpaths and quiet roads. During 2008 Pauline recorded over 80 species including Mediterranean gull, green sandpiper and the now nationally scarce spotted flycatcher. Thirty of these species were recorded as breeding and several are included on the Norfolk Biodiversity Action Plan list.
Group/Individual: Seasearch East
Location: North Norfolk
There is a cute little fish which is very common on the south coast called a tompot blenny. It is about 15cm long, bright orange and has very busy ‘eyebrows’, called lappets. Until recently, it was not thought to live in the North Sea until a photograph was taken of one on the wreck of the Rosalie at Weynbourne in only 5m of water, just 100m from shore.
Group/Individual: Norfolk Wildlife Trust
Location: Countywide
In 2008 NWT launched a Notable Trees of Norfolk survey.
Group/Individual: Norfolk Wildlife Trust
Location: Countywide
As par of the People and Wildlife project NWT ran a poppy field survey with the aim of encouraging members of the public to report any fields full of poppies they encountered.
Group/Individual: National Trust
Location: Country-wide
During the autumn of 2007 the National Trust launched a survey to record waxcaps found on their properties. Over 600 people took part and more than 6,950 individual waxcap and other grassland fungi were recorded.
Group/Individual: Barry Madden
Location: Mousehold Heath
Mousehold Heath on the north-eastern fringes of Norwich comprises an area of relatively young woodland, open heath and grassland. Little was known about the moths inhabiting the area until recently when the warden, Will Stewart, decided to enlist the help of local people and county experts to run a series of moth trapping sessions during the summers of 2008 and 2009.
Group/Individual: Max Nicholson
Location: Kensington Gardens, London
Max Nicholson was born on July 12 1904. He carried out the first complete census of the birds of Kensington Gardens in 1925. At that time he counted 2,603 house sparrows in the area.
Group/Individual:
Location: Hoveton
When a development was proposed in Hoveton that would have resulted in the felling of nine ancient oak trees local people where alarmed. More than 20 households from Two Saints Green estate wrote to their local district council’s conservation and landscape service raising their concerns. This resulted in a landscape officer visiting the site to assess the trees, landscape and wildlife value.
Group/Individual: Friends of the Rosary Cemetery
Location: Norwich
This group of approximately 70 volunteers, was set up ten years ago to assist with practical management tasks within the cemetery, as well as promoting it as a place of historical and recreational value. The group works closely with Norwich City Council and has forged links with local conservation organisations including Norfolk Wildlife Trust and the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV).
Group/Individual:
Location: South Norfolk
Studies have calculated that the South Norfolk Claylands area holds nearly three times the national average desnisty of ponds. In February 2004 Norfolk Wildlife Services (the consultancy arm of Norfolk Wildlife Trust) produced a report on behalf of the South Norfolk Claylands Project Partners on the state of ponds within five south Norfolk parishes. The report concentrated on assessing the general health of ponds within the parishes and paid particular regard to their suitability for holding populations of great crested newts.
Group/Individual: Abbie Powell and Jo Sanders
Location: Saxlingham Nethergate
Jo Sanders and Abbie Powell live in Saxlingham Nethergate and have recently helped Norfolk Wildlife Trust, as part of its Natural Connections Project, to survey the butterflies inhabiting their parish. Jo and Abbie mapped out a route around the parish meadow and Abbie’s perennial flowering garden and walked the route together on a weekly basis recording the butterflies they saw.
Group/Individual: David Longden
Location: Briston and Melton Constable
As part of the its Natural Connections project NWT worked with the parishioners of Briston and Melton Constable to help undertake a wildlife audit of their local area.
Group/Individual: Lorie Lain-Rogers, Bergh Apton Conservation Trust
Location: Bergh Apton
Twenty years ago there was no public-access land in Bergh Apton, a rural village of 450 inhabitants seven miles south-east of Norwich, though there was a good network of footpaths. Today there are ten acres of conservation land open to the public 365 days a year in the ownership and care of a conservation registered charity with well-observed species lists of plants, birds, butterflies, moths, and insects which are kept up to date with regular surveys.
Group/Individual: Bob Kerry, Bergh Apton Conservation Group
Location: Bergh Apton
In 1998 members of Bergh Apton Conservation Trust decided to carry out a survey of all the hedges within our village boundary. We first surveyed the whole village and compared the field boundaries on 1905 maps with what still existed in 1998. Every year since then, over two evenings each summer, we have surveyed existing hedges, in 30 more sections, recording the species of plants present. Shrubs are shown as ‘S’ on the recording sheets and trees as ‘T’. We also record ground flora, the height and condition of the hedge and many other features, such as whether a ditch or bank is present and if there are any ancient trees present. By the end of 2009 we had surveyed 15,780 metres of hedge. So far 27 people have taken part in the survey with up to 12 on any one evening. Our aim is to survey every hedge in the village.
Group/Individual: BADCOG
Location: Blofied and District
BADCOG became involved in the conservation management of Howes Meadow, Blofield in 1984. Prior to this date, the meadow had been grazed by livestock and BADCOG’s aims were to conserve and enhance this flora-rich wet meadow.
Group/Individual: Gordon Chown
Location: Saxlingham Nethergate
What do you do while walking the dogs? One answer is to look up and try to identify the birds. Well, I tried that but once you have sorted out the easy ones the rest are just LBJs (little brown jobs)! So now I look down on the floor and have discovered the fascinating world of fungi!
Group/Individual: Mousehold Heath Defenders
Location: Norwich
Mousehold Heath is a unique green space in the heart of Norwich. Until very recently no comprehensive records existed for the site and no science-based bird surveying had been carried out for over 30 years.
Group/Individual: Robert Marsham
Location: Stratton Strawless
Robert Marsham was born in Norfolk in 1708 and lived most of his life at Stratton Strawless. From 1736 he noted each year 27 ‘Indications of Spring’ including the dates of first flowering wood anemones, the leafing of beech, the first call of the cuckoo, the dates when rooks started their nest building, dates of oak and hawthorn coming into leaf and swallow arrival dates.
Group/Individual: Gardens for Wildlife
Location: Norwich
The Gardens for Wildlife Group is a local initiative that operates in the Lakenham and Town Close areas of Norwich. The group is interested in all aspects of gardening and produces a quarterly newsletter containing articles submitted by its readers. During the spring of 2009 the group asked members of the 1,600 households covered by its circulation to record any house sparrows seen in their gardens and any nests in the last year.
Group/Individual: Sue Cooper
Location:
Yesterday we stole an hour or so to look round the local patch, an event we do regularly and with great enjoyment.