Species monitoring on the reserve

 Species monitoring on the reserve

The winter months see our volunteer team working hard to maintain the different habitats across the reserve, whether it's removing diseased trees, planting new saplings or rejuvenating tern islands. From the middle of March habitat work has to cease as the breeding and nesting season starts in full swing with many of the woodland species building and using nests within a metre of the ground. Any habitat work would cause too much disturbance to our breeding species.

The focus therefore shifts to monitoring the variety of species that use the range of habitats that we manage. This is essential work as these surveys provide us with the information that is needed to decide which areas of the reserve need attention in terms of habitat management in the following or successive winters, it is the reason that we work hard all winter!

The staff, supported greatly by the volunteer team carry out a range of monitoring projects, the first of which starts in mid March. This is the breeding bird survey. The site is spilt into eight compartments and each volunteer is assigned one section which is then visited four times, once per month up to the end of June. Following guidelines set up by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)  and with a few localised adjustments, each surveyor notes down every species of bird and their behaviour in approximately a two hour window around 6am, often using their expert knowledge of bird song and call to identify the species. These surveys are then mapped at the end of the breeding season to highlight the number and diversity of breeding birds across the site. Last year 62 species were confirmed to be holding breeding territories, 7 of which are red listed on the list of conservation concern and 25 species that are amber listed, as well as three species that are Schedule 1 species. This work took over 60 hours of volunteer and staff time. The 2024 survey showed an increase in breeding territories being held by 51 out of the 62 species when compared with the previous year.

Breeding bird survey takes place shortly after dawn

Another volunteer team helps the site to monitor the 144 nestboxes that are situated around the reserve. Of these there are 7 Tawny owl and 3 Barn owl boxes. Again, following BTO guidelines and contributing to the BTO nestbox recording scheme, the team regularly check and monitor the use of the boxes. An endoscope is often used to check inside the boxes as this causes less disturbance particularly if an adult bird is sitting on eggs. At the time of writing 58% of all the woodland nestboxes have showed signs of being used. The team monitor each box every fortnight, checking the contents for nesting material, presence of adult birds, presence of eggs and then nestlings. Great tits and Blue tits are the species that use the nestboxes with the occasional wren making use of a box. When owl boxes are checked the team collect any owl pellets that are present and have been sending them off to the British Mammal Society as part of their "Searching for Shrews" project which is using the contents of owl pellets to determine the presence and impact of the Great white toothed shrew in different parts of the UK.

Blue tit nestlings

Monitoring nestboxes using an endoscope

Alongside the breeding bird survey and the nestbox scheme, yet another volunteer team are involved in a Constant Effort Site (CES) ringing programme. This is a scheme that began at the reserve in 2009 and is the only CES site in the Tophill Low area. The scheme comprises a layout of mist nets that catch birds in the area around south scrub. This project, again one set up by the BTO means that the nets are in place every 10 days from late April through to August, hopefully recording breeding birds that return to the same breeding sites every year. The CES scheme is part of a national project to monitor productivity and survival rates of breeding birds in different habitats. Just this week a Willow Warbler was retrapped, it had hatched at Tophill Low in 2021, returning to the site after making an incredible ten trips across the Sahara in that time, an amazing achievement for a bird that weighs just over 9g!

Garden warbler caught during the CES ringing scheme

Birds aside, there are other species that require monitoring so that the site team can make decisions in terms of habitat management. At the beginning of April our butterfly monitoring team started to walk their transects recording the butterflies that they encountered along the way. The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme didates that each transect should be walked once a week in the correct weather conditions, which are in temperatures above 13 degrees and with no rain, making the window of opportunity to carry out this survey quite restricting in our British climate. Each butterfly is identified and recorded and the sightings are sent to the county recorder for their annual report. A workshop was held this year to help volunteers get to grips with the identification of certain species that can be quite hard to distinguish especially when they fly past and don't land.

Marbled white on thistles in north scrub

As well as the butterflies, the grass snakes are also monitored, a survey that was carried out by John Pemberton this morning. He lays out a number of metal sheets (20) in various places around the reserve hoping to entice grass snakes to use them to warm themselves up before they head out onto the reserve to feed. The sheets are checked monthly between March to June and then twice between September to November. This new reptile survey was established as part of the National Reptile Monitoring scheme which is co-ordinated by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust.

Grass snake by Roy Lyon

All our monitoring and survey work depends on the dedication and support of the volunteers that give up their time to carry out these surveys. The site team owe a massive thanks to all their hard work during the monitoring season as this information plays such a pivotal part in the planning and maintaining of the reserve.

Spring arrives at Tophill

 

Winter months are the time when the reserve team and the group of volunteers are the busiest when it comes to habitat management. Once mid March passes, birds start to nest and habitats cannot be disturbed. Visitors will see a range of habitat management tasks being completed as they walk around.

One such task was the cleaning and revamping of the tern rafts and nesting islands on south marsh east, which were first installed several years ago. During subsequent years, the original gravel has been colonised by vegetation precluding terns from nesting and as this species has been increasing in numbers in recent years, we’ve wanted them to continue to be successful breeders. Washing out all the vegetation and replacing with new gravel has taken hours of volunteer time, let’s hope that the common terns return this season. As well as our own tern islands, Yorkshire Water has funded the tern islands at Dumble Farm and Albanwise Farm further down the Hull valley.

Another new addition that visitors will notice on arrival at the reserve is the newly installed biosecurity washdown facility. Yorkshire Water takes invasive non native species very seriously as in the wider business this can lead to increase in costs to remove certain species from operational sites. As visitors and our reserve team move between nature reserves it is of vital importance that people do not carry with them, particularly on footwear and machinery, any trace of invasive non native plants such as Himalayan balsam or New Zealand Pygmy weed (often referred to as Crassula). Visitors can now scrub their boots on arrival and departure to make sure they are clean between visiting other sites. As a reserve team we can clean equipment in the new facility when moving between sites, making sure that Tophill Low remains free of these non native invasive species. Recently, the team arrived back from a tree planting project at our Cottingham water treatment site and made good use of the new facility.

Over in Cottingham the reserve volunteer team have been helped out by local volunteers to take part in tree planting. The site will become one of the area’s largest woodlands, as over 38,000 trees, of 23 different species, covering an area of approximately 25 hectares has been planted on Yorkshire Water land. An exciting project that the local community were keen to be involved in.

We also needed some trees planting here at the reserve as some oak saplings that were grown from acorns collected by Kingsmill students several years ago were ready to plant out. This time it was pupils from Oakfield school in Hull who took on the task of tree planting in D woods. This is needed as over the past few years there have been a lot of trees lost to ash dieback. Visitors will see several large trees felled near the path, their timber will be removed as well as leaving some to rot in situ. Thanks to the students for their help.

On a much smaller scale, but of equal importance, families joined the team during half term to build nestboxes and put them up in the woodland here at Tophill Low. This was part of the British Trust for Ornithology’s National nestbox week, a project that takes place each February to encourage people to put up nestboxes for woodland birds and to then monitor them to see which species use them to breed. These nest boxes will add to our existing stock and will be checked by our dedicated nestbox team.

Other tasks that volunteers have been involved in have been clearing the islands of south marsh west and replanting them with more native species, moving snowdrops to spread them out, many tasks in the polytunnels in preparation for the new growing season but also the arrival of sphagnum moss which we will be propagating in readiness to plant out on moorland in west Yorkshire. We have also constructed a new kingfisher nesting hole and bank on north lagoon as well as nesting islands for ducks, planted with a range of native wetland species that have been grown in our polytunnel.

With the wide range of volunteering tasks and opportunities available we always welcome new people to join us. We have four volunteer days each week so if anyone is interested (and is over 18) then please get in touch by email to Richard.Hampshire@yorkshirewater.co.uk.

School groups have started to come along for their school visits and have been enjoying pond dipping, looking at the birds on the reservoir and exploring the woodland habitat. Primary schools from across East Yorkshire and the city of Hull can book a free school visit on Wednesdays and Thursdays as part of Yorkshire Water's education programme. Teachers can book by visiting the dedicated website at Yorkshirewater.com/education. We also run family events in the school holidays, please visit our Facebook page or Eventbrite to book.

Wildlife on the reserve is showing the changing of the seasons as the number of wintering wildfowl using the reservoirs drop, leaving to return to their breeding grounds in northern Europe. Coot numbers have dropped rapidly over the last month and the number of teal and wigeon continue to decrease weekly. We still have a drake smew on site and the goldeneyes have been displaying and pairing up prior to their departure. Snowdrops were abundant in D woods in mid February but now coltsfoot are emerging and the first chiff chaffs arrived last week and can be heard singing along the nature trail and in D woods.

We have a “Signs of Spring” themed walk on Friday 14^th March at 2pm, a warden walk on 5^th April and family Easter activities on 15^th April. Please book via our Eventbrite page, search Tophill Low nature reserve. Booking is free, there is a cost of £1 per person on arrival. Please note no dogs are allowed on site and there are only toilet facilities, no refreshments.

Photography competition winners 2024

Winners of the annual photography competition 

The entries for the 2024 photography competition have been on display over the festive period and visitors have been asked to vote for their overall favourite after the judges made their choices for each category. The results are in and the winning photograph is of a tawny owl which was taken by Andrea Mapplebeck. A difficult woodland species to see, let alone photograph.

This photograph was also the winner of the Best Birdlife category, where the highly commended photographs were Dave Ruffles for his grey wagtail, Andrea Mapplebeck for a Tawny owl flying and Jack Emmanuel for a  marsh harrier in flight.

The other winning photos for the different categories were 

Best Invertebrate

Winner Pat Hogarth – Willow Emerald 

Highly commended     Leanne Martin – Muslin moth 

                                      Steve Browne – Common darter

 

Best botanical

Winner Pat Hogarth – Cow parsley

Highly commended                Alan Gray – Lots of fungi

Les Frost – Sticky ink cap

Best Landscape

Winner Geraldine Gray – South marsh west

Highly commended     Danielle Clegg

                                      Alan Gray

Best wildfowl

Winner Steve Browne – Shoveler in flight

Highly commended     Jack Emmanuel – female teal

 

Best kingfisher

Winner Dave Ruffles

Highly commended     Andrea Mapplebeck

                                      Les Frost

Young photographer

Winner Artur (Children’s university group) Bee on daisy

Highly commended     Hamza (Kingsmill)

 

Best livestock

Winner Joanna Godfrey – goats with cattle egret

Highly commended     Les Frost

                                      Pat Hogarth

Best animal

Winner Steve Browne – Hedgehog

Highly commended     Geraldine Gray – Grass snake

 

Best wading bird

Winner Jack Emmanuel – Snipe

Highly commended     Pat Hogarth – cattle egret

                                      Dave Ruffles – little egret

 

Thank you to all the visitors who entered this year's competition and showed what a great variety of wildlife uses the diverse habitats that we have here at the reserve. 

And well done to all the winners. Time to start to take photos for next year!