Loss of marshes, bogs and swamps is driving a rapid, global decline in dragonflies BBC News, 9 December 2021
Red-list head Craig Hilton-Taylor says the most recent scientific assessments show
the world lost 35% of its wetlands between 1970 and 2015.
Red-list head Craig Hilton-Taylor says the most recent scientific assessments show
the world lost 35% of its wetlands between 1970 and 2015.
FOR PEAT'S SAKE SAVE THE FEN 15 Feb 2021
multi-part tweet by FoLV on carbon capture in the fen: '... Our calculation that the Valley may be storing around 786 tonnes of carbon is based on having 2.62ha with peat at least 30cm thick. We know we have more than this in some places, since a team from @oxford_brookes have taken core samples across the site' |
25 Feb 2021 Oxford Times - letter from the FoLV committee, submitted by Judy Webb, re Oxford City Council's lack of policies to protect peat and peat-rich soil in the Lye Valley, Dunstan Park, Rivermead Nature Park, and the floodplain meadows along the Thames and Cherwell corridors.
9 Feb 2021 Peat and Carbon in the Lye Valley Fens Judy explains the importance of peat in combatting climate change. 'The Lye Valley fens store more carbon than the same area of tropical rainforest.' (PDF) |
Items below are in reverse chronological order
31 December 2021
A very wet start for the volunteers this morning, but a great turnout despite the weather! Usual jobs: scything, digging out problem plants, and sowing more seed, both on the fen itself, as well as on the drier banks. Thanks all!
A very wet start for the volunteers this morning, but a great turnout despite the weather! Usual jobs: scything, digging out problem plants, and sowing more seed, both on the fen itself, as well as on the drier banks. Thanks all!
31 December 2021 Good to see our leaky dams coping well with the recent rain, by slowing the flow and holding back water for longer. As well as rewetting the fen, this also reduces flooding in the residential areas downstream from us.
24 December 2021 Pendulous sedge (Carex pendula) will happily take over large areas and swamp out other plants if left to its own devices. One of our volunteers made a start digging it out of a neglected corner of the fen this week. Plenty more where that came from!
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22 December 2021 Tweet by Friends of Lye Valley: Spreading Grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia palustris) seed this morning using our tried and tested method of seed + water + leaky plastic bag. Also known as "bog stars", they're rare in Oxon, though numbers are increasing here thanks to our seed collection and sowing.
2 December 2021 Tweeted by FoLV, with photo above
'We hosted a group of geography students from the University of Oxford yesterday, who came to see at first hand this inter-nationally rare habitat, a tufa-forming valley-head alkaline spring fen. It's good to be valued as an outdoor laboratory as well as a local green space!" 17 November 2021
Judy met Tristan Carlisle, Oxford City Council's Ecology Officer, (standing next to Judy) and James Barlow, the City Council's Flood Mitigation Officer, (green jacket) in the Lye Valley. |
15 December 2021 Volunteers moved almost all the piles of cut-and-raked vegetation to areas where they could be incorporated into the brook's bank defences. These are increasingly important with heavy deluge rainstorms becoming more frequent due to climate change.
6 December 2021 Tony Gillie has met a fox on three occasions (so far) this autumn 2021 when walking in the Lye Valley.
On 13 October he tweeted a photo (1st below) saying: 'Well, here's something we don't see every day!** A fox, Vulpes vulpes, on the boardwalk in broad daylight! ** Never seen one before!' On 16 November he tweeted: A magical moment in the Lye Valley this morning when this fox, Vulpes vulpes, walked straight towards me. (2nd photo below) It got within about 4 metres before pausing, and then going back the way it came. A few minutes later, I looked over my shoulder, and it was even closer! And on 6 December: 'One of the foxes, Vulpes vulpes, (3rd photo below) that calls the Lye Valley home blending in perfectly with its surroundings. The fur on its throat and chest seems very dark though. Does anyone know whether this is within the normal range of colour variation for foxes, or is it just dirty?' To see all three of Tony Gillie's photos full size, click here.
On 13 October he tweeted a photo (1st below) saying: 'Well, here's something we don't see every day!** A fox, Vulpes vulpes, on the boardwalk in broad daylight! ** Never seen one before!' On 16 November he tweeted: A magical moment in the Lye Valley this morning when this fox, Vulpes vulpes, walked straight towards me. (2nd photo below) It got within about 4 metres before pausing, and then going back the way it came. A few minutes later, I looked over my shoulder, and it was even closer! And on 6 December: 'One of the foxes, Vulpes vulpes, (3rd photo below) that calls the Lye Valley home blending in perfectly with its surroundings. The fur on its throat and chest seems very dark though. Does anyone know whether this is within the normal range of colour variation for foxes, or is it just dirty?' To see all three of Tony Gillie's photos full size, click here.
5 Dec 2021
Tony Gillie tweeted: 'We've seen a Little Egret, Egretta garzetta, a few times this week by the interception ponds at the head of the Valley. An infrequent (and very skittish) visitor here, we last photographed one in the same place last December! Recorded on @iRecordWildlife Click on photo to see full size +Tweet Later addition: 'It first appeared in the UK in significant numbers in 1989 and first bred in Dorset in 1996. Its colonization followed naturally from a range expansion into western and northern France in previous decades. It is now at home on numerous south coast sites, both as a breeding species and as a winter visitor' - from the RSPB website. In his book published on 3 Feb 2022, biologist Thor Hanson cites this species, 'now widespread', as an example of how the natural world is adapting to climate change. |
24 October 2021
FoLV tweeted 'The Lye Valley has been a hive of activity today! A huge thank you to Oxford Conservation Volunteers and volunteers from Oxford University Nature Conservation Society who joined our own Friends [of Lye Valley] to cut, rake, and drag reed off the west side of the Valley. A great day's work! With eight scythers at work, (yes, *eight*, probably a record for us), they essentially cleared the west side of the Valley of reed!' A lot more photos full size here |
20 October 2021 Friends of Tuckmill Meadows, a nature reserve near Shrivenham, visited the Lye Valley to talk to Judy Webb about fen restoration and management of nature reserves in general. Regular management of Tuckmill Meadows, owned by The Vale of White Horse District Council, stopped in November 2017. After contacting the Council, the Friends began to cut back invasive blackthorn in February 2021. Now, nine have received Austrian scythe training and are slowly making in-roads into the calcareous meadow (SSSI) with weekly working parties. Fortnightly working parties are held on the fenland area, which is fed from streams from the same band of coral rag as Lye Valley receives its water from, hence the Friends' interest in the valley. The change effected by March 2021 is shown in a drone video. See also info and photos on Shrivenham Heritage Society website. More photos here
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Help from third-year Oxford Brookes University students is much appreciated!
9 Oct 2021 Judy tweeted 'Getting on well with the autumn cut and rake in Lye Valley SSSI fen. Lots of great help from Oxford Brookes 3rd-year students in brilliant sunshine. What are they doing down on the brook edge? Time to introduce you to the great exercise that is...what we are calling 'fen-dancing', otherwise known as jumping up and down, firmly packing all the fen cuttings into the restoration of the bank edge!' (click on first photo below to start the action).
14 Oct 2021 FoLV tweet: 'Great to welcome back a group of third-year students from Oxford Brookes this week who are helping us rake up cut material and dragging it off the fen. We're afraid they all got rather muddy.... [a response to that tweet, included in photo album, link below, extolled the health benefits of mud]. 19 Oct 2021 FoLV tweet: 'What are the chances? Come to help with some practical conservation work as part of a degree project at Oxford Brookes and end up working alongside a former lead advisor to Natural England [Alison Mundal, a regular volunteer in the Lye Valley] - free mentoring as well as work experience!' Photos from all three days available here.
9 Oct 2021 Judy tweeted 'Getting on well with the autumn cut and rake in Lye Valley SSSI fen. Lots of great help from Oxford Brookes 3rd-year students in brilliant sunshine. What are they doing down on the brook edge? Time to introduce you to the great exercise that is...what we are calling 'fen-dancing', otherwise known as jumping up and down, firmly packing all the fen cuttings into the restoration of the bank edge!' (click on first photo below to start the action).
14 Oct 2021 FoLV tweet: 'Great to welcome back a group of third-year students from Oxford Brookes this week who are helping us rake up cut material and dragging it off the fen. We're afraid they all got rather muddy.... [a response to that tweet, included in photo album, link below, extolled the health benefits of mud]. 19 Oct 2021 FoLV tweet: 'What are the chances? Come to help with some practical conservation work as part of a degree project at Oxford Brookes and end up working alongside a former lead advisor to Natural England [Alison Mundal, a regular volunteer in the Lye Valley] - free mentoring as well as work experience!' Photos from all three days available here.
17 October 2021
FoLV tweet: 'Always a pleasure to welcome @OxConservation [Oxford Conservation Volunteers] to the Lye Valley. Today they were helping us rake the (privately owned) SSSI south fen. The hard hats are essential here, as golfers from @oxford_golfclub tee off just above it! Thanks all, much appreciated!' Judy Webb (Chairman of Friends of Lye Valley), seen here with rescued bog pimpernel, added: 'Raking, raking and yet more raking - so important to rake-off cuttings to preserve fen biodiversity by removing shading & lowering nutrients. This is the most important day of the whole year for this fen site, which is now in Favourable habitat condition, because of this work' More photos here |
15 October 2021 FoLV tweet: 'We've finally managed to get our big "interception pond" desilted. These ponds reduce damage to the soft peat of our fen by holding back water from the storm drain at the head of the Valley after heavy rainfall. Looks a bit messy at present, but it will soon green up!' Photo by Judy Webb - photos full size here |
11 August 2021 Wasp spider, Argiope bruennichi, found in its web complete with stabilimentum* in the Lye Valley on 11 August 2021. These spiders are becoming increasingly common in southern England and are slowly spreading north. *A web decoration or stabilimentum is a conspicuous silk structure included in the webs of some species of orb-web spider. For full explanation see Wikipedia entry Photo by Judy Webb - to see it full size, click here, then click on photo that appears. |
5 August 2021
Judy tweeted a video of the drain from the Town Furze estate disgorging a torrent of road run-off into the Lye Brook after only a 5-minute storm the previous week. She explained: 'Ever more intense rainstorms are with us now as a result of #ClimateCrisis. Lye Valley #SSSI fens have been eroded by road run-off piped to Lye Brook from a really large area of Headington. Mitigation holding ponds & lots of leaky log dams* have done a lot to #slowtheflow, reduce fen bank erosion & flooding in Cowley Marsh, Florence Park, from Boundary Brook. But what if we get 13cm rain in one day, like the Isle of Wight last Monday? * Scroll down this page to item on these dams, 30 April 2021, and further down to item on the holding ponds, 20 October 2021. |
21 July 2021
A team from Oxford University's Museum of Natural History visited the Lye Valley to film and interview Judy about insects and the rare habitat of the fen. The film will be on display as part of their HOPE* project *Heritage, Outreach and Preservation of Entomology "HOPE for the future is the Museum's ambitious three-year project to protect and share its amazing British Insect Collection. The unique and irreplaceable British Insect Collection contains more than a million specimens, representing all insect groups from butterflies, beetles, and bees to flies and fleas." Judy is a Committee Member of the Dipterists Forum Photos taken by Tony Gillie - full size. |
21 July 2021 Students from Stanford University, California, were given a guided tour of the Lye Valley by Heather Armitage, Secretary of Friends of Lye Valley (seen on far right of photo). Photos full size, here |
22 June 2021
Bogbean, Menyanthes trifoliata, in Lye Valley South Fen - photo by Judy Webb See tweet by Tony Gillie about introduction of this plant to the north fen |
2 June 2021
Photos by Judy Webb of one of the early marsh orchids in flower in the Lye Valley and also of planting in the north fen of flea sedge, Carex pulicaris, seedlings, grown from seed collected in the south fen SSSI. Judy's comment on Tony Gillie's photo was 'Looks just like a pot of grass, but it definitely is not. Tiny and special flea sedge, with seeds that hang on the stalk and when ripe jump off like fleas when touched!' |
20 June 2021
FoLV tweet from the Lye Valley 'An almost palpable sense of delight when our ecologist [Judy Webb] managed to get out the entire root system of a reedmace (Typha) plant from one of our small ponds where it arrived uninvited'. Judy replied 'Small ponds can easily be completely taken over and shaded by reed and Typha latifolia (reedmace, bulrush) eliminating open water. Both have wildlife value, but in this case a proportion (or all for Typha) need removal/reduction each year or we will lose the sunny open water parts'. For Tweet and full version of the photo, click here Also see tweet on 23 June showing dragonflies and damselflies immediately taking advantage of cleared areas for ovipositing (laying eggs).
FoLV tweet from the Lye Valley 'An almost palpable sense of delight when our ecologist [Judy Webb] managed to get out the entire root system of a reedmace (Typha) plant from one of our small ponds where it arrived uninvited'. Judy replied 'Small ponds can easily be completely taken over and shaded by reed and Typha latifolia (reedmace, bulrush) eliminating open water. Both have wildlife value, but in this case a proportion (or all for Typha) need removal/reduction each year or we will lose the sunny open water parts'. For Tweet and full version of the photo, click here Also see tweet on 23 June showing dragonflies and damselflies immediately taking advantage of cleared areas for ovipositing (laying eggs).
2 June 2021 Flea sedge, Carex pulicaris, seedlings, grown from seed collected in the south fen of Lye Valley SSSI were planted in the north fen area. Judy's comment on Tony Gillie's photo was 'Looks just like a pot of grass, but it definitely is not. Tiny and special flea sedge, with seeds that hang on the stalk and when ripe jump off like fleas when touched!'
27 May 2021 Tony Gillie @GillieTony tweeted this beautiful photo, 'Robin (Erithacus rubecula) with Cranefly breakfast this morning in the Lye Valley'. To which Judy Webb replied 'and I note that he/she or the nestlings are about to enjoy a giant cranefly, Tipula maxima!' Click on the photo to see it full size |
15 May 2021 Judy ran a special conservation session in the Lye Valley for the Oxford University Nature Conservation Society (OUNCS), run by Jamie Walker. The students helped with work on the fen. They dug out lots of creeping thistle and pendulous sedge and their efforts were much appreciated. They are seen here listening to Judy talking about the history and flora, as well as the threats to this rare, tufa-forming, alkaline spring fen. Jamie (in red jacket in photo, left) tweeted: 'Fingers caked in peat, knees damp with spring-water, alongside frogs, flowers and moss is the best way to learn' Photo by Tony Gillie - who commented 'And the rain really came down. Thankfully, everyone just shrugged and carried on working' Click here for more of Tony's photos, full size |
Judy Webb retweeted @friendlyevalley: 9 May 2021 'We want to rewet the fen near the start of the boardwalk, visitors want to keep their feet dry. So, we've built a short raised footpath with pipes underneath, taking our valuable spring water from one side of the path to the other. Let's just hope our visitors use it !' |
Judy Webb retweeted @friendlyevalley: 30 April 2021 'Our work to rewet the fen continues, with the construction of another leaky dam at the head of the Valley. By raising the water level and holding more water for longer, we reduce the risk of flooding downstream, and the loss of #peat through drying' Terry Newsome and Rod d'Ayala working on the leaky log dam |
5 April 2021 More planting, this time Water Forget-me-not, Myosotis scorpioides. and Marsh bedstraw, Galium palustre.
Both common plants, and once found in good numbers in the Valley, but lost during a long period with no grazing or management when reed swamped them out.
Both common plants, and once found in good numbers in the Valley, but lost during a long period with no grazing or management when reed swamped them out.