Wild Flowers at Llanymynech

Fiona Gomersall ran a successful Wild Flower day at Llanymynech on June 16th...There will be a further visit to see the late summer flowers in August.

Contact enquiries.pm@field-studies-council for more details

Bee hotel has residents....

Following on from this year's successful courses on Solitary Bees and Bumblebees run by Ian Cheeseborough we are pleased to announce that the FSC Preston Montford Bee Hotel has residents in one of the rustic style accommodation blocks.

 You can tell they are resident because they shut the door behind them

Ian will be running a weekend course on Dragonflies and Damselflies from July 6- 8th this year and the bee and dragonfly courses will be running again in 2012

Adrian Pickles

May flies by and here we are in June..

This adult Green Drake ducked out on the windowsill of the Darwin Building library on May 31st.
 

Adrian Pickles

Dragonfly cast-offs come in handy

A day on Dragonflies and Damselflies was organised by Gareth Parry the Shropshire County Council Wildlife Officer. This was held at FSC Preston Montford making use of our ponds and was lead by Sue McLamb, the Shropshire County Dragonfly recorder. Sarah Anstis-Smith attended from the field centre adding to her local knowledge and also some dragonfly exuviae to our collection of interesting things for visitors to look at.

Butterfly training has an effect

As part of a long term plan to enhance our capability in Natural History members of the Education team have attended training organised by Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Shropshire County Council.

Senior Tutor; Sarah Anstis-Smith, Education Assistant; Edd Sopp and Head of Centre; Adrian Pickles attended a Butterfly training day lead by Simon Spencer focusing on the Pearl Bordered Fritillary. The day began with insightful talk on habitats, feeding and management issues at the Wildlife Trust Headquarters in Shrewsbury. After lunch the group relocated to Middletown on the English-Welsh borders where we followed Dr Spencer spotting Pearl Bordered Fritillary, Orange Tip, Green Hair Streaks and several other species making the most of the spring sunshine. There were many spring flowers in bloom as well.

 

Adrian Pickles

More Shed News!

We get very excited about sheds here at Preston Montford as Adrian has mentioned previously...... 

"Sheds matter; they are the unsung heroes of additional storage capacity"

In order to meet the equipment needs of over 120 students doing fieldwork we need a lot of fieldwork equipment, and that means storage!

The shed is eased into position by Pete.

The bulk of our fieldwork equipment is split between one shed, three small bunkers, with more precious items stored inside in the warm and dry, and final shed (see, we like our sheds!) providing a home for all team building equipment.

 

Until recently these sheds occupied an area in the heart of the centre, between the Darwin and Wenlock buildings. However, plans to make better use of our yard area and improve public space led to them moving.......

......Now moving a 10' x 6' shed is not an easy business! Unless you have the help of your friendly neighboring farmer.

After some standing..... some looking at the shed...... a little bit of sucking air through our teeth..... and a cup of tea, a plan was hatched and Pete Roberts of Preston Montford Farm was called. 

The shed and bunkers in their new locations.

Getting the shed to a point where Pete could get it up on his lifting forks was a cross departmental operation with members of the Education, House, Maintenance teams, and even Adrian lending a hand.

It was then a case of standing back and watching as Pete raised it gracefully from the ground and delivered it to it's new home.


We are currently deciding what to use our new found space for..... watch this space!

Watch this space...........

 

Bee Hotel open for buzz-i-ness

Lonely insects near FSC Preston Montford  have a new place to hang out. The Bee Hotel shown in the photographs has been built to provide habitats for solitary bees who don't get together in large swarms. The hotel is situated in the grounds of the field centre but needs some more internal work to finish it off completely

 Eventually the hotel will be full of small individual units for bee accommodation. These will be made from the hollow stems from plants and we need some assistance to make more of these-please contact the field centre if you would like to help. We are trying to avoid an over-booking situation with too many bees and not enough room.

The project was developed by Tim Graham and Pete Boardman through the FSC's lottery funded "Invertebrate Challenge" which works to promote the understanding and identification of invertebrates in Shropshire and across the whole country

Adrian Pickles