Dan our Conservation Officer gives a summary of our years survey activities, in total the team conducted 3 Bioblitz’s, 12 meadow surveys, 12 riverfly sessions and 12 fungi forays in the Dell.
With Autumn upon us and the weather starting to turn, our 2024 survey season has drawn to a close. This year we have expanded the number of surveys we have conducted, thanks to the hard work, knowledge, and dedication of our fantastic volunteer team!
In addition to our riverfly and meadow surveys, we have added pollinator surveys to establish a base-line data set so we can begin to assess the effectiveness of our six main managed wildflower meadows, and fungi surveys in the dells to expand our mycological ID skills and general knowledge and understanding of the ecosystem. It has certainly been a busy spring and summer season along the river!
Riverfly Update
Our specially trained riverfly monitoring volunteers have been active throughout the season, conducting kick-sampling and counts of the eight indicator species across three main categories in line with The Riverfly Partnership guidelines. It has been encouraging to see that our primary survey site near Longstone has shown a steady increase in riverfly numbers throughout the season. A further three sites in which we have conducted more than one survey – at Balerno, Bog’s Bridge, and Redbraes, also showed increasing riverfly numbers across the board. Good news for the health of the river!
Wildflower Meadow Surveys
Our wildflower survey team has been hard at work throughout the spring and summer recording the abundant species in our ten managed sites along the river. This year, rather than an annual survey, we have gathered data in both spring and summer to attempt to record species which flower at different times and hopefully gain a greater understanding of which species are present, and when.
After a steady increase in biodiversity over the last five years, there has been a slight flattening of the curve, with most meadows showing similar numbers to last year, and a couple showing slightly fewer – possibly due to abnormally early flooding in May. Nevertheless, the meadows are still abundantly stocked with a wide variety of wildflowers providing food for flying insects of all kinds and helping to forge pollinator pathways linking greenspaces and overall sites plant diversity is increasing.
Pollinator Survey Update
To help to assess whether our wildflower meadows are having the desired effect, this year has seen the start of our new pollinator survey project. Pollinators such as bees, butterflies, moths, and hoverflies help to increase biodiversity, strengthen resilience in the wider ecosystem and make an important contribution to our ability to produce food.
Some of our intrepid volunteers have been conducting transect walks of six main sites between and around our managed meadows to survey bees and butterflies, from the start of May until the end of September. We asked surveyors to record species and sex of bees and butterflies, sun and wind conditions, and to make observations on pollinator activity and which plants they visited. This information was fed back to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, and to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme to contribute to national records. It will also help to inform our meadow management in the coming years.
In our first year of recording, we have observed over a dozen species of both bees and butterflies including rarer Red Tailed and Garden bees, as well as the more common Carder and Buff Tailed species, and an abundance of Speckled Wood, Orange Tip and Large White butterflies. There have also been quite a few sightings of some of the more colourful species such as Painted Ladies, Peacocks, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells, and Commas. It will be fascinating to see how numbers and variety may change over the coming years in conjunction with our meadow management.
Fungi Surveys
Throughout the year we have been continuing to conduct fungi surveys in Colinton and Craiglockhart Dells to learn more about the wide variety of species present and about the interconnected woodland ecosystem. We have facilitated guided sessions from the visitor centre and some of our magnificent volunteers have been conducting self-led surveys too. Fungi surveys are a fantastic way of expanding your mycological knowledge and identification skills, and with such abundant variety there is always something new and interesting to discover!
