Check out the brilliant Junior Wardens Natterjack Toad film http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sandscale-haws/things-to-see-and-do/  ...(scroll to the bottom of the page)

Well summer holidays are here and so is the rain!  Hopefully it won’t put a dampner to our free kids events every Thursday 2-4pm.  It starts this Thursday with Beachcombing. 

Beachcombing 26th July

Dates: 26 July 2012 2:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

A gentle stroll along our lovely beach to look for shells and other marine life left behind by the tide. A great way to start a shell collection

Beach Clean 28th July

Dates: 28 July 2012 10:00am

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

Help us to clean up the beach so that everyone can enjoy this beautiful place.

Wildlife Walk (Barrow Walking Festival)

Dates: 28 July 2012 2:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

From birds to butterflies and a fantastic show of wild flowers. A chance to see some of the rare and special wildlife that thrives at Sandscale Haws.

Stream dipping 2nd August

Dates: 2 August 2012 2:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

Explore the fascinating under water world of a stream using pond nets to catch all kinds of weird and wonderful mini beasts.

Marine week - Family events day 6th August

Dates: 6 August 2012 12:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

A variety of fun family events including beachcombing, pond dipping and a sand sculptures competition. Come along at any time between 12 and 4pm

Minibeast Safari 9th August

Dates: 9 August 2012 2:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

Take a journey in to sand dunes to explore the hidden world of minibeasts. Use pooters & pitfall traps to help the rangers to record what you've found

National moth night - evening moth catching event 10th August

Dates: 10 August 2012 8:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

The first moth trapping night we've run for several years. Beginners and experts are welcome. Who knows what species we'll find?

Booking Essential  01229 462855

Creatures of Estuary 16th August

Dates: 16 August 2012 2:00pm

Price: Free event (normal admission charges apply)

Use pond nets to fish for a variety of weird and wonderful sea creatures in the Duddon Estuary at Low tide. Nets and trays are provided.

Our volunteers counting the enormous amount of orchids

June saw the launch of the Barrow Spring Watch in association with Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Natural England and the National Trust.  The launch was held at Barrow Dock Museum on a very dull drizzly morning.  We ran games and crafts and there was lots of wildlife to learn about, both the kids and adults that attended seemed to enjoy themselves.
During the half term break we ran a stream dipping event which seemed to coincide with the worst week of weather in June.  However three families braved the rain and had a whale of a time and met up with lots of creepy crawlies from the creek!
For the bigger kids we put on an Introduction to plants of the sand dunes and coast walk and talk and ran a number of guided walks for all sorts of groups.

We participated in Barrow's Big Clean run by the Evening Mail and Barrow Borough Council which involved a mass litter pick along the beach.  It was well attended particularly by the dignitaries from the Council, the police and our usual hardy volunteers.

Wildlife Sightings
The dragons came out in force with the emperor dragonfly stealing the show from the four spotted chaser and the common darter.
The fritillary butterflies are coming out and numerous dark green fritillaries have been recorded

Emperor Dragonfly eating a Common Darter

 We have stunning displays of orchids including common spotted, heath spotted, early marsh, northern marsh and the very beautiful bee orchid.

Bee orchid

 Natterjack toadlets have now started to emerge and can be found running for their lives on the boardwalks.

Toadlet still with its tail

Wheatear

The months are just flying by and our feet haven't had time to touch the ground.  The volunteers have completed repairing the viewing platform overlooking the wet meadow and have helped the Rangers replace the salt marsh fence at the Southern end of the reserve.  We've also been involved with some buddying up on other sites such as Fell Foot and working with the South Lakes Team, getting a glimpse of how other very different properties function.

It's been interpretation overload with looking into information panels, events posters, display boards and preparation for our summer events.  A giant hand made paper mache sand dune system is on show in The Mall shopping centre in Barrow in Furness along with some stunning poster of our wildlife.  A big thank you goes out to Lisa our interpretation officer who has taken all our requests in her stride and has done a wonderful job of making it look beautiful!

We've had a number of students on site over the past few months carrying out projects that will hopefully help is out in terms of management in the future.  One particular study is concentrating on the spread and control of invasive flora species.  Having been to visit North Walney and seeing first hand their efforts to control Rosa ragosa we are waiting in anticipation how this will conclude.

Common Blue

Wildlife sightings

The big draw for people this month was the Coral Root orchid with people coming from all over the UK to get a glimpse.

The butterflies are also coming into their own with records of orange tips, green veined white, common blue, small heath and dingy skipper being sighted. 

Our first record this year of a common darter was noted on the 21st May which seemed pretty early to us...could be a taste of things to come maybe????

Coral Root Orchid

The Isle of Man visable on one of our Natterjack evenings

Well April has been an incredibly busy month for us.  We've had regular patrols with the Police, with really positive results. A new interpretation panel has been erected in the car park with new safety and event signs. The NVC survey has also started and will hopefully be concluded the end of July so that we will have a map of the plant communities found on the reserve.  With the lack of rainfall on the reserve, we thought it might be a good idea to map the amount of water (or lack of it) in the slacks throughout the season.  This information can also be collated year on year to hopefully provided us with an overall picture of the hydrology of the site allowing us better management for the natterjack toads.

Talking of which, we now have thousands of tiny tadpoles still in their comma stage.  The first hatching happened on the 20th April however they didn't become free swimming until the 25th.  Most of the tadpoles even now are mostly inactive and this is due to the cold weather.  The overall count of spawn strings to date is 241, but there is still time!



Tiny commas, hatched on the 20th April

Natterjack toads are sometimes called the "running toad" and the reason being is that they have short back legs compared with the common toad.  This enables them to chase after their food such as this amazing Dor beetle.  These beetles are great little fellas for clearing up after our grazing livestock by munching on their dung!

Dor beetle

 Bugs are also a great source of food for the common lizard which also reside here on the reserve.  We have been seeing them dashing about since early April and this one managed to stay still long enough to take its picture...beautiful!

Common lizard

 As well as our usual birds on site we also had a visit from this Bar headed goose which was far from it home in the Himalayas, but is thought to be an escapee from somewhere a little more local!


Bar headed goose



So to our collection of summer migrants of willow warblers, wheatears and blackcaps we can add the whitethroat on the 24th April.  We also had an enormous flock of 180 Sandwich terns take refuge on Hodbarrow Rerserve across the estuary from us on the same day.

Well the sun has been shining here at Sandscale (well in between the rain showers) and things have been hotting up for the amphibians. The common toads started laying in early march and as you can see from the photo below are developing quite well. With the weather conditions being what they are, they might even hatch after just 5 days of being laid. Toad spawn is unlike frog spawn and instead of being laid in clumps it is laid in double strings. The common toad spawn will stay as a double string, however the natterjack will spread out into a single string.

The big star of the show are our Natterjacks, the reason for this is because they require such spoecific habitat that their numbers have been declining and we are one of the 60 sites it is found at. They are protected by British and European Law which means that both our rangers have to be licensed to manage them. The males started their chorus on the 24th which is the earliest it has ever been recorded and since then we have surveyed the scrapes to find about 170 strings of spawn.

To experience the best of our Natterjacks, come to one of our guided walks starting from the car park at 7.30pm Fri 20th and 27th April 2012.

Summer Was Ere!

Well the weather is hotting up and so are our preparations for the new season. We have attended our biannual ranger's day, where all the rangers from the Lake District and South East Cumbria and Morecambe Bay get together to find out what has been going on in the area with the other teams. We spent the day at Grizedale Forest which is owned and managed by the Forestry Commission and had the opportunity of wandering through the woodlands looking at what they have to offer.





Our regular ranger meeting took place at Acorn Bank where we worked together to transform an area of felled poplar trees into a wild play area....I don't know who will have more fun, the children of the rangers!

As well as other rangers, we have been meeting up with our Interpretation Officer to put together some information boards to explain the ecology of our Natterjack Toads and the way we look after them.

Back on the reserve, you might have seen us out with a big white globe above our heads and walking in strange patterns. Well against popular belief we haven't gone dune crazy we have in fact been mapping scub and water courses on site. We also nipped down to Plumpton Marsh to start mapping the erosion there too. All this information was collated using a real time GPS contained with in a rucksack with a handheld palmtop. The data will then be transferred onto the computer using Mapinfo and will be a great resource in the future to look at changes on site.

We've had the Mind group in again this month and our regular volunteers have been helping them out burning up the remaining bracken scrub we cut down last month. The regulars have also taken up the boardwalk nearest the car park and replaced it with brand new timber. We've had a number of comments from our visitors about how good it looks, so a BIG THANK YOU goes out to our Vols!

The Police have been visiting us as part of a new initiative to educate people the correct way to enjoy a protected site like Sandscale and also to crack down on the use of motorised vehicles on the beach and in the dunes.

Wildlife Sightings

As well as the usual practical conservation work the volunteers have been participating in Shoresearch to survey the rocky outcrops further out in the estuary. Our finds have included Common starfish, Shore crabs, a plethora of different sorts of shell fish and one of the biggest sea slugs our Marine biologist has ever seen!

Our first Natterjack Toad calls were heard on the 23rd March when the sun was out, it has unfortunately turned pretty cold and might mean they won't be out again for a few days.

As for our birds, the "firsts" are coming in already. The chiffchaff was heard on the 21st March, with a sighting of our first wheatear on the 27th March.

Our WeBS count totalled 2007 birds from 33 different species, with an amazing display from a pair of Peregrine Falcons taking advantage after we had flushed some ducks up.