Trading Skills in Countryside Management

Countryside Management students have teamed up with students studying outdoor education at Moulton College, Outdoor education students have been able to teach countryside students how to kayak and rock climb and in return countryside management students have taught the outdoor education students to clay pigeon shoot and given them an introduction to bushcraft which included coppicing willow with billhooks and bow saws, making a bench from the coppiced willow and lighting a fire without matches. These swaps have allowed both groups of students to gain valuable experience of teaching and instructing each, skills which will be important in their future careers! 

ACME Pheasant Traps

Countryside management students have been using some of the willow they have been coppicing over the past few weeks to create some pheasant traps!

In the new year students will use modern alternatives to these old fashioned traps (which would have been used extensively by gamekeepers in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries) to catch wild pheasants which will then be kept as 'laying stock' to provide eggs for incubation and hatching to give students experience of rearing game birds in preparation for a career in the game management industries.

The Botanical Wonders of the Moulton College Estate!

Working with the Society of Biology, Moulton College staff and students from the BSc Arboriculture and BSc Land Management programmes organised a ‘bioblitz’ event to document the different wild plant species found growing on the estate. Senior lecturers James Littlemore and Adrian Stockdale were capably assisted by expert botanist Brian Laney, a county recorder for wildlife and whose encyclopaedic knowledge of all British plant species came in very handy on the walk. Many new records were found and the grand total of 104 plant species excluding trees and shrubs shows what can be found with a little determination in what is a late period for vegetation surveys. To learn more about our Arboriculture and Countryside Management courses, get in touch now!

Winning Willow Workers!

Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma Countryside Management students had a fun time coppicing Willow this week on the College estate. We are fortunate to have a small area of short rotation willow coppice left over from some research over a decade ago. The osier plantation is now managed on rotation, and after reading the management plan students identified the coupes to cut before commencing work in teams to cut stakes and binders. Some of this produce will help with hedgelaying later in the course and some will be used to construct incubation mounds for the local grass snake population. Picture to follow.......

Survival of the Fittest!

New National Award Countryside Management students were getting to know each other this week as they tried to make fire by friction. Friction fire lighting is quite an advanced skill which students would normally have to practice over a long period of time before they master it, but the group soon realised that it was easier to apply the necessary pressure to the drill and work the bow back and forth to provide enough friction to create smoke and eventually a glowing ember.

As well as being a useful teambuilding activity some of our new students may well find the skills of friction fire lighting and bushcraft useful if they progress to careers working as rangers in country parks or on nature reserves where they deal with visitors. There are also options for students to progress into careers in environmental education and countryside recreation where these skills will be equally useful.  If nothing else it will be useful if we run out of matches in the woods in the depths of winter!

Moth Research at Moulton College and The University of Northampton

When you think about conserving species in the countryside, you often think only of high profile mammals that capture the public imagination. Yet is that right? Surely conservation should embrace the conservation of all species to fully recognise their role within natural systems?

Moths of the Order Lepidoptera are a widespread insect group, and with around 2,500 species they are considered to be one of the most diverse animal taxonomic groups in existence. Pivotally moths are considered by scientists to be a reliable indicator of ecosystem health. Some innovative research by Moulton College and University of Northampton PhD researcher Emma Coulthard has attempted to shed some light on the life of moths, and how land managers best conserve them in fragmented lowland landscapes.

One part of the study has examined whether moths pollinate hedgerow plants and it is these findings that will be presented at the Global Conference on Entomology in Malaysia (click www.gce2013.com for more details). Emma showed that nearly three-quarters of visitations to bramble flowers were from moths at night, indicating that they offer a true ecosystem service.This would explain why large numbers of species of moth can be supported in what would seem to be sub-optimal habitats.

So when you think about conservation, don't just think about otters, mink or red squirrels - consider the plight of the humble moth, a much ignored insect group.

Welcome to Moulton College!

If you are reading this and you are a new student, then a warm welcome from the countryside management team. We hope you have a great year!

We are:

Mel Reynolds - Curriculum Team Leader in Countryside Management
James Littlemore - Senior Lecturer in Countryside Management
Geoff Guy - Lecturer in Gamekeeping
Paul Foskett - Lecturer in Countryside Management
Katie Aldham - Lecturer in Countryside Skills (p/t)
Stu Wootton  - Lecturer in Countryside Skills (p/t)
Emily Howard-Williams - PhD Researcher
Emma Coulthard - PhD Researcher

Check back here for weekly updates to our blog which will feature articles and news onyou as our further and higher education students, as well as features on academic research and other news from time to time.

Cheers!

Harvest Mice on Camera Traps!

A camera trap has been placed adjacent to one of the supplementary feeding stations in the harvest mouse release enclosure and in the first 12 hours, it has been actively used. It seems activity patterns are cyclical, with peak activity thus far recorded between 04.00 and 06.00 am. Mammal ecologists believe some small mammals in the wild will alter their activity patterns to avoid predation, so it will be interesting to see if captively reared animals share this innate survival instinct. As well as the harvest mice, another creature has appeared on film. Leave a comment if you think you know what it is!

Update on Ottercam

 

With the camera trap positioned adjacent to the otter holt at Drayton, we were hoping for an elusive otter to appear on the footage. Take a look at the video's to see what turned up and leave a comment if you think you know what the mystery species might be........thanks! J

Countryside Management on BBC Television and Radio this Week!

We posted this story on Facebook today.......

BBC Look East paid a visit to the College yesterday to learn more about one of our ongoing wildlife conservation research projects. They were able to interview PhD researc...her Emily Howard Williams to find out a little about her project and to meet the charismatic wild animal in question – the elusive harvest mouse. As Britain’s smallest rodent, the harvest mouse has declined in numbers in Britain in response to agricultural intensification, habitat loss and use of pesticides and it’s conservation status remains uncertain. Therefore, Emily’s project aims to shed some light on the ecology of this declining and elusive wild mammal, and together with ex-student and director of Ecometry (http://www.ecometry.co.uk/) Dr David Wallis and Senior Lecturer Dr James Littlemore they have devised a species reintroduction scheme here in Northamptonshire with innovative technology to monitor animals post-release using Radio Frequency identification (RFID). It is hoped the results of this study will help land managers conserve this species and ensure its long-term survival in the British countryside.

The BBC are likely to feature the sequence on their new bulletin on friday or over the weekend. Emily also went on drivetime on BBC Radio Northampton last night to spread the word. Some photo's of the release site are shown below:

Harvest Mouse Soft Release Enclosure Finished!

Well it is now reaching a critical time for Emily's captively bred harvest mice as a small fenced enclosure is now finished which will hold them. This is located in rough grassland on the College estate and provides optimal habitat to understand how they disperse and interact. Animals have been fitted with electronic tags and a mosaic of readers designed by David will hopefully determine their behaviour over 24 hour periods. Essentially, we want to find out more about the ecology of this highly elusive and secretive mammal and aim to use our observations to advise land managers on how this tiny mammal can be conserved.

I will post some pictures, commentary and video of progress over the next week or so. Keep reading, J.

Countryside Management Blogging Returns - more on Mice and Our Courses!

Well after a two week break, blogging resumes once again on this site from your chief blogger James!

Coming up this month we have the BBC's Look East coming in to film Emily's reintroduction of harvest mice to the countryside - watch out for a feature on the local news either monday of tuesday of next week (5th and 6th August). Autumnwatch from BBC2 are also in talks with us!

Other than that, we are still recruiting for our further and higher education courses so if you fancy dropping in for a chat and tour drop me a line. Give me a shout on 01604-491131 or james.littlemore@moulton.ac.uk.......

Hawk Moths Galore on the Moulton College estate!

PhD student and staff member Emma Coulthard has been busy collecting data for her research project which seeks to understand how the matrix of the countryside affects biodiversity on farmland.

Her target species are moths and in two weeks of continuous light trapping, Emma has found over 2800 moths made up of 85 different species at the Moulton College Estate and Kelmarsh Estate. She is interested to see how these species are affected by linear boundary features (hedgerows for example) at fine and coarse landscape scales, and how the ecological network can be better managed to promote their conservation.

Some of the species found have been extremely eye catching and include the hawk moth family (scientific name Sphingidae). Below are a range of hawk moths that have been caught, including the privet, eyed and elephant hawkmoth......

BBC News Feature on Harvest Mouse Research

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-23256001

International Success - Moulton Student working with the Yukon Wildlife Preserve in the Canadian wilderness!

Briony Edwards is a Foundation Degree in Countryside & Wildlife Management student who decided she wanted a different kind of experience this summer - that of working for the Yukon Wildlife Preserve in the Yukon Territory, Canada (see: http://www.yukonwildlife.ca/). The Yukon Wildlife Preserve is a unique wildlife viewing property featuring ten species of northern Canadian mammals in their natural environment. Encompassing over 700 acres with various natural habitats, the Yukon Wildlife Preserve offers unparalleled wildlife viewing and photo opportunities. She has experienced a real adventure so far and takes an active role in feeding and caring for the range of wild animals at the Preserve.

She comments 'Things are eventful here, but amusing....so far, in this one week the green truck interns drives has broken down twice. The first time was onsite and we had to push it off the path because of visitor coaches. The second time was yesterday - it stopped working when we were on our way back from collecting browse, on the highway, at 80km/h. Our radio was also not working for some reason, so we had to walk back to the site. Three days ago there was a huge but brief thunder and lightning storm and yesterday there a small sandstorm onsite! We have experienced 4 power-outs. 3 were just at the Preserve and lasted no longer than 15 minutes each. The third affected the whole of Whitehorse and surrounding areas (we are 20 minutes outside of town), and it lasted an hour.

She adds...... 'Now for some random facts I've come to notice:

• It never gets dark here;
• Cars don't need front license plates;
• It is a legal requirement to have headlights on at all times of day;
• There water here makes your skin incredibly dry - everyone, even the bullish men around here, use hand creams. I'm drinking a lot of water but it is causing my lips to crack!

Today I caught and weighed the resident Snowy Owl, with the assistance and guidance of the head animal carer and below is a picture of the splendid beast'.....



 

Moulton Researchers on Anglia TV and BBC Radio!

Tune into BBC Radio Northampton at 8.50 tomorrow morning to hear Emily being interviewed live on the radio about her harvest mouse conservation project (link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bjh11).

You can also see footage of ITV Anglia TV's recent visit to the Wilson Countryside Centre to learn about the project. The sequence will appear on the evening broadcast of Anglia News tomorrow (Weds 10th July). The story may be streamed live on their web-site before official TV coverage: http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/.

Official University Press Release on Harvest Mouse Research

Take a look here: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/university-of-northampton-and-moulton-college-work-together-on-groundbreaking-harvest-mouse-research-project

Harvest Mouse Project in the News!

Word is spreading on Emily's project on harvest mice - check out the link to Northampton's own Chronicle & Echo: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/harvest-mice-habits-tracked-by-microchips-1-5256458.

There is going to be a planned release of chipped mice very soon - check back to the blog to learn more!

What do our Graduates do?

In a competitive sector, a question commonly posed to us is where do our students end up? Thankfully employment rates are very favourable, and recent Moulton graduates have ended up working in rewarding roles with the Environment Agency, Natural England, English Heritage, Belchim Crop Protection, Indigro, Agrovista, Lockhart Garrett, Aspect Ecology, NFU Mutual and many more.

To learn more, click on the student biographies below!

Collaboration is the Way Forward for Student Success!

With long established partnerships with organisations such as the Forestry Commission, The Environment Agency, Lamport Hall and Kelmarsh Hall - working through partnerships is evidently a great way for students to learn about the industry.

With a more recent arrangement with the Ginpat Charitable Trust and Natural England giving students access to a precious parcel of ancient woodland in the Northamptonshire countryside, staff are now working hard to create new opportunities for students to work with other organisations in the region. For example, a recent working agreement has been approved with the countryside services team of Northamptonshire County Council to give students who have an interest in becoming country park rangers opportunities for work experience and project work. Further discussions are also taking place with Wickstead Park in Kettering, who have recently secured Heritage Lottery Funding to enable them to develop a more ecological focus for the site.

There has never been a better time to study countryside management to take advantage of these links - so whats stopping you? Get in touch now!

To learn more about the Country Parks of Northamptonshire, view:

Get active - get healthy - get outdoors - visit  : www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/parks

Want a Job in Countryside Management, Ecology or Wildlife Conservation?

Presenting at the Mammal Society Student Conference

PhD student Emily Howard-Williams and Dr David Wallis (pictured below) attended the recent student conference of the Mammal Society at the Centre for Science of the University of Staffordshire.

They were able to present their initial findings on the development of RFID technology in tracking the disperal of native small mammals to the audience consisting of academics and researchers from Universities all over the UK. This technique provides a much more cost effective and longer lasting alternative to radio tracking, and will enable them alongside Dr James Littlemore to model what happens when a mammal is reintroduced into habitat.

Very soon Emily will be preparing for a large scale release of tagged harvest mice to supplement wild populations - check back to the blog to see what happens next!

Find a link to the conference here: http://www.mammal.org.uk/student_conference.

Ottercam Reveals All!

A month has passed since the camera trap was installed at the otter holt created by students along the River Welland, and the footage was recently scrutinised to see if any otters had set up home.

For the month of May, the holt was popular with pheasants, rabbits, blackbirds and carrion crows but alas no otters so far! The camera has been set up to record visitors during June so check back to the blog to see if our designer residence has any new tenants! By the way, two otters were spotted moving through the section of river in the middle of nearby Market Harborough, so evidently they are not shy individuals on this stretch of river.

Academic Research Poster Success!

For many years now, Moulton College has run a competition that seeks to find the best academic research poster amongst all current second and third year Degree students. This mimics what happens at scientific conferences, where scientists can present research findings in the form of an informative poster to a wider audience.

This years competition was judged by the University of Warwick's Dr Sebastiano Giudice, who commented very positively on the quality of the student work and indicated that they compared favourably with the standards at his University. So who won?

Well of the three available categories, higher education students studying countryside management won two - a remarkable achievement considering there were hundreds of available entries. Lewis York won the research category for his poster which was entitled 'Habitat Preferences of Marsh Tits (Poecile palustris) and Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) at Monks Wood National Nature Reserve NNR'. Alex Laws won the case-study category for his poster describing a project with Natural England that was catchily entitled 'Re-creating Jurassic Park'!

Images of the winning posters are given above.

 

Come and Study at Moulton College!

Student Research Leads the Way!

Our higher education students are now nearing completion of their studies for this year and many of the students are busy collecting data for their undergraduate dissertations. This is a terrific challenge for students who are faced with researching, planning, carrying out and then writing up their work in a 10,000 word document! Over the years the work has been so well received it has led to conference presentations and even publications and articles to be published to the wider scientific community.

This year the range of projects being undertaken is very diverse and reflects some very under-researched areas within agriculture and conservation. For the BSc Land Management course, here is a list of who is doing what so you can see what we mean:

Agriculture & Farming

• Affect of lamb breed on lambing success in England and Wales - Aileen
• Evaluation of one pass soil seed rape establishment using different drill types at Lamport Hall - Guy
• Use of bioelectrical impedance analysis to predict carcass traits in live lambs - Prosper
• Effectiveness of biofertilisers on the growth of winter wheat - Tom
• Use of e-technology in calculating the green area index for winter wheat - Nick
• Use of e-techonology in calculating the green area index of oil seed rape - Steve

Conservation and Ecology

• Open mosaic habitats and their associated Coleopteran assemblages - Carole
• A study of non-target wildlife species feeding from gamebird hoppers on intensively managed shoots - Dan
• RFID method for the spatial determination and tracking of harvest mice in the wild - David
• Impact of ride management on native butterfly assemblages in ancient woodlands - Jamie
• Effectivness of deer deterrants in influencing spatial distributions of free roaming deer in parkland and woodland - Jarvis
• Habitat preferences of marsh tits and blue tits at Monks Wood National Nature Reserve, Cambs - Lewis
• Ecological impact of muntjac deer on ancient woodlands and potential ecosystem services - Luke

To learn more about research in the Agriculture Subject Area, visit: http://www.moulton.ac.uk/the-college/research-at-moulton 

The Skys Above Moulton are Filled with Birds of Prey!

Countryside Management, Animal Welfare and Agriculture students were wowed by a birds of prey demonstration from Icarus Falconry of Northamptonshire on Monday 20^th May.  The demonstration covered a wide range of topics including the care and training required to keep and raise birds of prey along with the importance of the conservation of these birds of prey.  The birds that were brought to the demonstration and flown on the day included a young Bateleur Eagle, a Black Kite, a Harris Hawk and a Barn Own.

 

 

National Agricultural Colleges Clay Shooting Championship

A team comprising Countryside Management and Agriculture students along with Gamekeeping lecturer Bob Farmer attended the 2013 National Agricultural Colleges Clay Shooting Championships at Warwickshire College last Saturday. Students, David Ferriman and Reece Brown tied for 2^nd place with a team from Harper Adams University in the Flush Competition resulting in a bit of cash coming their way! The team also came 8^th in the Championship.

 

Countryside Students Bridge the Gap.....

A small group of countryside students used the skills they have gained over the last two years to construct a small bridge using just the timber they have cut from the woods. Rob, Dave and Tom took a while to get warmed up but once they got going there was no stopping them! As Tom busily felled suitable trees, Rob and Dave were hammering away fixing the bridge together. By the end of the session the group had constructed a simple yet affective wooden bridge.

Farming for Wildlife at Rectory Farm

Yesterday, Higher Education students were hosted by farmer George Eaton at Rectory Farm in Buckinghamshire. George farms an idyllic small farm in a traditional manner, but the difference is he has fully embraced environmental grant aid to farm for wildlife. Working with Natural England and Kings Seeds, George was able to explain how his commercial farming ventures (which include producing beef for waitrose) achieve a balance with managing the natural environment for conservation.

Alongside expanses of wheat and grassland leys, George manages two county wildlife sites (both traditional wildflowet meadows) and a stretch of river where water vole and otter both occur. He obtains some funding through the environmental stewardship suite of grants and students were able to see the diverse range of options employed on the farm. You can find out more about Rectory Farm here: http://www.rectory-farm.org.uk.

Cover Crop Gets Laid....

Countryside management students have been preparing the colleges cover crop, having completed their NPTC ATV & Tractor driving certificates as part of their course they had a chance to put their qualifications into practice. They used the colleges new Case tractor to disc the soil to break down the clods to prepare a fine seed bed.  They then drove the quad bike and grain spinner to broadcast the mixture of seeds which would form the bulk of cover for the college game birds.  

 

The cover crop they have sown contains maize, red and white millet, sunflowers, kale, buckwheat and forage rape. This will produce a cover crop that will provide additional feed, cover and shelter for the pheasants and partridges found on the college’s 430 hectare estate.