Biodiversity Gatwick 2017: Highlights and lowlights

Highlight: Volunteer cleanup crews

With the increased awareness of our biodiversity areas, even more airport staff are getting involved with looking after our sites.

The Surface Transport Team helping clean up around our ponds

Lowlight: Endless fly tipping...

And the help is hugely appreciated, due to the endless flow of rubbish...

Ikea Orange Wardrobe: €5

Broken trampoline: -£2

...and the dog poo.

Priceless

Highlight: Another group of fantastic ecology volunteers getting stuck in with the project 

We are achieving more every survey season , we cannot thank you all enough.

Roxanne and Kajayini from Royal Holloway University

Our regular Gatwick Greenspace volunteers Luke and Jason

Lowlight: Saying our goodbyes at the end of the survey season. 

Who's going to help us eat all the cake now?

Highlight: Bats galore!

In September we recorded 7 different species in one night, including this lovely Soprano Pipistrelle

Lowlight: Bird fleas galore!

Possibly Ceratophyllus gallinae. I can confirm they itch like hell.

Highlight: An exciting new bird species stopping off at the airport; the endangered Turtle Dove

Lowlight: But not a single Gatwick Dormouse turned up in a box this year!

It looks like everything except a Dormouse used this box

Highlight: Our site is becoming even more secure, with the arrival of our very own biodiversity container!

Lowlight: Things getting a little too secure

Locked in at work on a Friday night

Highlight: Some lovely footage on trail cameras...

Weasel (Mustela nivalis) at the Gatwick Stream

Lowlight: Forgetting where you've put your trail cameras.

Hmm, camera 1, camera 2, camera 3, camera 4...

Doh! Camera 5, somewhere out in the field

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year, hope you can get outdoors in a window of good weather!

Biodiversity Gatwick 2016: Highlights and lowlights

1. Highlight: All our biodiversity interpretation boards were installed, including images of notable species to be found around Gatwick.

Tom S., Robert and Harry of the Gatwick Greenspace Partnership

Lowlight: Forgetting to include any representatives of an entire taxonomic kingdom...

2. Highlight: Yet another year with our superb ecology volunteers carrying out record numbers of surveys; we seriously cannot thank you enough!

Lowlight: The state of my car by the end of summer.

3. Highlight: Of all the new species this year to Gatwick, I think the Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) was my favourite, singing in the scrub west of Brockley Wood. 

Lowlight: My least favourite new species for Gatwick was Ash Dieback disease (Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus), now prevalent around the South East UK.

Shriveled and blackened leaves in summer

Diamond-shaped lesions around buds

4. Highlight: iRecord became available as a phone app, meaning I can now record wildlife anywhere in the UK, 24 hours a day!

Lowlight: The Wood Mouse population reached apocalyptic levels, meaning this was what I was mostly recording...

Our most recorded mammal in a single day

You again?

5. Highlight: After the fish removal from Pond 3, this year Great Crested Newts are back laying eggs!

Lowlight: Conducting amphibian surveys + leaking wellies = athletes foot

6. Highlight: Gatwick's Biodiversity Action Plans scooped another award this year and also got a mention in the International Airport Review.

Lowlight: All of our restored meadow grasslands, rich in wildflower and grass species, in which we take so much pride, are slowly trying to kill me.

7. Highlight: Discovering our first Slow Worm in Ashley's Field, a new reptile record for the Gatwick sites!

Slow Worm (Anguis fragilis)

Lowlight: Discovering our first Slow Worm poo.

8. Highlight: We hosted even more wildlife events for biological recorders, Gatwick staff and the general public.

Lowlight: Probably the wettest, most unpredictable set of wildlife events we've ever had

Tom S. models the latest in binbag fashion-wear

9. Highlight: I am finally making good progress with the malaise trap invertebrate sorting, with excellent volunteer help and the Sussex Wildlife Trust lending us their classroom!

Entomological enthusiasts Ryan Mitchell and Natalie Kay

Lowlight: Cranefly legs have become a living nightmare.

10. Highlight: The work of our excellent conservation volunteer groups, led by Tom Simpson, has resulted in great feedback from the general public about our sites.

Lowlight: Some not-so-lovely feedback from the public.

2017, here we come!