Behind the scenes...

Last Friday, Gatwick was officially presented with the Biodiversity Benchmark Award from The Wildlife Trusts. It resulted in a rare gathering of all the main players behind Gatwick's biodiversity project. Here's a run down of the key organisations involved, a sort of extended version of 'who we are':

On Friday Tom Simpson led the walk through Upper Picketts Wood, demonstrating the coppicing works which have been carried out by Gatwick staff along with external volunteers

Steve Bates Photography

Gatwick Greenspace Partnership

(Part of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and funded by the Airport and local authorities)

Represented by Peter Crawford, Kevin Lerwill, Tom Forward and Tom Simpson, GGP educates and engages the local community through coordinating conservation tasks, forest schools and bushcraft, wildlife walks and events. They have been working in and around Gatwick under various different names for over 20 years and in 2014 alone 45 task days were run, totaling about 351 volunteers! A melting pot of practical abilities and local wildlife knowledge (plus of course dashing good looks), these guys happen to be the first people I volunteered with after graduating back in 2009. 

Gatwick's first official Bee Hotel, now complete and open for business in Ashley's Field

The Wildlife Trusts: 

The central charity which works hard to promote wildlife awareness throughout the UK, linking up our landscape via 47 different regional Wildlife Trusts. The charity is responsible for giving out the country's only exclusively biodiversity-centered business award. Peter Dorans is the Benchmark Manager who traveled all the way from Nottinghamshire to visit Gatwick and present us with the certificate. He tells me that since the award system was set up, there are now collectively over 9,000 hectares of land managed by businesses for wildlife. Now I might have misheard, but I think that is the equivalent of all the wildlife reserve land put together in a large county such as Sussex!

  

Ashley's Field: part of a green hay strewing project to increase botanical diversity

(Steve Bates Photography)

Martyn Cooke of Surrey Bat Group, James Webster and Phil Milham of JSA, heckling at the back

(Steve Bates Photography)

JS Agriculture and Landscape Group 
These are the specialist grounds maintenance contractors (and my employers) who manage Gatwick's landscape both airside and landside. They carry out work in huge grass areas, shrub and flower borders, trees, hedgerows and footpath maintenance, all in an ecologically sensitive manner. With the kit and the know-how, they carry out heavier habitat works such as hay-cutting the River Mole grasslands, chainsawing and brushcutting plus transporting materials to and from our sites. James Webster is the fella who originally set up the Biodiversity Action Plans for Gatwick; now working for Ecology and Habitat Management Ltd, he consults in biodiversity at other airports as well as with us.

Tom Simpson, myself, Peter Dorans of The Wildlife Trusts, Ian Chalk and Hannah Deacon

 of Gatwick Airport Ltd (Steve Bates Photography)

Gatwick's Environment, Health and Safety Team

Ian and Hannah (pictured above on the right) along with others on their team, oversee our biodiversity project and this work comes under Gatwick's many other environmental commitments. Their team's knowledge of the airport operations and business, plus their enthusiasm and commitment to the local environment helps our project to run smoothly, ensuring we maintain a tight ship. These guys work really hard for the airport and along with Gatwick's Communications, their department has been great at backing what we do.

The Gatsbee Hives (Steve Bates Photography)

(Steve Bates Photography)

Gatsbee honey with Gill's handmade labels

The Gatsbees

A small collection of bee hives were installed in Ashley's Field in early 2014, to be maintained and monitored by local mentor Gillian Sentinella of  Central Sussex Beekeepers Association. Tom Simpson and myself are Gill's avid students, learning about 'natural beekeeping' and maintaining colonies in balanced harmony with the surrounding environment. We hope to register in the near future as a Sentinel Apiary for monitoring Honey Bee health, watching out for pests, invasive species and other environmental concerns which Honey Bees can act as indicators for. We do take a little of the honey now and then but without overly depleting their hard-earned stores!

(Steve Bates Photography)

Although not everyone could make it on the day, it was great to have this fantastic bunch get together and share in the achievement over a generous amount of food, drink and honey tasting.

We would also like to say a special 'thank you' to the Parson's Pig pub on the Balcombe Road, who in the threat of stormy weather came to our aid providing last minute shelter for mingling and refreshments. The pub has a lovely homely atmosphere and they even lit the fire for us especially! You guys rock.

Environmentally friendly

Last week, Gatwick's Environment, Health and Safety team got their (gloved) hands dirty, helping us put up 50 new dormouse boxes.

We were working within fragments of ancient woodland, over in the Land East of the Railway Line. Despite having previously detected signs of Dormice here, we are yet to find that definitive evidence of one curled up sleepily in a box.

A sludgy woodland trek

The team did an excellent job of getting the boxes up onto trees, seemingly enjoying themselves despite the now habitual rain and rivulets of mud. The boxes were put up in rows of consecutive numbers (no thanks to my lacking mathematics, leading to much confusion and switching boxes about...) which will make surveying all the easier in the seasons to come.

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Tom S. of Gatwick Greenspace, 'papping' the team

So about an hour later than it should have been, we finally stopped for a well deserved tea and biscuit break. Before leaving the site, while looking around for signs of mammal tracks, I spotted this entire badger skull...

Badger skull found in Lower Picketts Wood. 

I like how the sagittal crest has a funky green mossy toupée

Badger skulls are pretty solid things, with the skull plate sutures well-fused and the bottom jaw often still connected to the base. They also have a large ridge towards the back called a sagittal crest, to which the strong jaw muscles would be attached. 

After a good clean up, the crest is slightly more obvious. It seems fairly small and I thought this might indicate it was a young badger. However, the teeth are also rather worn and an upper-rear molar looks badly infected (this now being the least of its problems.) There also seemed to be signs of recent badger activity very close by; some further investigation could be required by Gatwick Greenspace Partnership's Youth and Wildlife Rangers!

Tom's new friend, named in the honour of Environmental Secretary Owen Paterson

(O-Patz for short)

After lunch, it was back into the woodlands for some glade creation - we coppiced an area of the unmanaged hazel understory and several birch trees. All of the wood is kept on site, stacked into neat-ish habitat piles, maximising the space on the ground for woodland flora.

Of all the team, I'm not sure that Frank takes Environment, Health and Safety the most seriously.

Hand saws and tree loppers, along with grit and determination means we can achieve a lot in a short amount of time; we are now starting to feel on top of our winter habitat management targets. Around the place are signs that spring is just around the corner, meaning that time to complete last year's data entry is also running out...

Tops of bluebells

Wild daffodils

The 'dormouse boxing' team

A massive thank you again to all who came out to help and to Karen for organising. We hope to see you lot again on a drier day in summer!