After spending all summer surveying birds and butterflies, it can be nice to hang up the walking boots and gaitors for a while. Winter is primarily a time for writing reports, catching up with admin, and working on our CPD. However; it doesn't take long before we all start getting itchy feet...
That depends... on how you like to prepare for habitat plots.
Habitat plots are typically carried out at a minimum of 60 random locations on the two most dominant habitats of a site. The idea is to get a snapshot of the grazing pressure on the site, and to discover any trends that may indicate and increase or decrease in habitat quality. Each plot requires surveyors to examine a 2 m x 2 m quadrat which is then split into 50 cm2 subsections. The result is something like this:
The question is, how do you cart around 20+ metres of string without getting in a tangled mess?
Taylor Wildlife staff had a very enjoyable (and we hope very informative) weekend providing training to a group from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
Having made the long journey up and endured the dreaded 'campsite midge' the group were still in great form and keen to begin their weekend-long Introduction to Upland Surveying course. We kicked off with an indoor session on navigation taught by Joe, before moving outside to put theory into practice.
