My time at Juniper Hall

By Rowena

Hello! My name is Rowena. I have been at Juniper Hall for two years now as a tutor. However, now is the end of my time here- I am moving on to new things in the frozen North, at Newcastle University!

It’s going to be so cold.

As part of the tutor team, Juniper Hall has been a fantastic experience. From waking up every morning to this view…

View this post on Instagram

The cows are back in my front garden for the Summer #moo

A post shared by Jack Starbuck (@thatstarbuck) on May 11, 2017 at 8:20am PDT

I’ve taught some very interesting groups in my time:

• Students that have found the free U2 album on the ipads and played music while recording river measurements
• A-level biologists from London that have played hide-and-seek after class because they’ve never been to the countryside
• “Miss, can woodlice fly? I bet they can.”
• “Miss, is that a cow?” [Points at black & white horse]
• A KS2 group that had to almost run back to centre from Box Hill after a freak thunderstorm, getting drenched by the time we were back (It was actually in Reigate)
• A KS2 student that decided to make “leaf angels” with me (You rock!)
• Every single student that’s sung the Banana song the next morning after a campfire
• My last group that cheered so hard, and climbed on each other’s shoulders (in Bebbington. I feared for their heads)
• All the students that have tried to jump the River Tillingbourne at Crossways, especially those that have failed (especially the ones that failed on camera!)
• The students that have gotten stuck in Pagham Harbour with big muddy smiles
• The students that wanted to spray paint rocks to investigate longshore drift (always a good idea!)
• The KS2 children that made themselves beards out of burrs and stickyweed
• The children that have fallen in the River Mole at the Stepping Stones (or leapt)
• The Real Family Holiday families and children who have all been so curious- those that have climbed the starfish (I fear for you), the amazing red-haired super-mum who pushed a double buggy all the way to the shelter building area, the sweet kids that sat and made apple bird-feeders for hours last year, the huge set of families that made the most incredible shelter I’ve ever seen, that sat about 10 and didn’t leak a drop!
• All the lovely schools that have brightened my days with thank-you letters…

What a lovely surprise from @LingfieldND! Some lovely memories written and drawn about =) pic.twitter.com/DFk0P0uTOE

— Rowena Pattenson (@Syn_Sharptooth) November 15, 2016

It’s been said never to work with children and animals, and yet I’ve spent most days working with both (for better and for worse!)

 

 

 

• Once I found a mole in the River Tillingbourne
• I’ve been headbutted by the goats so many times
• I’ve spray-painted a chicken purple
• A student once just straight-up grabbed a lizard from underneath a log and it was awesome
• The horses at Crossways Farm have chased me around the field about 10 times in the last 2 months
• The students that, instead of picking up an invasive crayfish after they dropped it, jumped on it, then threw it in a tree
• The teacher that allowed me to scare their entire class with a pet stick insect (they all left the room entirely for 10 minutes)
• The school that drove me to Leatherhead Animal Rescue to rehabilitate an exhausted brown long-eared bat and got me in the newspaper!

 

Bat dudebro ❤ (Now rescued) pic.twitter.com/cMueW7fpp2

— Rowena Pattenson (@Syn_Sharptooth) October 11, 2016

I’ve had such a good time while I’ve been here (in all weathers- sun, rain, snow, thunderstorms), with so many incredible memories. Perhaps one day I’ll come back to teach again! After all, I haven’t yet had a pond named after me like Kate (one of our recent Education Assistants).

This is definitely the best spot to teach from

Thanks for all the great memories, Juniper!

Best geography & ecology resources

By Rowena

Over time, I’ve been collating a list of websites that are some of the best (or coolest) resources for geography, biology and ecology.

Geography

Datashine  -The 2011 census, geolocated and mapped for multiple different census datasets.

NullSchool  -Mapping of the world, showing meteorological flows and ocean currents.

Ventusky  -Similar to NullSchool, although on a flat projection. Generally slightly easier to use than NullSchool.

Windy.com  -Weather patterns emerging over the next 5 days, with forecasts and animated maps.

CO2 levels  -Looks at atmospheric carbon dioxide and the change over the past ~260 years.

Fairness on the 83  -Fascinating human geography on inequality in Sheffield, and the changes in life expectancy over the route of the 83 Bus.

GeoLibrary  -365 days of geographical books, covering all topics geographical!

London Tree Map  -London’s trees mapped, by species.

Ecology & Environmental Science

ISpot  -Citizen science project to identify and map species.

Hunt the Moth -A fun game where you have to find the camouflaged moth as fast as possible.

Cloud Atlas -An international atlas of different types of cloud, by the World Meteorological Organization. Used to describe and define different types of cloud.

And finally, data presentation…

FT Interactive  -Visual vocabulary, but interactive!

A day at Juniper Hall

By Rowena

The other day I was talking to a friend and they asked me “I’d really like to know what you actually did at work every day”, because I’ve  got interesting new stories every week. Well, as I run the blog (as much as I can, inbetween teaching), I thought I’d write up a standard day at the River Tillingbourne, where I spend most of my time.

A day at the River with a (big) GCSE group

8.45am– Turn up to the tutor’s office for our morning meeting. Check where everyone’s going (100 at the river? Fantastic.) Listen to Jack crack out some amazing jokes and have everyone laugh.

9.00am– Set up classroom with whiteboards, booklets and check equipment. Put morning tunes on the SmartBoard. Check in with other tutors they’re happy with the day & plans.

9.25am– Check school have arrived in the main office. Photocopy nominal roll and check numbers.

9.30am– Meet teachers & group. Try and organise 100 GCSE kids into 4 class groups. They get distracted by the goats fighting. Finally get them sorted with waterproofs and wellies in the cellar.

10.00am– Introduction to the river in the classroom, using ArcGIS and whiteboards and booklets. Give out equipment. Students get confused over hydroprops. Give out lots of pencils.

11.00am– Coach to the river. This is either 20 minutes of quiet, or utter raucous noise.

11.20am– Arrive at Crossways Farm. Give safety briefing and walk down road. Students scream at the muddy entrance. Horses sometimes try to escape. Give introduction to fieldwork and set students off.

When you can't get to the autolevel for gradient #fieldworkfails #yearoffieldwork pic.twitter.com/SvBy7IEagr

— Rowena Pattenson (@Syn_Sharptooth) March 5, 2016

11.45am– Stop horses from eating hydroprop. Watch student fall in river after attempting to jump across. Pick up 6 hydroprops from where they’ve been left discarded on the ground. Field sketches using SNOTT (Scale, Notes, Orientation, Time/Date, Title).

12.00pm– Coach to Abinger Hammer. Fieldwork first. Stand for 10 minutes watching last group mess around while rest of groups eat lunch.

12.30pm– Eat lunch now last group have finished. Hope nobody is dropping litter. Hope nobody has abandoned equipment in the river.

View this post on Instagram

River

A post shared by Rowena-Jayne Pattenson (@syn_sharptooth) on Mar 14, 2017 at 12:18pm PDT

1.15pm– Fish tape measure out of river. Coach to Gomshall 2.

1.30pm– Fieldwork at Gomshall 2. Students get completely soaked as it’s the last (and deepest) river site.  Find lamprey. Students scream more.

View this post on Instagram

Mist on the river

A post shared by Rowena-Jayne Pattenson (@syn_sharptooth) on Jan 7, 2017 at 3:33am PST

2.30pm– Return to Juniper Hall on coach. Students have break. Wrestle with data and printer. Also return waterproofs.

3.00pm– Methods game & methodologies in classroom. Give out more pencils. Students forget how they measured width. Remind them.

4.00pm– Cake break. Enjoy sunshine for 10 minutes.

4.20pm– Teachers announce they want to leave early at 4.30. Quickly wrap up.

4.30pm– Put away equipment in cellar. Send through data to school on Dropbox. Answer emails. Print for tomorrow- another rivers’ day? Great! Perhaps get a cup of tea (finally).

5.45pm– HOMETIME! Perhaps drop by the kitchen for some dinner if it’s something good. Chocolate pudding? Don’t mind if I do…

 

And then we do it all again tomorrow!

 

Real Family Holidays

By Rowena

We had Real Family Holidays in on the 7th-10th April, one of my favourite times of year! The activities have been great fun, with some returning families from last year. Sunday morning was wild art around the grounds of Juniper Hall, and there were some excellent creations to be seen.

 

There were lots of inventive uses of natural materials collected from around the grounds. A mixture of stones, green leaves, a few flowers and sticks and twigs.

Gather round to enjoy everyone’s creations

There were all sorts of inspirations- the largest art of the day was a giant spider in it’s web on the Templeton lawn…

Spring on it’s way!

By Rowena

Spring is definitely on its way, with a delightfully warm weekend- barely even coat weather! We’ve been writing up our Spring Index here like last year to calculate when spring is starting. Last year the average index (which is across all the FSC centres) was the 26th April, which was the same as 2015. I think this year it might be earlier though, as we’ve already recorded quite a few early indicators!

We look primarily at 4 indicator species, although we’ve also been recording others as well- and important events such as first lunch outside (11th March), and first time wearing shorts (13th March). The 4 big ones though;

• Swallow
• Orange tip butterfly
• Horse chestnut budding
• Hawthorn flower

We’ve already recorded our first orange tip last week (27th March), a whole 18 days earlier than last year’s, which was on the 18th April.

Train ticket butterfly (Source: Beyond the Human Eye)

Last week brought the first house martin to Crossways Farm as well on the 31st March, an exciting spot by Jack on the coach back from the river. I got my first swallow yesterday on the 3rd April, although up in Hertfordshire, not in our area for the Spring Index, so the competition’s still going for the first spot for us in Surrey.

(Source: E-group.uk.net)

We’re still waiting for our horse chestnut and hawthorn, but no doubt they’ll be on their flowering way soon. The warm weather today rewarded a pair of slow worms under the reptile mats. No mammals, but the bees were flying from the apiary down in the meadow as well, despite the grey clouds.

View this post on Instagram

Slow worm

A post shared by Rowena-Jayne Pattenson (@syn_sharptooth) on Apr 4, 2017 at 5:43am PDT

Invasives Week

By Rowena

This week is invasive species week on Twitter, and I’ve been watching a lot of really interesting stuff come up on my feed all week. It’s been organised by the NNSS (Non-native Species Secretariat) and DEFRA to try and raise awareness of invasive species, and get people involved in recording schemes. Each day has a different theme:

Monday – Welcome to Invasive Species Week!
Tuesday – Biosecurity
Wednesday – Identification and recording
Thursday – Local Action Groups
Friday – Other projects

My favourite resource I’ve found so far this week (although it’s only Tuesday that I’m writing this…) has been the Journal of Ecology’s virtual issue, with over 20 different papers about different invasive species and up-to-date research in the area. I’ve downloaded them to my laptop, but haven’t yet had the time to read them… Soon.

For #InvasivesWeek the @BritishEcolSoc journals have put together a free virtual issue on the topic https://t.co/xcjvxMctSA #invasivespecies pic.twitter.com/2Bt7UPOhME

— JournalAnimalEcology (@AnimalEcology) March 27, 2017

On the NNSS website, there’s loads of free training on biosecurity and identification of non-native species. To be able to tackle invasive species effectively, it’s important to have the distribution and evidence of where species are found- NNSS have developed a set of apps to record different invasive species, and help identify individuals. I’m not familiar with all of them, although Juniper Hall do record a lot of our species on iRecord. We also have a fantastic species list from the University of Cambridge who visit each year, and record literally everything they see. I’m also on a mission to get my Birdtrack back up to date, as I’ve been birding a lot recently but actually have no count of what I’ve been seeing!

Wednesday is identification and recording day- So a quick list of invasives I’ve seen at our field sites before…

Himalayan balsam, Signal crayfish, Rhododendron, Ringed parakeet, Harlequin ladybird

I’ve not got time to update this again after today (which is still Wednesday, although I scheduled this for the end of the week) but it’s a cool initiative that seems to be educating a lot of people. I’ve definitely found a lot of interesting stuff I’m planning to read in the future this week!

BENHS Conference & Saproxylic inverts

By Rowena

At the weekend I travelled over to Oxford to go to the annual BENHS (British Entomological and Natural History Society) AGM. It was, in a few words, pretty great. A day full of lectures about various British insects, including art, history and a tour around the stacks of the Oxford Natural History Museum afterwards to see some of the collections.

View this post on Instagram

Natural history

A post shared by Rowena-Jayne Pattenson (@syn_sharptooth) on Mar 25, 2017 at 8:51am PDT

One of the best days out I’ve had in ages- and you don’t actually have to be a member to attend the day either, which is great. The next couple of blog posts are going to be about what I learnt that are also pretty relevant to what we do over here at Juniper Hall.

Woodland ecosystems and saproxylic species

Saproxylic species are organisms that live in deadwood. The BENHS talk was focussed on woodlands, so I am going to as well- most of the research on saproxylic species focuses on woodlands. Saproxylic species make up 7% of all British fauna– there are over 800 beetles, 730 flies,  300 hymenoptera (bees, ants and wasps), and 50 moth species present within deadwood. Unfortunately many of these species are threatened by the need for “tidy woodlands“- the removal of deadwood. Over-management of parks and woodland gardens has a lot of fallen deadwood removed, to try and keep an area tidy. Standing deadwood and timber branches are also regularly removed, as it’s thought to be dangerous or a potential haven for diseases and pests.

Types of deadwood (Source: TVC)

At European scale, 11% of saproxylic beetles are threatened. It might be that part of the problem is due to woodland management, where modern harvesting practice does not allow trees to fully mature, cropping them before they can naturally produce deadwood. In areas that have been previously coppiced or pollarded, deadwood invertebrates are likely to persist in tree hollows, although the loss of this traditional woodland management causes saproxylic invertebrate numbers to decrease.

Please help me! (Source: Greg Humphries)

So what’s better? To manage a woodland traditionally, using coppicing and pollarding, or to leave woodlands completely alone and prevent “tidying” of woodland, allowing a deadwood environment to emerge on the ground? Certainly it seems that either method is better than modern techniques of harvesting an area for trees, as this causes the total removal of material even before deadwood can form. It has been noticed that coppiced areas can produce special microclimates for deadwood fauna, however if an area is too-well managed, coppice reverts to being of little importance for deadwood conservation.

To coppice, or not to coppice? (Image credit: geograph.org.uk)

Perhaps it’s too difficult to draw a conclusion on the best way to manage woodland for deadwood invertebrates when there’s little currently being researched on a large scale- more important, it seems, is to just try and create deadwood habitats to start off with, and worry about woodland management when our saproxylites are a little bit more stable in the future.

A happy home for many invertebrates (Source: Buglife.com)

Mickleham Scrub Bash 2017

Last Wednesday, the 15th February, the National Trust held their annual scrub bash on Mickleham Downs, particularly the Mickleham Gallops. Around 30 people volunteered their time to help with this conversation project. Although mostly National Trust workers and volunteers, there was also several members of the local community and of course, the Juniper Hall team which consisted of me and Kate (placement students), Sarah Bradford (head of grounds) and JH volunteer Bob.

The purpose of the day is to reclaim the land from the woods and encourage the natural chalk woodland plants to grow.  A big part of the day was breaking up the crafted lines of scrubs that mark out the old runway which is an unnatural feature that the National Trust is slowly trying to get rid of.

The second main job was to remove dogwood. Dogwood is an invasive species and so to protect the other plant life it needs to be removed so the natural chalk grassland plants are able to grow.

Working hard to get rid of that dogwood

Enjoying a nice cup of tea and some cake!

Bonfire!!

We had a large bonfire to dispose of all the cuttings as it would be very resource intensive to get rid of it all any other way, but having to drag large amounts of scrub to the fire was very hard work. However, it was nice to stand around the fire and warm up especially when the heaven’s opened, luckily the rain didn’t last long and everyone worked through it!

Overall it was a hard days work but rewarding to see what a difference we can make! It was also a great opportunity to meet and talk to the National Trust people and everyone from the community, they were all very welcoming and friendly which made the day even better!

Caileigh

Conference 2016

By Rowena

I’ve not written a blog post for a while, because it’s just been incredibly busy! But I’ve got a little bit of time today. 2016 was a pretty intense year, but finished up by one of the most exciting events of the year- FSC Conference, this year at our very own Juniper Hall.

FSC conference is held every year for staff, to share ideas, meet people from other centres and have a bit of fun to celebrate the end of a successful year. I’ve never been to staff conference before- last year I was teaching!- so it was quite something to see it go from start to finish. First thing to arrive was the tent, and all the decorations had to be put up on monday…

View this post on Instagram

Let there be lights

A post shared by Rowena-Jayne Pattenson (@syn_sharptooth) on Dec 12, 2016 at 11:15am PST

The decorations were handmade, those on the trees by our amazing groundskeeper Sarah.

View this post on Instagram

#christmas decorations

A post shared by Rowena-Jayne Pattenson (@syn_sharptooth) on Dec 13, 2016 at 12:59am PST

When tuesday afternoon rolled around, suddenly JH was teeming with people as staff from other centres flooded in. We happily met friends from Malham Tarn, Rhyd-y-creuau, Flatford Mill, Slapton… And the activities began!

#FSCStaffConference2016 ! @FieldStudiesC @FSCDaleFort @FSCRhydyCreuau @EppingForestFSC @FSClondon @BishopsWoodCent @FSCFlatfordMill pic.twitter.com/WWK3nx9Zje

— FSC Slapton Ley (@FSCSlaptonLey) December 13, 2016

The main event was day 2, when we all dispersed into groups to visit different places in London and the surrounding area to look at sustainability. One of the FSC’s core values is sustainability, so we wanted to look at companies who were doing this really well and how we could improve. Groups scattered to London Zoo, the Natural History Museum, London Wetland Centre, Marks & Spencer, the Crystal, Bushy Park and Leatherhead Youth Project. I went to Leatherhead Youth Project, as I’ve worked with them before, and we met staff there to discuss their values and how they share them. Their passion to make a difference to young peoples’ lives was inspiring, and we took a lot away to share back with the rest of conference the next day.

The evening of day 2 we had a barn dance in the tent out on the front lawn- the theme was “dress to impress”, and some of the costumes sure were impressive… and so was the dancing!

Spiral dance

Thursday was a quick morning roundin up our findings and what we wanted to take forward into the new year, then it was suddenly all over as we were waving goodbye to our new friends from all over the country. Till next year!

Bioblitz 2016

By Rowena

For half term, we ran our annual Bioblitz to record all the birds, bugs, plants and anything else on Juniper Hall’s grounds. In the weeks leading up, Daniel’s been busy handing out tons of flyers around Dorking and Leatherhead…

So many leaflets!

Thankfully when the big day came the weather was kind to us! It all kicked off with opening our moth traps, which we had put out the evening before. Unfortunately there were only a few moths inside, as it’s getting to the time when they’re all tucked up and hibernating, but happily a few extras were brought along by the AES to admire as well.

Next we had Lisa and Saoirse open mammal traps in Templeton Woods. There were a couple of successes, with a water shrew, and then some wood mice later on in the ha-ha.

 Drawing quite the crowd

Later on in the lineup we had woodland and meadow invertebrate hunting. We got out the sweep nets, pooters and keys to see what we could find, scooping up grasshoppers, shield bugs, leafhoppers and moths. In the woods we had some fun charming worms too, making them wiggle to the surface to be identified.

Successful bioblitz @FSCJuniperHall today. My fav part earthworm charming :£ pic.twitter.com/W7nPKuFZWF

— Josie McLaren (@josiemclaren) October 24, 2016

The reptile mats didn’t reward any reptiles, but Lisa and a few families did find some hiding mammals and lots of insects- the ants just love colonising underneath the felting we’ve put down in our meadow.

What’s Lisa found?

While Saoirse manned the ponds, looking for underwater critters, Rowena and Helen made some nettle tea with the kelly kettles, that took a lot longer than it should have…

Putting on a brew!

Also throughout the day we had arts and crafts in the students’ common room, colouring moths and glittering invertebrates, and local societies joining us in the Templeton Room to promote bats, birds and bugs!

Art game is strong in the @FSCJuniperHall art room this #bioblitz pic.twitter.com/xQlY1cIA9i

— Rowena Pattenson (@Syn_Sharptooth) October 24, 2016

A big thank you to everyone that visited and helped, and to the lovely charities that attended; the Bat Conservation Trust, Surrey Bird Club, the Amateur Entomological Society and others!

We haven’t got final totals for everything we recorded on the day yet, but we’ll be sure to update once we do know what we managed to find.