20-10-2018: Slowly does it - digging ditches and removing scrub for slow worms

The AM team

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny with a nip in the air to herald in the first of two ditch and slow worm habitat days at Tolworth Court Sports Ground this academic year.

Autumn suns a rising

Tolworth Court is the university’s outdoor sports grounds, but as well as a great place for sports, due to the variety of habitats both on and next to the site, it also is home to a number of species. 

Past surveys have found:

14 identifiable species of moth and butterfly

29 bird species (during winter bird surveys)

6 identifiable mammal species, 

2 amphibian species (now 3 confirmed species) and 

1 reptile species. 

This doesn’t include the myriad of plants and other invertebrates (outside of the Lepidoptera group) on the site. 

A baby slow worm found on one of the 2016 surveys

Slow worms are the longest lived of the native reptiles, in the wild they can live for around 20 years, but in captivity they have been recorded as living for at least 50 years. 

As with our other “common” reptile species, the numbers of slow worms are thought to be in decline across all sites, with the main causes being habitat loss. In highly urban areas, increased presence of cats will also cause local declines, as cats are effective predators of slow worms. 

During our reptile surveys, we only found them along one part of our site, which supports a grassland and scrub matrix. Over the past few years while trying to ensure that we don’t cut too much of our scrub and shrub habitats (for winter berry provision for birds) we've let the balance in this area go too far down the scrub route, in effect starting to lose the grassland aspect of the area. 

Scrub scrub scrub

We are aiming to rectify this this year, by aiming to re-establish and then maintain a one third scrub to two thirds long-grassland habitat. We will also continue to work on the adjacent ditch to clear out vegetation and silt build-up while modifying the slopes so that they are less steep; making it easier for wildlife to get in and out, as they use the ditches as commuting corridors. 

Cutting back vegetation from in the ditches...

...raking out the cut vegetation from the ditches and the bank

It’s far safer to do this with volunteers using hand tools, compared to machinery which can knock into anthills when flailing the scrub, and cut into the ground around ditches. Which increases the chances of killing or injuring a slow worm. 

Raking up the cuttings... 

...bagging up and...

...dragging to the compost heap

While we didn't have any slow worms on the day (while its the start of hibernation for them, the weather was warm enough to have had them out and about), we did see other wildlife on site.

A little hitchhiker greeted the volunteers during the toolbox talk

Elliot the newt (as named by Noel) found on site under one of the reptile felts

one of three butterfly species spotted flying on the day

Scavenger hunts were enjoyed by the local robins as we uncovered their breakfast, lunch and dinner during scrub clearance. 

We had volunteers rotating in and out throughout the day on Saturday, some coming to help us after finishing other biodiversity volunteering and surveys with other groups in the morning. 

Mid day team

Some of the less camera shy PM team.. can you spot the differences?

All worked really hard and got an amazing amount of work done. We managed to work on one third of the scrub area and approximately half of the ditch, doing the initial vegetation and loose leaf removal.

Progress along the scrub areas (red) and the ditch areas (yellow)

We hope to continue and build on this work on the next event on Saturday the 9th of February 2019. We will need all hands on deck for this one, so please come along if you are free, bring a friend and get them to bring someone too!

While the sun can't be guaranteed, lots of snacks and a good workout is!

Hopefully we will see some winter wildlife on the day.