05/03/2023 and 25/03/2023: FIT for pollinators? From Woodland management to habitat structures for invertebrates this March at Kingston Uni.

 

Happy KUBAG volunteers at two different sessions this March

We started March with continued work in our woodlands, the KUBAG volunteers consisting solely of the Cashe In Trash Out Geocachers team (with one of our alumni geocashers also achiving his 10,000 event!). They got to work digging out more of the bamboo stands near our pond as well as digging out more of the rhodo stumps. 

We made great progress in filling our more architectural insect hotel in the middle of our formal planting area in the Kingston Hill campus with the cutting from this and the previous bamboo events.

Also using other materials such as rolled corrugated cardboard and drilled logs to create a variety of niche habitats in the insect hotel. I'll be filling up the remaining void later this month with other materials from our campus to create different materials to add to this structure. 

But I had to first concentrate on gathering more materials to finish off our large insect hotels that we were installing at our Roehampton Vale Campus. 

 

Before we started on our second pollinator event at RV

This work was completed last weekend, with the Geocashers joined by KU staff to work in two teams to finish off the insect hotels made of brick, and the large solitary insect hotel made of wood (any "straw" used was only for filling in some of the bricks with the straw like wind-fell from our birch trees).

Team Bricks

Team logs

I then ran our first Flower-Insect Timed Count (FIT-Count) survey training following the UK pollinator monitoring Scheme method (with mind permission to use their materials in our slides) to teach everyone the basics of the FIT-Count method, and how we will be launching the survey across our sites this year starting in April.

Those trained will be undertaking the surveys together at first, to allow them to gain more confidence on how to separate and identify the different invertebrates into the 8 survey groups - I think the three photo quizzes might have made some  a little nervous to undertake the surveys on their own!

But the nice thing about these surveys are that they are a great excuse to meet up for a short amount of time to do the surveys together and build confidence up at the same time, firstly in recognising the groups of species, and then identifying the species that folk see and start to recognise :)

Looking forward to the warmer weather to be able to do the first of our counts as a the weather warms up a touch more!

More planting will be undertaken in these two back beds at our Roehampton Vale Campus, concentrating on plants suitable for a range of pollinators including beetles, moths, butterflies, flies, wasps and bees.. Hopefully we will have picked a good range of largely (80%) native plants to allow for pollinator habitat for as long as possible throughout the year. 

I'll also be aiming to reuse some of the plants being dug out of one of our formal landscaping schemes (to achieve one meadow type) to this bed later, so that they don't go to waste - mainly concentrating on the red-dead nettle.

I'll leave you with this short tour of our solitary bee and beetle hotel log wall.

Take care til next time