What are the important characteristics of a roadside verge

Following up on yesterday's post, I did a quick bit of thinking about the features that might contribute to a scoring system for roadside verges:

1. Width (the bigger, the better)
   

• 0
• 1-2m
• 3-5m
• 5+m

2. Hedge present (important buffer from usage further back)

• Narrow (<1m), tightly trimmed
• Narrow (<1m), gappy
• Broad (>1m), tightly trimmed
• Broad (>1m), Bushy

3. Hedge composition (potentially important as both nectar source and food source for birds)

• Monoculture
• Narrow range of species (2-3)
• Broad spectrum of shrubs and woody climbers

4. Trees in hedge (may have a positive or negative influence on ground vegetation and overall ecology)

• Recent planting
• Mature with potential/actual saproxyic features

5. Ditch present? (Important and potentially valuable structural variation)

• With water
  • With wetland plants such as Typha and Mentha aquatica
  • Manicured
• Dry

6. Bramble and/or thorny species in the sward? (Negative impact - risk of swamping of open grassland features)
   
   
7. Recently planted woody species? (Potentially negative impact on grassland features)
   
   
8. Vegetation composition (important from both a strictly floristic perspective as well as for invertebrates)

• Rank, MG1 or similar
• Composed of 'finer' grasses with range of specialist phorbs
• Presence of local or 'rare' plant species

9. Supports good nectar sources:

• Hogweed
• Angelica
• Upright Stone Parsley
• Cow Parsley
• Ground elder
• Hemp Agrimony
• Meadowsweet
• Field Scabious
• Devil's-bit Scabious
• Knapweed
• Creeping Thistle
• Rough Hawkbit
• Ragwort
• Fleabane
• Sow thistles
• Creeping/bulbous buttercup
• Dandelion
• Mentha sp.
• Vetches

This is just a quick bit of thinking to try to come up with a way of scoring verge attributes, both positive and negative. It has largely been constructed from a Dipterist's perspective and I am aware that I have probably overlooked important nectar sources for Hymenoptera.

Anyway, it is something for discussion by others. Meanwhile, I think I might perhaps give it a try! Turning it into an assessment tool is a bit more of a challenge but it seems to be a potentially worthwhile exercise.

Managing roadside verges

In most recent years there have been aggrieved posts on the UK Hoverflies Facebook page lamenting the cutting of a favoured roadside verge or patch of hogweed. Quite right too! Roadside verges are a fantastic nectar source for all manner of insects and in some parts of the country (such as much of Lincolnshire) are probably THE major wildlife resource. Loss of this resource in July or August might well have a significant impact on insect numbers and may contribute to the overall decline in wildlife that we have seen in recent decades. The issue is, however, a lot more complicated than at first might appear.

Let us start with the importance of roadside verges. In a landscape where fields are cultivated right up to the hedge line, verges provide the few bits of wild space and a lot of landscape connectivity. In some places, such as the areas around me in Stamford, they are immensely rich and display remarkable floristic diversity. Some are so rich that they have been designated SSSI in their own right. They definitely need protecting and conserving, but how do we do this efficiently?

I am fortunate to live in an area where there are great wide drove roads with wonderful wide flowery verges. But, droving has long since passed into history and unless some other form of management is implemented, there will be a change from open grassland to scrub. Mowing is the only realistic answer.

Unfortunately, mowing is expensive and requires organisation. The first concerns of those responsible will not be wildlife. Their concern is that sight-lines need to be maintained for road safety. They will want to minimise cost, so if sight lines are unimpeded then verges won't get cut. If they are impeded the critical issue is to get them cut. It does not matter what time of year that happens – it just needs to happen. So, if you have contractors that can do the job in July, then that is when you do it. Never mind that in doing so you remove all of the essential nectar sources for insects. Equally, if you can get hedges cut then cutting in October is of little consequence even if it removes food sources for birds!

We know the problem and I feel sure that many in wildlife organisations are perfectly aware of the issue. The big question is what can be done to change existing modus operandi? Well, maybe it is time to start to develop a register of important roadside verges; not just those with designations? Perhaps this is something that could be done by volunteers using a graduated scale? Then, perhaps there is scope for working with the Highways Agency and local authorities to change working practices? Perhaps too, there is a case for using agri-environment money to make the essential changes and perhaps also to make sure that all verges get cut completely at the right time of year, rather than being left to turn to scrub?

I see a really nice project in the making – one that might generate a great HLF bid to combine the power of volunteer recorders with the influence of initiatives to improve pollinator numbers. There is something for the Wildlife Trusts to ponder. It requires a lot of skills and needs to involve botanists, ornithologists and entomologists. It could be exciting and might just make a difference.

Key points in the evolution of the Hoverfly Recording scheme

My last post elicited a number of threads of comments so I thought it might be helpful to chart the key stages in the scheme's development. The HRS was one of the first Diptera schemes and is now very much the flagship for British Diptera and Dipterists Forum. Its path has not always been smooth, and there are some important lessons to learn from the process. I have annotated the chart of total records per year to highlight key stages:

Figure 1. Numbers of records for each year class since 1950

1. The HRS was established in 1976 with Dr John Ismay (now specialist in Chloropidae) as its organiser. Dr Philip Entwistle replaced John some while later (I don't have the date for this) and ran the scheme until he retired from the Institute of Virology in 1987. When the scheme was launched, the only key was the RES key by Ralph Coe, which was very difficult to use, and highly out of date. Any serious student of the family had to use this in conjunction with numerous papers describing additional species.

During this time, data were trawled from the collections of active dipterists of the day, and a small amount of data was extracted from museum collections. No formal programme of data extraction from museums has ever taken place and it remains one of the big jobs on the list. Likewise, there has never been a formal process of extracting data from journals, although some local groups have done this for their 'patch'.

2. Stubbs & Falk's British Hoverfies: an illustrated identification guide was published in 1983. It resolved many of the critical problems with the literature and set the scene for a new approach to keys including thumbnail sketches for critical features. It was a game-changer in many ways and has become the model for most modern keys. In doing so, it opened up hoverflies to a much wider audience and interest in hoverflies grew substantially. The original print run was 1,000 copies: that rapidly sold out and a second print run was produced that incorporated a supplement detailing new species and new information.

3. Around 1986 there was a 'call for records' in anticipation of production of a 'provisional atlas'. This led to a major push to improve coverage and resulted in a big spike in recording in 1987. However, at this point Philip Entwistle retired and also stopped running the scheme. Graham Rotheray took over as Newsletter editor but there was nobody at the helm of the scheme and interest rapidly waned.

4. In 1991 Alan Stubbs persuaded Stuart Ball and Roger Morris to take on the scheme. The task was daunting because some 2 cubic metres of record cards had been amassed but there was no chance of their ever being computerised by BRC Monks Wood - they simply did not have the resources and there was ongoing austerity in funding for natural sciences. SB & RM therefore took the job on knowing that they would have to do the computerisation. It took 5 years. Some renewal of interest in hoverflies was stimulated but many of the most capable dipterists had become interested in other families and there was only a small blossoming of effort.

5. By 1997 the data were in order and it was possible to draft a 'provisional atlas'. Once drafted it took two years to get to the printers and was finally published in 2000.

Between 1998 and about 2005 SB and RM were not terribly active in promoting the HRS - various events influenced this period (RM being far from well). Furthermore, time was required to completely revise Stubbs & falk into the 2002 version that is available today.

6. Around 2005 SB and RM realised that there was a need to reinvigorate the scheme and to give it impetus early indications of a proposed revised provisional atlas were circulated amongst scheme members. At this time, nearly all communication with recorders was via the Hoverfly Newsletter that was issued twice-yearly. Around the same time, it was also realised that the 'old guard' of recorders was becoming aged and a new generation was needed. More emphasis on training was therefore part of the initiative. At this point we did not have the capacity to provide microscopes so courses could only be run at venues that could provide microscopes.

Around 2008-2009 the OPAL project was launched. It provided small grants to assist schemes and the HRS applied for funds to buy microscopes and to print teaching material. In two tranches, 13 teaching microscopes and camera microscope were purchased. This package has been the key to SB and RM running courses the length and breadth of the country. No count of courses or students has been kept so the absolute numbers are uncertain. However, it is estimated that around 400 people have attended hoverfly courses and probably a further 150 have attended the introduction to families course.

7. The second 'provisional atlas' was published. Originally planned for 2010 it finally emerged in conjunction with the 7th International Conference on the Syrphidae held in Glasgow. Work on this atlas stimulated some additional effort, but the big improvement in data arose when Kenn Watt was persuaded to join forces so that his Scottish data could be merged with the HRS data.

Since 2011 the HRS has been comparatively more active. Apart from training courses, SB and RM have spent a fair amount of time 'square bashing' in remote places. We started doing this from around 2004, with a major expedition to Harris and Lewis in 2006. RM has also done a significant number of trips alone.

8. in 2013 two events completely changed the way hoverflies were perceived amongst natural historians. Firstly, a new indroductory guide in the WILDGuides series was published. The UK Hoverflies Facebook group launched a few months later.

Membership of the FB group has grown exponentially and now stands at around 3,070. This initiative has seen the numbers of records entering the scheme grow very substantially, but only because RM has made a serious effort to ensure that data are extracted from the FB page. This growth in interest and effort has also led to changes in the organisation of the HRS. The scheme is now run by a group of eight: Ian Andrews, Stuart Ball, Joan Childs, David Iliff (Newsletter editor), Judy McKay, Roger Morris, Ellie Rotheray and Geoff Wilkinson. We anticipate that the suite of organisers will have to grow yet more because there is so much to do.

There have been plans to revise the 'provisional atlas' and that remains a key objective that SB and RM are working on at the moment. Quite when it will emerge is as yet uncertain!

updated hoverfly records

All of the data extracted and received for 2016 have now been uploaded into the HRS database. They largely speak for themselves but I thought it was worth doing a short piece to explain the graph and maps. Almost 52,000 records were added this week, mostly covering records from 2016 but also a few dating as far back as 2005.

The headline really should real HRS reaches 1 million records, but we fall a bit short of it officially (there are about 5,000 2016 personal records on my database still to go in). As it stands, the database currently holds 994,838 records. There is about 10% duplication within the dataset so the true number of 'unique' records is probably about 900,000. That leaves us a bit short of the million in strict terms but at the current rate 1 million 'unique' records should be achieved within the next two years, and 1 million records in total will be reached very soon – just as soon as I sort myself out and download my data to Stuart (just over 5,000 records for 2016 and a further 3,000 for 2017). I will also pass on the data I hold for 2017 so I suspect the total will reach 1,010,000 records in a few weeks time. The other big omission from these data is records submitted to LRCs - at some point Stuart will do a trawl of new data on the NBN.

This upload included MapMate synchs but not data on iRecord which we have still to work out what to do with. iRecord data cause us a bit of a problem because a LRC that shall be nameless uploaded its entire dataset and flooded it with data that we already have but that now we are not sure which to use – there is an awful lot of cross-checking to do before we can extract those data that are genuinely new and those that are re-determinations and queries. Even so, I think there are probably around 12,000 further records within iRecord to incorporate.

The most obvious feature of the data is the dramatic rise in the number of records received since 2013. The top four peaks for the most records received fall into the years 2016 (53,669); 2015 (48,708); 2014 (41,917); 1987 (39,442) respectively. We know the 1987 peak was stimulated by a 'call for records' in advance of atlas production that took a further 13 years to materialise!

Figure 1. Total yearly records within the database. The HRS was launched in 1976 and a major boost to recording occurred with the publication of Stubbs & Falk in 1983.

The current peaks can be attributed entirely to the UK Hoverflies Facebook group. It really goes to show what can be done when schemes encourage participation by people who might not be traditional recorders. As I recall (without going back to data) data extracted from FB probably comprises about 60% of the data received in the last few years (I must get Stuart to do a chart). This is reflected in the numbers of contributors to the dataset, up from 8,482 in 2016 to 8,865 now.

Coverage in 2016 shows that there is much more to do, with most recording concentrated in England. To a great extent this reflects the centres of population which inevitably means that recording effort will be more concentrated. A lot of Central Wales is both sparsely populated and difficult to work because easily accessible sites are more scattered and the geology is unhelpful (very poor acid conditions that limit species diversity). The same holds for much of Scotland, but it does surprise me just how few records we get, comparatively speaking.

The coverage maps are, however, simply a snap-shot of one year's effort and over a series of years the gaps do get filled in to a large extent. Nevertheless, there will be parts of the county where there will always be a shortfall in coverage without deliberate 'square-bashing' – something I have tried to do over the years, but I fear my efforts will be severely curtailed for the foreseeable future.

Figure 2. Record coverage (all sources) for 2016.

 

Figure 3. Number of species recorded from individual 10km squares in 2016.

An exemplar of watch and record

This last weekend I visited John Bridges whose spectacular stacked shots adorn the UK Hoverflies Facebook page. John has been a passionate photographer for decades but as his mobility diminishes he has had to adapt to an increasingly difficult situation. It is hard for those of us who have no mobility problems to understand what it is like to have to stop every 20 or 30 yards to alleviate pain in one's legs; yet this is what John battles with each day. Nevertheless, he is dedicated to his cause and has developed an amazing ability to record hoverflies by photography and then retaining specimens for microscopic examination. In doing so, he has generated some impressive species lists for four or five locations within a five mile radius of his home in County Durham. The combined species list for these sites is now over 100 species, which that far north is impressive by any measure.

What really struck me about John's sites is how 'ordinary' they are! I don't mean that in a disparaging way – quite simply, they are sites that might be encountered in many urban and sub-urban settings. They are not top-quality nature reserves but include an urban playing field, a well-used plantation woodland that is afflicted by teenage firebugs and a steam down what appears to be a spoil tip. That said, two of them are a shade unusual because they lie in close proximity to the wonderful Durham coast where major efforts are ongoing to re-wild the land immediately to the rear of the Permian limestone cliffs. They include sections of old/ancient woodland that forms part of the classic 'Dene' landscape of the Durham coast: deeply incised wooded stream valleys.

John Bridges at work on the margins of the famous 'Dandelion Field' in South Hetton

John making best use of 'old faithful' at Grants Houses - a busy footpath that is a pretty familiar urban setting.

John's lack of mobility means that he cannot stray from the path and has to keep to a radius of perhaps 100 metres of his car. His limited mobility means that he pursues hoverflies in the full gaze of the public and is obviously a well-known local feature. Everybody knows him and stops to say hello. Whilst this approach to wildlife recording might not be everybody's cup of tea, it is one that might be followed by other people with disabilities.

I would really like to see a project developed to encourage the disabled to develop similar skills and interests: maybe a joint venture between wildlife organisations and a disabled charity? I think there is potential to develop a project that would attract HLF funding and might make a real difference to the lives of people with physical disabilities. In doing so, perhaps it would also alleviate some of the mental disability that can accompany physical problems. If somebody picked up the baton, I think it is essential that the project had at its heart a focus on helping the disabled as much as to improve biological recording. John has shown what is possible; perhaps others will follow his lead.

Damp situation at Horden with Equisetum telmateia - usually a sign of base-richness that can be great for soldierflies.

What is involved in running a recording scheme?

Yesterday, a post on the UK Hoverflies Facebook page drew my attention to the possible need to set out what is involved in running a recording scheme. As a result, I wrote a quick list and then organised it according to a set of sub-headings. The list was quite a surprise to me because it really highlighted the depth and breadth of what was involved. My list covered all the jobs on the FB page and the others that go on in the background and comprised the following:

Identification service

• Provide IDs for UK Hoverflies  and UK Hoverfies Larval groups .
• Respond to ID queries by e-mail and by flickr pages.
• Provide specimen identification service for non-academic recorders.
• Provide specimen identification service for Universities.

Data management

• Extract data from FB page- maintain yearly spreadsheets.
• Chase posts that lack data.
• Scan FB page each day to ensure all posts have been noted and responded to.
• Trawl Flickr sites for records.
• Trawl iSpot for data.
• Check grid references and dates to make sure these are correct (get quite a lot in the sea!)
• Digitise card data and e-mail lists to spreadsheet for upload to database.
• Validate iRecord data.
• Check over (validate) incoming spreadsheets and format them for upload (all sorts of permutations, including converting word files to spreadsheet).
• Import data into HRS database.
• Supply data to research groups and NBN.

General management

• Provide sense of direction for the HRS.
• Manage applications to join FB group.
• Respond to e-mail enquiries from students and research groups – technical advice.
• Develop & manage HRS website.
• Manage applications to join HRS website and eliminate spammers.
• Publicity for the Scheme .

Feedback

• Prepare intermittent feedback for Facebook group, including annual report.
  
• Provide detailed responses to significant questions on FB concerning datasets/ecology etc.
  
• Write HRS outputs (e.g. atlas) and evaluate maps to identify questionable records .
  
• Write newsletter items (2x per year).
  
• Conference presentations and talks to local societies.

Training

• Collect and prepare specimens for running training courses.
• Act as interface with centres that want to run training courses.
• Organise travel and accommodation for training courses.
• Run training courses.

At the moment we have a team of eight: Ian Andrews, Stuart Ball, Joan Childs, David Iliff, Judy McKay, Ellie Rotheray, Geoff Wilkinson and, of course, me. Looking at what we do at the moment, it strikes me that the HRS has grown in a way that it is now analogous to a small society such as BWARS. The main difference is that, because we are not a subscription society, we don't have formal 'positions' that have to be filled. That is both an advantage and, possibly, also a drawback. On the plus side, we don't need formal officers such as 'secretary' or 'treasurer'; nor do we need committee meetings that are often highly time-consuming. On the downside, how do we ensure that there are democratic provisions so that the scheme does not become a personal fiefdom?

I am acutely conscious that I currently do a lot of the 'leadership' but that is by default and because I am naturally 'bossy'. It seems to work at the moment, but it also leaves a big question mark over the long-term organisation of the scheme. Stuart and I have now been at the helm for 26 years and we must start to think about a succession plan.

When we took on the scheme, it was moribund: the previous scheme organiser had retired and nobody had stepped forward to take over. Graham Rotheray took on the newsletter editorship (now David Iliff) but the scheme effectively died. At the time, recording schemes were a bit of a peripheral adjunct to wildlife conservation, but they now play a central role in the development of reliable wildlife data. The bigger schemes are mainly linked to formal societies (e.g. dragonflies and aculeate Hymenoptera). The HRS has links to Dipterists Forum, but the Forum has no say over the future of the scheme. This lack of oversight can be a problem because there is no way of replacing a scheme organiser who has ceased to drive the scheme. In the case of the HRS, we cannot afford to let things drift: hoverfly recording is so central to various initiatives, not least current interest in pollinators.

That makes me start to ask whether we should formalise the Scheme into a Society? My question at the moment is rhetorical, but it has a rationale. What happens when somebody wants to step down from a role? In a society, there is a mechanism for advertising for a replacement and a democratic process for making new appointments. In an informal recording scheme there is no such process. Who actually has a say in the replacements? Also, if there are formal roles, these can be quoted in people's CVs. This may be important for potential recruits amongst the younger generation who obviously need to show that they are doing something if they take on a role that may help to propel their career.

I leave this analysis as food for thought, but may return to it in due course.

An insight into a day's square-bashing

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of square-bashing, I thought it might be instructive to show how I approach the subject. The map below depicts the route I took on 9 June between Mallaig and Fort William. It involved a total of ten stops, mainly on roadside verges as real 'sites' are often hard to come by. Where I can, I try to stop by a stream or woodland so that there is potential to collect Nematocera for the Cranefly and Fungus Gnat schemes. In other places I stop for a matter of minutes when I spot somewhere that might yield a few hovers: after all, every record counts!

Map 1. Locations of sampling points when square-bashing on 9 June 2017. The first five sites took approximately 3 hours and the remaining sites were visited quickly on the return trip. I arrived at site 1 at around 10.15 and headed for home from site 10 around 3.45, reaching Kingussie at 5.45. The total round trip was about 180 miles. In the process, 6 ten kilometer squares were visited and a small number of hoverfly records was generated.

On this day, my aim was to cover part of the west coast that is very poorly recorded. The day was not ideal – a mixture of sunshine and showers – and there were very few nectar sources. So, apart from checking out the occasional roadside Rowan, it was a matter of sweeping to generate the majority of records.

Even so, I did find two very nice localities. The first was a lovely iris flush running to the shoreline, which is very characteristic of the west coast of Scotland Location 6 (photo 1); the second (Location 9, photo 2) was a delightful section of stream with adjacent meadows covered in pignut and with localised patches of brambles and dog rose. Both were pleasant and the second site yielded a reasonable list of hoverflies. Nevertheless, hoverflies were thin on the ground and I did far better for Nematocera.

Photograph 1. Flushed shoreline with iris beds abutting saltmarsh in a continuous transition.

Photo 2. Damp meadow with bramble and dog rose.

When recording Nematocera I simply hoover up everything that flies like a cranefly or gnat and then sort them when I get home. I often end up with a pooter full of small flies and refer to it as 'black grot' – which is frowned upon by Peter Chandler as he loves fungus gnats. Photographs 3 and 4 show the results – the pile of specimens for sorting, and the subsequent piles of gnats and craneflies. I'm afraid neither shot is terribly good as it was taken in the rather restricted light of my hotel room and there was probably an element of camera shake given long exposure time (I'm no photographer!). Out of this morass I also identify what I can from other families, and pin a small amount of specimens for identification in the winter (or a winter!). The end result often yields records of Lauxaniidae, Empididae, Dolichiopodidae, Tephritidae and Larger Brachycera, so lots of schemes benefit in the long-run.

Photo 3. Sample of flies collected before sorting. Whilst predominantly Nematocera (standard bird-food) there are also a range of other families and Orders, with a large green sawfly prominent on the right hand side, and several yellow Lauxaniids in the pile.

Photo 4. sample of Nematocera separated into craneflies and fungus gnats.

This is the sort of recording that others might wish to try. It is arguably the most effective way of making sure that one uses one's time efficiently and makes sure that as many schemes as possible benefit from what is a very expensive trip. I will post more on the results when I get data back from Alan and Peter.