ARC News

ARC Life in Lockdown

By Bryony Davison - Weald Field Officer

In response to government advice, all ARC staff began working from home at the end of March. Our field teams had to abandon fieldwork and fill their time with office and admin work. During the month of May, ARC senior management, in discussion with other wildlife organisations, decided that some of our outdoor work could resume. Our important on-site work cannot be carried out from home ,so when we are outdoors, we continue to ensure that we follow health and safety guidelines and adhere to government social distancing rules.

I have used the extra office time (my laptop in my living room) to catch up on the things I haven’t had time to do over the winter, which is our busiest habitat management season. I have collated last year’s survey data and written monitoring reports, among other things.

Now we have been given permission to carry out certain site tasks, I have been doing some reptile surveys which will inform our practical management later on in the year. The picture on the right is an adder I spotted on a recent survey. I have also been out refreshing some of our bare ground scrapes. We have prioritised the scrapes that have become most overgrown as without our attention, the sand lizards would have to find suboptimal places to dig egg burrows or may not breed at all.

Photo: Adder © Bryony Davison

In the Field

Ralph Connolly

Weald Field Officer & Volunteer Coordinator One of the solo site monitoring activities that has still been possible to carry out is our fixed-point photography long-term monitoring programme.

I have a range of photography posts set up across our Wealden sites from which myself and volunteers take twice yearly landscape shots (in spring and autumn) to record habitat changes. Over time this will build up

Gong Hill 2020 © ARC

a database of images to show how quickly a particular area of heath is being overgrown by scrub or how well a bare sand scrape is regenerating for example.

In the case of these two images taken in 2017 and 2020 at Gong Hill, they show the gradual recovery of an area of heather that was destroyed by fire in 2015.

James Anderson - Barr

Dorset Field Officer It’s great to be back on site and doing the job that I love since we got the go ahead to recommence some of our site duties.

The first few weeks of lockdown were particularly hard from a work perspective trying to don an admin hat and help out with the more office-based side of other departments work, especially having just finished 6 months of winter tasks. But I think that was a positive in itself because staff had a chance to dip into things they wouldn't normally do. Usually at this time of year I'm already delivering our events and guided walks here in Dorset.

Whilst visiting our sites during lockdown, I am seeing more general reserve work generated by the increased footfall and responding to more concerns from members of the public, including reports of anti social behaviour. This means there is more work ensuring footpath access is clear, fixing broken gates and fencing, removing fly tipping, camps and barbeques and of course reiterating the heathland codes around this time of year with an emphasis on disturbance to lockdown. © James Anderson-Bar (ARC)

ground nesting birds and reptiles and fire risks during a very long spell of hot dry weather.

William Emmett - Mair

Dorset Field Officer

I’ve been wardening our more urban sites and I’ve seen a lot of people using the heath. There are the heathland regulars but there’s also people that won’t have used the site regularly before but now, because of the travel restrictions, are discovering more of what’s on their doorstep.

This is the time of year where I will be looking at

Photo: BBQ activity on a Dorset Reserve. Unfortunately a common site during what jobs need doing on site throughout the

Purbeck mason wasp emerging from burrow © William Emmett-Mair (ARC)

Purbeck mason wasp © Chris Dresh.

summer but because of the new working restrictions and the social distancing rules there are some jobs which just won’t get done.

One of the jobs which I am able to do is make sure that our sites have appropriate signage. There are not many places where you can be attaching Coronavirus information signs and be able to see a plethora of sand lizards on the track sides as well! I have also had the pleasure of witnessing the endangered Purbeck mason wasp (Pseudepipona herrichii) digging her burrow (pictured left) on my travels.