‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Laugh with the kookaburra

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by sconzani in 'Dedicated Naturalist' Project, birds, nature

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Australian birds, autograph book, Dr Mary Gillham, Explore Your Archives, Mary Gillham Archive Project

A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Mary Gillham Archives Project, to celebrate Explore Your Archive, a campaign co-ordinated jointly by The National Archives and the Archives and Records Association that aims ‘to showcase the unique potential of archives to excite people, bring communities together, and tell amazing stories’.

I just love this piece Mary wrote in the autograph book of Lynette A. Smith, from the small town of Lady Barron, on Flinders Island, Australia, on 18 December 1958. Not only does it show Mary’s keen observation of bird life (also apparent in her drawings), but it also offers some interesting pearls of wisdom.

161126-gillham-gannets

Pursue your ideals as a gannet dives for fish – straight and undeviating;
Show constancy of purpose, like a mutton bird returning yearly to the same burrow;
Seek diligently for what is worthwhile as the Cape Barren goose seeks titbits of vegetation;
Guard your morals jealously against the tempter, as the oyster-catcher guards its eggs against intruders;
Go about your business without fuss, like a storm petrel flitting through the night;
Be patient as the penguin chick waiting for mum to come home with supper;
Be decorative, like the tern which cleaves the air in soaring flight;
Be thrifty like the silver gull which leaves no fruitful possibility unexplored;
Laugh with the kookaburra, sing with the magpie and you will soar as high as the sea eagle.

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: A mouse in the house

21 Monday Nov 2016

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Dr Mary Gillham, Mary Gillham Archive Project, Mary Gillham drawing, Mary Gillham nature diary, mice, mouse, mouse in house

From one of Mary’s nature diaries, July 1981:

Cat food was shared by 2 mice this month. An adult was holed up in carpet sweeper – the entrance the spiral gap between the brushes – to nest of carpet fluff. Had used for several minutes sweeping carpet before I sensed that all was not well and tipped contents into bucket. Bemused mouse, near asphyxiated and with nerves shattered by the trundling and rumbling, did not jump out of bucket but was tipped into garden and scuttled off under old fridge at end of path. Offered water and a gooseberry, neither of which was seen to be touched.

The 2nd mouse, less than half grown, was surprised feeding on kit-e-kat, the only provender accessible. We played tag round the buckets and mops but this one took refuge under the new fridge. Presumably both were brought in originally by cat, whose ailment of tapeworm inhibits her hunting ability not at all.

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Paradise found

19 Saturday Nov 2016

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Blue Penguin, Dr Mary Gillham, Explore Your Archives, Mary Gillham Archive Project, Mary Gillham in New Zealand, Naturalist in New Zealand, Ringa Ringa Beach

Dr Mary Gillham spent 1957 in my homeland, New Zealand and, though officially on an exchange lecturership at Massey University, she also used her time for field research into the country’s unique flora and fauna. Mary had a particular passion for seabirds so the huge range of avian life to be found along New Zealand’s lengthy coastline must have seemed like paradise found.

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Within weeks of her arrival she was marvelling at a magnificent male Royal Albatross on Otago Peninsula with ranger Stanley Sharpe: ‘a lone male was sitting out on the hillside and we were able to watch it at close quarters for almost an hour – he, having no natural enemies, taking little notice of us’; and, a week later, delighting in the antics of penguins at Ringa Ringa Beach on Stewart Island (pictured below): ‘[we] were entertained by a yellow crested penguin who had come inshore to moult and wasn’t going back to sea for any humans’.

161119 Mary Gillham at Ringa Ringa

Mary was unsettled by the kakas on Kapiti Island: ‘it was most disconcerting to be firing the [camera] trigger at a couple of wekas and a tui with a kaka landing plomp on my head’; and entertained by blue penguins on The Brothers: ‘2 of them ran into a fallen Hebe bough and one got annoyed and blamed the other, leaping across his back and then slapping the bird’s sides with resounding thwacks of his flippers’. (Mary’s sketch of them is shown below.)

When she eventually returned to Britain, Mary wrote a book about her Kiwi adventures (A Naturalist in New Zealand, Museum Press, London and Reed Books, New Zealand, 1966). Not surprisingly, a painting of birds graces its cover.

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Meeting the locals

14 Monday Nov 2016

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Brushtail possum, Dr Mary Gillham, Mary Gillham Archive Project, New Zealand animal, opossum, possum, Trichosurus vulpecula

A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’ Project, helping to decipher and digitise, record and publicise the life’s work of naturalist extraordinaire, Dr Mary Gillham. Today I’ve been reading Mary’s diaries from the year she spent in my homeland, New Zealand, and rather enjoyed her meeting with a local character called Percy.

Thursday 14 March 1957
On my way back to Mog [Moginie House, where she was living] thro’ the wood tonight I made the proper acquaintance of ‘Percy the Possum’. Previously we had only heard each other – he having formed the disquieting habit of sitting on the fire escape outside my window at dead of night and making the most disgusting noises. Ear-splitting grunts and croaks sufficient to wake even me. I spotted him on a low branch in the dusk, was foolish enough to stand underneath and got a large, partly eaten apple dropped on my head. We discoursed in squeaks and grunts for a period, then I descended to road level to get the torch from my bicycle the better to see him with. He waited obligingly, objected not at all to the light, and continued to fraternise for approximately ½ an hour, moving slowly around a few yards away from me to display his soft brown fur, handsome squirrel’s tail, pink nose and huge ears to advantage.

161114-possum

And a couple of weeks later …

Tuesday 9 April 1957
Percy, the big bright brown ’possum, is now a regular feature of the last part of my walk home through the dark or moonlit bush – sitting crunching apples on the kowhai next the Mog orchard. Persephone, his smaller greyer companion, is equally friendly to the passing stranger but remains in the lower part of the Mog wood.

I should perhaps add here that, although Mary creates a charming picture of this Australian marsupial, the Brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) is considered a major pest in New Zealand due to its destruction of our native flora and fauna.

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

Draethen Fungi Foray update

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by sconzani in 'Dedicated Naturalist' Project, fungi, nature

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British fungi, Dr Mary Gillham, Draethen woodlands, fungi foray, Mary Gillham Archive Project, Walking with Mary

When I posted about our ‘Walking with Mary’ fungi foray in Draethen Woodlands last Saturday, I said I would report back with our final species list. Just as Mary and her colleagues had walked these woods in both October and November, so did we, with a site recce on 19 October and then our group foray on 6 November, so this is actually the combined list for both walks. Mary had recorded more than 90 different species of fungi; our total is 79. Being optomistic, I think the lesser number can probably be attributed to our dry autumn weather this year rather than any species loss.

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Here are more photos of the fungi we found, followed by the full species list for any keen fungi fans out there. You can see details of the walk and Mary’s species lists on the Mary Gillham Archive Project website here.

Scientific name	Common name
Agaricus sp.
Amanita sp.	Possibly Death Cap Amanita phalloides
Amanita vaginata	Grisette
Armillaria gallica	Bulbous Honey Fungus
Armillaria mellea	Honey Fungus
Ascocoryne sarcoides	Purple Jellydisc
Auricularia auricula-judae	Jelly ear
Bisporella citrina	Lemon Disco
Bjerkandera adusta	Smoky Bracket
Chlorociboria sp.	Green elf cup
Clavaria vermicularis	White Spindles
Collybia butyracea var. asema	Butter cap
Collybia sp.
Coprinellus micaceus	Glistening inkcap
Coprinus sp.	Possibly Shaggy Inkcap
Coprinus sp.	Possibly Common Inkcap
Cortinarius sp.
Crepidotus applanatus	Flat oysterling
Crepidotus mollis	Peeling oysterling
Cystolepiota seminuda
Daedaleopsis confragosa	Blushing bracket
Daldinia concentrica	King Alfred’s cakes
Diatrype disciformis	Beech Barkspot
Exidia nucleata	Crystal brain
Exidia sp.	Either E. plana or E. glandulosa
Ganoderma sp.	Either G. adspersum or G. applanatum
Gymnopus dryophilus	Russet Toughshank
Hydnum sp.	Possibly H. repandum Hedgehog Fungus
Hygrocybe conica	Conical Wax-Cap
Hygrophorus discoxanthus	Yellowing woodwax
Hygrophorus eburneus	Ivory Woodwax
Hypholoma capnoides	Conifer tuft
Hypholoma fasciculare	Sulphur tuft
Hypholoma marginatum	Snakeskin Brownie
Hypoxylon fragiforme	Beech woodwart
Hypoxylon fuscum	Hazel Woodwart
Kretzschmaria deusta	Brittle cinder
Laccaria amethystina	Amethyst deceiver
Lactarius aurantiacus	Orange Milkcap
Leotia lubrica	Jellybaby
Lepista sp.	Possibly Lepista nuda Wood Blewitt
Lycogala sp.	Orange slime mould
Lycoperdon excipuliforme	Pestle puffball
Lycoperdon nigrescens	Dusky puffball
Lycoperdon pyriforme	Stump Puffball
Marasmius wynnei	Pearly parachute
Mutinus caninus	Dog stinkhorn
Mycena arcangeliana	Angel’s bonnet
Mycena diosma
Mycena haematopus	Burgundydrop bonnet
Mycena rosea	Rosy bonnet
Mycena sp.
Mycena vitilis	Snapping Bonnet
Oudemansiella mucida	Porcelain Fungus
Phallus impudicus	Stinkhorn
Pholiota squarrosa	Shaggy Scalycap
Phragmidium bulbosum	Rubus leaf rust fungus
Phragmidium violaceum	Violet Bramble Rust
Piptoporus betulinus	Birch polypore
Pluteus phlebophorus	Wrinkled shield
Postia caesia	Conifer blueing bracket
Postia sp.	A crust fungus
Psathyrella sp.	One of the Brittlestem fungi
Ramaria sp.	Coral fungus
Rhodocollybia butyracea	Butter cap
Rhytisma acerinum	Sycamore Tarspot
Russula sp.
Sarea resinae
Scleroderma sp.	Earthball
Stereum hirsutum	Hairy curtain crust
Terana coerulea	Cobalt crust
Thelephora terrestris	Earth-Fan
Trametes gibbosa	Lumpy Bracket
Trametes versicolor	Turkey tail
Tricholoma terreum	Grey Knight
Xylaria carpophila	Beechmast Candlesnuff
Xylaria hypoxylon	Candlesnuff
Xylaria longipes	Dead Moll’s Fingers
Xylaria polymorpha	Dead Man’s Fingers

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Walking with Mary in Draethen Woodlands

06 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by sconzani in 'Dedicated Naturalist' Project, autumn, fungi, nature, trees

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Dr Mary Gillham, Draethen, Draethen woodlands, fungi foray, Glamorgan Fungus Club, Mary Gillham Archive Project, Walking with Mary

161106-draethen-walk-with-mary-1

Today I joined my fellow members of the Mary Gillham Archive Project, my friends in the Glamorgan Fungus Club, and members of the local Wildlife Trust and Cardiff Naturalists’ Society to walk in the footsteps of Mary Gillham in Draethen Woodlands. And what a fabulous day it has been!

Mary visited these woods many times from the 1960s to the 1990s, sometimes with friend and fungi expert Roy Perry, sometimes with groups similar to ours, and they recorded over 90 different species of fungi during the months of October and November. Our aim today was to recreate Mary’s walks, to see how many fungi species we could find, and to compare those past records with ours.

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It’s been a dry autumn in South Wales so we weren’t sure how much fungi we would find but, turns out, fungi are plentiful and fruiting well under the leafy boughs of this beautiful woodland. From the lower car park our group of almost 50 people strolled along the metalled forestry road, venturing left and right amongst the tall beech trees, eyes peeled for fungi, and we were not disappointed.

From the obvious mushroom shapes of the wood-rotting Honey fungi and the shelf-like protrusions of various brackets to the less easy to spot black blobs of Dead Moll’s Fingers, the common fungi species were what we’d expected to see and were relatively easy to find. We were delighted to also find some unexpected treasures: sprinklings of the charmingly named Jellybabies, a wealth of Earthfans carpeting a large area and the delicate bonnets of various Mycena species.

We’ve still to collate and tally up our fungi finds, so I’ll report back in a couple of days with the full list and a few more photos. If you live in the area and want to do this walk for yourself, the details can be found here.

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Mary and the donkeys

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by sconzani in 'Dedicated Naturalist' Project, animals, nature

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Catherine Duigan, donkey, Dr Mary Gillham, Irish donkeys, Mary Gillham Archive Project

A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’ Project, helping to decipher and digitise, record and publicise the life’s work of naturalist extraordinaire, Dr Mary Gillham.

Thanks in part to the slide-perusing efforts of one of our most fervent supporters and advisory board member, Catherine Duigan of Natural Resources Wales, we have come to realise that Mary Gillham was a sucker for donkeys.

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Catherine is Irish and has been blogging, on her own blog and for the Mary Gillham Archive Project website, about Mary’s adventures in Ireland, where the donkey still played a vital part in industry and transportation, especially in the more rural areas and on the Irish islands Mary visited.

In her book This Island Life: Discovering Britain’s Offshore Gems (Halsgrove, 2007, p.20), Mary writes about the use of horse- and donkey-power on Cape Clear Island, County Cork:

Most ploughing, and certainly harrowing, and lighter jobs, were dependent on horse power. Horse, donkey and mule might be teamed together to pull the heavier implements and we also encountered the less usual hinny, the sire a horse stallion and the dam a mare donkey, jennet or jenny. This is the opposite cross to the one producing a mule.

You’ll find some delightful reproductions of Mary’s donkey slides in Catherine’s blogs (here and here) but I couldn’t resist hunting out a few more. They capture a wonderful slice of local Irish life which, I imagine, has now mostly disappeared so Mary’s archival records are helping to preserve these important and thoroughly charming aspects of Irish cultural and social history.

Great sandy inlet being cut off from sea. Kilronan

Plane landing on ungrazed airstrip, Inisheer

Mutual preening. Big northeast bay-> lagoon. Lotus, Aran

Revegetated plot from pierhead. Jaunting cart 2006

Old man comes out to mount ass. Aran

Donkeys help Nance James peel an apple, Aran

Fence preserves Inisheer’s cemetary 1979

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, https://marygillhamarchiveproject.wordpress.com/ and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: What is a cow?

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by sconzani in 'Dedicated Naturalist' Project, animals, nature

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cow, cow as a machine, dairy cow, Dr Mary Gillham, fun description of a cow, Mary Gillham Archive Project

A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’ Project, helping to decipher and digitise, record and publicise the life’s work of naturalist extraordinaire, Dr Mary Gillham. This piece is from Mary’s days as a Land Girl during the Second World War and is, it seems, ‘a dairying student’s concept of a cow’.

A cow is a completely automatic milk manufacturing machine. It is encased in untanned leather and mounted on four movable vertical supports, one on each corner.

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The front end contains the cutting and grinding machine, as well as headlights, air inlet and exhaust, and bumper and foghorn. At the rear is the dispensing apparatus and an automatic fly swatter.

The central portion houses a hydrochemical conversion plant. This consists of four fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network of flexible plumbing. This section also contains the heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main ventilating system. The waste processing and disposal apparatus is located at the rear of this central section.

In brief, the external visible features are: two lookers, two hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers and a swishy-wishy.

There is a similar machine known as a bull which should not be confused with a cow. It produces no milk but has other interesting features.

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Sessile or pedunculate?

03 Saturday Sep 2016

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Dr Mary Gillham, Durmast oak, Lowland oak, Mary Gillham Archive Project, Pedunculate Oak, Quercus pedunculata, Quercus petraea, Quercus robur, Quercus sessiliflora, Sessile oak, Upland oak, volunteering

A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’ Project, helping to decipher and digitise, record and publicise the life’s work of naturalist extraordinaire, Dr Mary Gillham. This is an extract from a piece called ‘The British Oak’, written for the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society newsletter, September 1991.

Oak is Britain’s national tree. Hearts of oak were our ships and an oak tree appears on the head of the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society notepaper. Yet how many of us can tell the two native British oaks apart – or even realise that there are two? …

We have the Lowland Oak, [in Wales] predominantly in the Vale of Glamorgan, and the Upland Oak, predominantly on the Coalfield hills. If you live along the South Border Ridges backing Cardiff – Pentyrch or thereabouts – you will have both, and also a wide range of hybrids between, so you may be excused a certain degree of confusion.

Mary Gillham’s 1962 watercolour of a hybrid oak

The Lowland or Pedunculate Oak has stalked acorns and unstalked leaves [as in my photo, left below]. (A peduncle is a flower of fruit talk and the name applies to these.) The ‘proper’ name was formerly a neatly descriptive Quercus pedunculata until some egg-headed boffin decided to change it to Quercus robur, which seems to mean very little.

The Upland, Durmast or Sessile Oak has stalkless acorns, sessile, or sitting directly on the woody twig, and stalks to the leaves, which taper to the base instead of terminating in two ear flaps [as in Mary’s photo, below right]. The ‘proper’ name of this was Quercus sessiliflora until (probably the same) taxonomist changed it to a meaningless Quercus petraea.

These scientists do so like to make things difficult for us. Well, yes, so does Mother Nature. I, too, live on the Border Ridges, so my oaks have stalks to both acorns and leaves. That’s the sort of thing which happens with all this indiscriminate sexual intercourse!

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, https://marygillhamarchiveproject.wordpress.com/ and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Crafty grey squirrels

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by sconzani in 'Dedicated Naturalist' Project, animals, nature

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acorn, acorn weevil, Dr Mary Gillham, grey squirrel, Mary Gillham Archive Project, oak tree

A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’ Project, helping to decipher and digitise, record and publicise the life’s work of naturalist extraordinaire, Dr Mary Gillham. This is an extract from a piece called ‘Oak trees and rabbits helped by those crafty grey squirrels’, written by Mary for the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society newsletter, June 1997:

We hear a lot about the squirrels’ intelligence in overcoming man’s best efforts to deter them from appropriating victuals put out for others. Recent work … has revealed their native wisdom in dealing with more natural foods.

160802 grey squirrel (1)

Many acorns are invaded by weevils, which are as acceptable as squirrel food as is the surrounding nut, but which shorten the life and viability of the fruit. Acorns collected are assessed for longevity by the squirrels, the infected ones eaten and the sound ones buried for another day. This guarantees them a surer food supply for winter and benefits the oak population by giving a higher than average viability of the acorns left to germinate and provide tender shoots for rabbits, rodents and sheep.

The squirrels’ ability … [is] from a high level of intellect evolved to better their own lot and – as part of the general wider plan governing the complex web of nature – to benefit others. Natural mechanisms of behaviour have more repercussions than are at first apparent!