Photo competition display - on tour!

Images on display in Bakewell Gallery

A display of the winning, runner-up and selected short-listed photos from our 'water in the uplands' themed photographic competition is now touring venues throughout the summer and into autumn. You can visit the exhibition at the venues below; and we will add more dates to the list when new venues are confirmed.

26th May - 9th June: Gallery Oldham
9th June - 23rd June: Totley Library
23rd June - 7th July - Bakewell Tourist Information Centre
7th July - 21st July - Sheffield Central Library
21st July - 4th August - Marsden Moor Exhibition Centre (National Trust)
4th August - 18th August - Brownhill Countryside Centre, Greater Manchester
18th August - 1st September - Hayfield Library
1st September - 15th September - University of Sheffield -Western Bank Library
15th September - 23rd September - Edale Visitor Centre and 'BogFest'

Surveying bumblebees - Sheffield University Conservation Volunteers

Guest post by Amruta Tendolkar (Sheffield University Conservation Volunteers)  http://sheffuniconservation.wix.com/sucv

As a sequel to the Sphagnum moss workshop that we did with the Moors for the Future, 15 of us headed to Longshaw Estate on Saturday to learn how to identify and survey bumblebees.

SUCV looking for bees!

Loss of flowers for foraging, loss of suitable nest sites and use of pesticides have led to the rapid decline of many bumblebee species in Britain. Bumblebees are better pollinators than most other species of bees because they can travel up to 2km from their nests in search of flowers and their tongues are much varied in length. Hence, it is essential to save them.

Studying bumblebee specimens before heading out

For this reason, Moors for the Future has initiated surveys to note down the abundance of bumblebees around moorland. They have chosen three species which are easy to identify and will be interesting to track in response to climate change. The morning session gave us pointers to identify these three bumblebee species and a few others commonly found in the area.In the afternoon, we took a walk around Longshaw Estate in search of some bees. 

 

Bumblebee survey materials

Since it is quite early for them to come out of hibernation, we could spot only two. However, the weather was sunny and everyone had a great time!

SUCV taking a well earned break at the end of the day

Thanks to everyone who came for the workshop and a big thank you to Tom, for conducting it.

The wettest month ever

One of the variables which is recorded on each Community Science Environmental Monitoring site in rainfall level.

To do this, volunteers install an automated rain gauge. This works by channeling water which falls on the surface of a bucket down a funnel into a tipper mechanism. Each time the tipper fills, an automatic logger records 1 'event'. Each event (i.e. tip) equates to 0.2mm of rain, so if you know how many times the tipper has tipped you can work out how much rain has fallen and when.

Inside the rain gauge -  the tipper mechanism is visible in the middle

As you may know, December 2015 holds the overall UK prize for the wettest month since records began. So how much rain did we record?

The graph below shows the daily amount of rain that fell on our site near Holme (West Yorkshire) throughout December - downloaded from the rain gauge by the volunteers who look after the site.

The wettest days were the 12th and the 26th - both recording over 50mm of rain -  and as you might remember the heavy rainfall around both storms 'Desmond' and 'Eva' (Boxing day) caused extensive flooding in areas of Cumbria,Yorkshire and Lancashire - and equate to these readings.

December rainfall at Holme EM site (mm)

The total which fell on this site in December was 294.8mm, this compares to 230mm which was the average UK total for the month, and 137mm which was the figure for England. More information about December's weather can be found on the Met Office website.