SACON- India's success story in birds conservation

The Salim Ali Centrefor Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) located at Anaikatty, in India. SACON is a national centre for studies in Ornithology and Natural History. The centre was named befittingly after Dr. Salim Ali in appreciation of his life long services to India's bird life and conservation of natural resources.He is the person to whom I admire a lot. Apart from developing and conducting regular postgraduate courses in Ornithology and Natural History, SACON also designs and conducts research in ornithology covering all aspects of biodiversity and natural history.

Introduction to Wale’s water plants

4^th November 2013

It's been more than a month in the Bangor University. This month provided me many opportunities to visit various types of wetlands in the Wales. However, for the first time I visited Treborth Botanic garden with primary focus on plants of wetland's.

Treborth Botanic garden

Treborth Botanic Garden is owned and managed by Bangor University from 1960. The garden covers an area of 18 hectares on the shores of the Menai Strait. Though the garden is open to public, it is equally used for the research and teaching activities by various departments of the University. Similarly, our purpose of visiting the garden was to get more knowledge about aquatic plants of the Wales.

Wooden logs providing support to constructed dipping pond

Around 10 am, we reached Treborth and had a meeting with prof Nigel Brown in the lab. After having quick introduction of plants kingdom, we moved outside to collect samples.  It was exciting to see the collection of native plants from the mountains of Snowdonia and coastal habitats of Wales in one garden. The garden aims to provide opportunities for study and experimentation with flora from many ecological niches including freshwater and seashore.

Nigel Brown introducing us with Typha

 By the end of the visit we had collected many plants for the identification in the laboratory. Now, it was time for us to study plant samples in the lab.  We spent around 3 hours and made a list of plants collected from the garden. Given below is the list of plants collected from the garden:  Juncus errusus, Gypsywort (Lycopus europaeus), Ivy Leaved Duckweed, Common Duckweed, RigidHornwort, Floating sweet grass, Geater Spearwort, Water Mint and Water Starwort.

Malltraeth Marsh survey

After lab work, we headed towards the Malltraeth Marsh around 3 pm. Malltraeth Marsh is a large marsh area in Anglesey, North Wales. It is reclaimed from estuarine marshes after the construction of the Malltraeth. It is also known as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in West Gwynedd. It is famous for the breeding ground of various bird communities.

 Malltraeth Marsh overview

 Along with bird diversity, this Marsh provides habitat to floras. The marsh is rich with many plants including reed canary-grass, Juncus, horsetail (Equisetum fluviatile), potamogeton, Juncus effuses, water-plantain, Typha latifolia, branched bur-reed, Club rush, Phragmites, bog bean, sparganium, willow and reed sweet-grass. Spiked water-milfoil, blunt-leaved pondweed, horned pondweed, common male fern are also reported in the marsh land, apart from rare species of flowering-rush, water-violet and marsh stitchwort. 

Juncus effusus

Phragmites

Typha

Knowing aquatic plants along with their characteristics was definitely huge chance for us. Along with observing various marsh plants, we also got an opportunity to see flocks of starlings when we were coming back .

Cors Fochno (Borth Bog)

Weather condition: Windy, temperature around 15⁰ c

                                                                                                                                                                        

 My field visits to the raisedbog, Cors Fochno (Borth Bog).  Cors Fochno (Borth Bog) is a low-lying raised bog in mid wales.  Cors Fochno visit was interesting but it was full of weather fluctuations.  Besides from that, we got an opportunity to understand the bog ecology and conservation measures applied to conserve that site with the help of ranger Mike, who is working there for more than 25 years.  He mentioned that Cors Fochno comes under the designation of a Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Area (SPA), Ramsar Convention onWetlands, Biosphere site, National Nature Reserve (NNR) and Site of SpecialScientific Interest (SSSI).  I think these multiple designations are sufficient to understand, how important is this bog to Wales. So, it was a huge opportunity to understand for fresher.

Overview of Cors Fochno

Sphagnum with dry grass

Cors Fochno (Borth Bog) is known to be one of the largest of 3 estuaries in North Wales and mire remained in the Britain. Mike told us, the bog was undisturbed till 19^th century, although local communities were used to live nearby that site. Earlier communities used to utilize bog for very organized grazing purpose only. However, with passing years pit cutting made situation worst. Now, bog is in quite good condition, after 

conservation initiation made by them to protect. Though many peatlands of the Britain have been lost due to the encroachment, this area has seen no impact now days. Mike told us a story behind that. He told us they were able to conserve the bog because that area is isolated from the city area. Along with that the margins of the bog have been drained and improved over the years and many restoration programs also helped to restore it.

 The management of the bog has been big concern for the authorities since many years, in 1990 due to drainage all bog species were wiped, they tried to revert it back by applying natural method of ditch blocking but they were not successful. After that they keep on trying new methods, now they use Welsh ponies and traditional breeds of cattle to control scrub grass in the bog.

 The bog has rich diversity of flora and fauna, below given is the list of diversity found within the bog”. After survey it was clear for me that the bog is dominated by sphagnum moss species. Mike told us the bog has 14 species of moss in which few species are more dominant such as Sphagnum cuspidatum, Sphagnum fuscum, Sphagnumaustinii. Sphagnum cuspidatum is known to be key indicator of the bog. Along with sphagnum, many grass species are common in this bog including cotton grass, deer grass and common grass.

Dragonfly basking in the sunlight

Myrica gale

The bog is providing habitat to many insects. Among rare insects that live in the Borth Bog, it is perhaps best known for its population of the Rosy Marsh Moth (Eugraphe subrosea). It is believed that this bog has the largest population of Rosy Marsh Moth. I was shocked to know that carnivorous plant named Sundew is also found in the bog, which indicates the undisturbed condition of the bog.Good population of beetles, spiders, dragonflies, damsel dragonfly and butterflies are very common.  The field survey conducted by us gave us pH 5.34, conductivity 0.07 and depth 5 mt. That data was sufficient for us to understand perfect example of bog.

Target: North Wales LLYN PADRIG

Weather condition: Around 15 to 18 ° c, sunny and pleasant weather

Field visit to LLYN PADRIG on 24 October 2013 provided a great experience. LLYN PADRIG is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). It is an area that has also been declared as a place of special interest under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for its flora, fauna, geological or physiographic features. This is small mesotrophic basin mire, where wetland plants have developed in a former lake basin in which an area of open water is still present.  

The whole area is an amalgamation of 3 regions- first region includes lake basins, second region is floating area wetland within the buffer zone and third region includes a part, which almost terrestrilized. The major part of the site is cover by a 'lawn' of sphagnum (bog moss) and common wetland herbs such as bog bean and marsh cinquefoil.

LLYN PADRIG lake region 1

This open water body supports rare water plants including marshy grassland, scrub and wet woodland along with harboring willow, alder and birch. The habitat supports several nationally scarce water plants such as hair-like-pondweed, waterwort, slender spike-rush and several other peculiar water plants are also abundant in pools and the remaining lake area. Bottle sedge, common cotton grass, and the moss Calliergon cuspidatum also found. Other associated plants such as greater spearwort is common to observe. Patches of alder and grey willow occur around the perimeter of the site.  

After collection of soil sample

 LLYN PADRIG Region 2(Floating fen)

Richness of floral diversity made biodiversity estimation very knowledgeable and easy for us. Along with biodiversity estimation, field survey was conducted to find out pH, conductivity and depth of the soil of the site. Samples were also collected to perform laboratory work.

Cattle grazing at LLYN PADRIG

LLYN PDRIG region 3 (Terrestralised)

Given below is the field survey data collected from the site:

Site	Soil PH (pH)	Soil conductivity	Average floral diversity	Depth (meters)
Site 1	4.44	0.09 (S/m)	4	NA
Site 2	4.87	0.02(S/m)	7	5 m
Site 3	3.98	0.04(S/m)	8	5 m

In spite of supporting numbers of plants and birds, this site is facing many management issues related with excessive grazing and water level fluctuation but authorities are working towards the resolution of various issues, I believe one day they will be successful. Finally, I can say the field visit to LLYN Padrig  was very good learning for me in many aspect.