Philip Amies

A thing we all know, perhaps obscured somewhat by change in FC policy in 1985 favouring broadleaf planting, but is a plantation a wood?

often limited species age range of canopy trees, or singling oak coppice to produce high forest, or woodland drainage. The tremendous changes in woodland seem often to be underplayed.

Reading an interesting study on a declining woodland bird, mentions the many changes since 1940s, but strangely not the 40% of ancient woodland which have been converted into mainly conifer plantations, or change in coppice system, or high forest planting using conifer nurses producing a uniform

Maybe full autocracy, not just workers rights.

I do think a person's standing in experience and education is a valid question, personally if somebody does not have that but does the work to back up a statement I'm going to look at that evidence more than worry about a person's position in society including their education and experience.

Depressing

A) the north-western Maghreb, showing the location of Kach Kouch and other sites mentioned in the text; B) the Gharb region showing the reconstructed palaeolagoon and known Bell Beaker sites; C) view of Kach Kouch and the Oued Laou estuary, looking east; D) view from Kach Kouch, looking west, of the inner valleys of the western Rif mountains. Basemaps: ASTER GDEM and Landsat 8 (figure by H. Benattia).

Was the Maghreb an ‘empty land’ before the Phoenicians arrived?
Often seen as marginal in relation to the civilisations of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, the identification of distinctive cultural practices and extensive connections in north-west Africa disproves this idea.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

How pervasive is this abandonment of evidence-based science, authority and belief seem increasingly prevalent in society, with spin and messaging shaping belief.

evidence based claims.

How do you think that went?

The man was a nice polite person doing good things, probably we agree on many things, that is not the issue, it is a cultural clash of what matters, claims of authority or evidence. At least relevant experience is a starting point but it is just a start, leading to

Southern Marsh Orchids population has crashed is this Muntjac? but largely management has been increasingly positive. I don't think evidence such as condition assessment or any other metric played a part it was more an exercise in telling me how to think, not presenting evidence to justify a claim.

Public access and dogs are difficult issues, Fox predation is also, disturbance and predation from perspective of Little Tern, Ringed Plover, Lapwing the situation is bad.

Serious issues exist, largely beyond landowner and statutory state conservation bodies control, climate change, drought, regional water abstraction. Efforts have been made to manage NOx deposition (in part worsened by visitor access).

I did not even disagree with his claim (with some qualifications), I just wanted to understand the basis for it, rather than relevant experience, actual evidence, I got status and authority which derives from that.

I don't think we were even talking about the same thing, when this man said the local nature reserve is well managed I think he was judging it from an organisational human perspective, not from the perspective of land management and biodiversity outcomes.

I probed the basis for the statement, it was not even based on relevant job experience, purely status.

I'm used to be patronised as a land manager by people who consider their qualifications and job title are grand. Inevitably we tend to accept experience-based expertise does give some standing, but it is the evidence which matters, something I'm used to even the more arrogant 'expert' acknowledging.

On a walk today I had a conversation which highlighted a clash of cultures, it was a claim based on authority, not even relevant experience, purely high status based on global elite job.

The opposite to the evidence-based conservation science I have known for a lifetime of involvement with land.

Willing to bet on it being predator control by gamekeepers (the legal sort not the frequent illegal sort), although they might try game cover and feeding, hopefully they have given up on no woods or hedges without shooting.

Press Release: Staggering Recovery of Plants and Seabirds on Marshallese Islands Just One Year After Rat Removal - Island Conservation Astonishing results from our work to restore sites in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, boosting climate resilience and ocean health!

"After only one year, the transformation is dramatic. A colony of 2000 Sooty Terns, where there was previously none, were feeding hundreds of chicks. We also counted 1000’s of native Pisonia grandis tree seedlings across just 60 12m monitored plots on the forest floor—in 2024 we found zero." 🌏

Dowdy less fabulous version, performed in villages halls, never booked twice. What are the odds that later they went looking for some vice, likely finding some nice restaurants as Soho is hardly a den of inequity.

I picked it on 2nd October, it has sat on a window-sill above a radiator (which is on) until sun today allowed a bad phone image, stayed turgid, compare with Salicornia ramosissima picked same day, which has dropped seeds, so more developed, was less succulent when picked.

I can see why.

Just a phone picture so very bad, the flower much clearer through hand lens.

Perennial Glasswort, Salicornia (Sarcocornia) perennis on creek edge in saltmarsh. Mostly sterile branches visible.

One-flowered Glasswort, Salicornia pusilla

upper saltmarsh edge, Salicornia ramosissima nearby.

Human activity has much increased along this upper saltmarsh edge, always walked upon but now seems more trampled (a route to the beach).

Activity rhythms and the tide
in a saltmarsh beetle Dicheirotrichus gustavi which predates Bledius spectabilis.

wayback.archive-it.org/all/20110401...

Distribution and abundance of the intertidal saltmarsh beetle, Bledius spectabilis | Request PDF Request PDF | Distribution and abundance of the intertidal saltmarsh beetle, Bledius spectabilis | The burrowing intertidal beetle Bledius spectabilis Kraatz (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) occurs on all ...

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

How a subsocial intertidal beetle, Bledius spectabilis, prevents flooding and anoxia in its burrow - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology All stages of Bledius spectabilis Kratz (Staphylinidae) dig wine-bottle shaped burrows in the intertidal Salicornia zone. The adult female lays her eggs around her burrow and, by remaining with them, prevents both flooding by the tide and anoxia. Flooding is prevented by an ‘ever-ready’ burrow which exploits a surface tension effect and by blocking the burrow once the tide comes in. The burrow has a narrow neck (about 2 mm in diameter) leading to a living chamber 5 mm in diameter. Tides over artificial tubes in agar showed that a critical minimum neck diameter of 2–3 mm prevented sudden flooding, giving time to block the neck with mud. Blocking took about four minutes. Ensuring the burrow is reopened at each low tide is a vital role of the brooding female in anaerobic or impermeable soils. Field models of burrows became anoxic in 4 days, much less than the 4 week long egg stage. A lab model system with anaerobic agar and calculations of oxygen uptake and diffusion supported this conclusion. Mortality of orphaned larvae may be much lower, however, in burrows within large Bledius aggregations because of mitigating good drainage and soil aeration: larval mortality from physical causes in these burrows did not increase over 3 weeks but without the mother, 14% of the eggs were attacked by mould, and two burrows were taken over by a predatory carabid, Dichierotrichus gustavi, and all larvae eaten. The surface tension effects of small air-filled openings may be used by small air-breathing animals in many intertidal habitats. Like Bledius, other intertidal animals, including large ones, may block their burrows at high tide to keep them full of air. Maternal care, in particular the combination of behaviours which protect the brood from the tide and anoxia, enables this airbreathing insect to colonise the inhospitable habitat of the intertidal saltmarsh.

How an intertidal beetle prevents flooded burrows.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...