Abernyte Glebe
The planting done in 2000 is now well established and growing well, as an example of our achievements, siskins have recently been feeding on cones on the alder that we planted in the top, at the north east corner. The nesting potential however of the glebe is low. The Ash trees along the east edge and the few scattered over the glebe may provide a few natural nesting cavities for birds such as tits or tree sparrows. The vegetation here is composed of relatively few flowering species, those present include woodsage and foxglove, in a rough grassland. This is good habitat for small mammals, but is probably not as good a habitat for many insects, but it has the potential for improvement. Planting a range of flowering plants, to act as nectar and pollen sources, and food plants for insect larvae, would help improve the butterfly and moth diversity, and improve the site for many other insects. An improvement in insect number would in turn provide a food supply for nestling birds. The combination of restricted food supply and shortage of nesting sites is going to be a restriction on number of birds nesting on the glebe.
The majority of the trees are located at the western end, but here we identified only a single large ash, all the rest are sycamore. The understorey here is typical of a sycamore woodland with a very dense canopy. It is virtually devoid of shrub layer, we found elder and a single holly seedling, and the ground layer includes green alkanet and a sparse distribution of grasses. It is uncommon to find nesting cavities in young sycamore, and this is the case here. The introduction of nest boxes would provide artificial nesting cavities where no natural cavities exist. But this area is not only deficient in nesting sites. It is well known how few species of insects are found on sycamore (15) as compared to the number found on a native tree species say oak (284)1. Combined with the heavy shade, the lack of a diverse ground flora, and a shrub layer, has major implication for the number of birds that would be likely to nest in boxes provided in the sycamore. A bird will be more likely to nest in a site that provides both a good nest site and a good and close supply of food for the young in the nest. Providing nest boxes in the sycamore without other work would be likely to result in a very low occupancy. We think that two actions would improve the nesting potential of this area a lot. First some selective felling of a few trees, well below the number that would require a felling licence. The objective would be first to open up an area in the middle of the stand to let in some light and create a clearing, and secondly to open up a ride from this clearing to the outside edge. This felling may be better done over more than one year. The wood produced should be cut and stacked to provide much needed habit for a woodland insect community that because of the slope and the sycamore monoculture is lacking. Starting a planting programme with new native trees (oak and ash) to replace some of the sycamore will improve the future nesting potential a lot, but this will take time to achieve any impact. But is that a reason not to start? With more light allowed in it becomes viable to plant a shrub understorey, reinforced by marginal planting and a ground flora. The shrubs could be a mixture of holly and honeysuckle with marginal plantings of hawthorn & blackthorn. All these provide a good nectar and pollen source for insects and later a berry crop for birds. I think planting hazel should be avoided as it may attract grey squirrels.
A planting list for the ground flora could include primrose, Dryopteris ferns, bluebell etc.
Cavity nesting birds that would benefit from the provision of nest boxes would include, blue and great tit, tree and house sparrow, these species already have breeding populations in the locality. Tree sparrow numbers have declined dramatically (-93% Long term trend 1970-2005) over the last 3 decades nationally and are the subject of a UKBAP (UK biodiversity action programme).2
Species nesting in the area that would also benefit from the habitat improvements recommended here and are also the subject of a UKBAP include Song Thrush, Bullfinch, spotted flycatcher.
Bats may use a number of different sites throughout the year. I do not think it is likely that we are going to offer an attractive hibernation site, but we may be able to offer summer roost, nursery or mating sites to the local bat population. These artificial sites are important as the number of natural sites is continuing to decrease, but we should also include in our long term planning the intention to eventually produce natural sites. The tree planting above will help to contribute some natural roost sites as these trees mature. A number of bat species are found in the area, both species of Pipistrelles, Daubenton’s and Natterer’s and Long Eared Browns, and all have been reported as species that use bat boxes at some stage during the year.
While researching the best design of bat box to recommend for the project, it was apparent that few studies of the attractiveness of various designs, or even effect of construction material on selection by bats has been published.. Each bat group that I looked at, had its own favourite design of box, but no comparisons had been made with other designs. We have the opportunity here to put up a number of different designs of box, and variety of construction materials and to compare the results.
Bird boxes are much easier to recommend. Woodcrete boxes have an expected life span of 20 - 25 years. They offer substantial protection for the nestling from the weather, predation from woodpeckers etc, and inspection of the nestlings is easy and quick, both features are important for minimising disturbance to the birds and important when you have a lot of boxes to examine. But it is important that we also engage the interest of people in Abernyte of all ages. We need young people to make wooden nest boxes and get these boxes put up and then follow the progress of their box. The main job of the wooden boxes is to generate an interest in wildlife in the person who makes it.
To maximise the interest, we would like to have one or two nest boxes with web cameras on them so that we can follow all the action at a nest. It would be good if we can have say a camera on a blue tit nest and a swallow nest. Blue tits only produce a single brood so the action period would only be about 13-14 days incubating and about 22 days before the young leave the nest. Swallows often produce more than one brood so we could have longer to watch. For the webcam we will need to find a location away from the glebe, as that would prove far too difficult to engineer. If we can solve the technical problems of where to site boxes for transmission of images to the Abernyte community website, I would hope we can generate additional local interest in the project.
We have spoken to members of the Perth bat group and members of the Tay ringing group, and both have offered a variety of help and support.
To involve as many people as possible we need to organise walks through the glebe to introduce people to the species that are using the area.
A summer event is envisaged checking the contents of nest boxes, ringing nestlings, checking for use of bat boxes.
1. The Number of Species of Insect Associated with Various Trees
T. R. E. Southwood
The Journal of Animal Ecology, Vol. 30, No. 1. (May, 1961), pp. 1-8.
2. The State of the UK’s birds 2006 http://www.bto.org/research/pop_trends/state_uk_birds.htm
Breathing Spaces 
Abernyte Community has been awarded £7112 to carry out improvements to the Glebe Millennium Walk.