Dragon Finder

Scottish Dragon Finder – A success story

June 27, 2018 by editor

The end of the Scottish Dragon Finder project is now upon us and the last four and a half years have been filled with many activities seeing tens of thousands of people throughout Scotland learning more about amphibians and reptiles and volunteering their time to help our species. The Scottish Dragon Finder team ran over 250 sessions engaging over 33,000 people throughout the project. Also 70 habitats were created or restored as part of the project. Scottish Dragon Finder impacted far and wide across Scotland working across 31 of the 32 council areas.

On the 9^th June a talk on Scottish Dragon Finder was given at the Glasgow Science Festival Conference (Amphibians and Reptiles of Scotland: current research and future challenges) at the University of Glasgow. The conference was well attended in Glasgow’s tropical weather conditions and the talk, providing an overview of the project, was well received with positive feedback.

Staff completed site visits to the final 10 sites across Scotland, gathering data on the ponds and checking their condition before finishing our reports. Aerial footage was recorded at many of the sites too which can be put together soon to see the ponds from a different perspective.

Views of some of the Scottish Dragon Finder project sites – (from top, clockwise) Alyth Community Woodland (Perth and Kinross), Dunnet Forest (Highland) and Auchnacraig Forest Park (West Dunbartonshire)

Our last event took place at Rouken Glen Park in East Renfrewshire as part of World Environment Day. Along with East Renfrewshire staff and other charities, Scottish Dragon Finder hosted a stall and ran pond-dipping at the park’s pond with many enthusiastic families!

Many thanks to our funder, Heritage Lottery Fund, for funding Scottish Dragon Finder and all the other funders who contributed towards the project’s successes. A big thanks to all those who volunteered their time on Scottish Dragon Finder, helping us accomplish so much since 2014.

Scottish Dragon Finder – May Update

May 31, 2018 by editor

We now enter the final month of the Scottish Dragon Finder project but activities are still occurring thick and fast! We held our final volunteer day of the project at Riverside Nature Park, Dundee which had to be delayed due to snow previously in March. Volunteers helped plant up the ponds created last winter with native plants to create what should be a superb habitat for amphibians come next spring. Many thanks to Plants for Ponds (www.plantsforponds.co.uk) for donating some fabulous species for our volunteer day!

We are re-visiting the habitat sites worked on during Scottish Dragon Finder and this is now well underway with 15 sites visited across Scotland. Staff have been checking the pond’s conditions whilst sampling for aquatic invertebrates and amphibians. It has also been a great chance to get some final footage of the amazing ponds created and restored.

*It has been great to visit the Scottish Dragon Finder habitat sites and see how new the ponds have established*

Our final Dragons in your Garden session was held at the start of May in North Ayrshire with the Three Town Growers Allotments and Community Garden. Attendees learnt about wildlife gardening for reptiles and amphibians through a talk and our model wildlife garden activity. The group were also in the stages of developing their own wildlife pond so an additional talk on pond creation and management was included, followed by a visit to the location of the pond. At this time attendees could make suggestions for the new pond using knowledge shared through the workshop and it is hoped a thriving wildlife pond will be established in the months to come.

Our final survey training session took place at Calderglen Country Park in South Lanarkshire in mid- May. Attendees learnt about the native amphibians and reptiles in Scotland before visiting ponds and learning survey techniques for amphibians. Those who attended can now use these skills in the future to help find and identify amphibians and reptiles – whilst submitting their sightings through the free Dragon Finder app can directly help Froglife’s work in the future.

Thanks to our wonderful volunteers!

June 20, 2016 by editor

This month we’d like to highlight the time, passion and creativity that our volunteers bring to our projects.

All over the UK, the Froglife teams create & restore habitats and hold events to help educate the public on the importance of conserving amphibians and reptiles and saving the habitats they depend on. At all of these events, across the countryside and cities we have a strong team of volunteers who are always there to help spread the conservation message and get mucky to help our little frogs, toads, newts, snakes and lizards! vol KW2016

These volunteers not only give us their time, they also share their talents with us by regularly taking photos and creating fantastic videos after we’ve completed projects at sites.

So here’s a few bits that they’ve shared with us:

This amazing underwater video of tadpoles in Olive Branch Community Gardens, was shared to Rebecca Neal, Conservation Youth Worker, for Peterborough Green Pathways by one of her volunteers. Froglife put the ponds in 5 or 6 years ago through the Wildlife Ambassadors project, and this video clearly shows us that the frogs like the ponds we made!

This selection of videos come from Katie Garrett, one of the London Dragon Finder volunteers. Katie often comes along to our events and work days, gets muddy and still manages to take amazing photos and videos! Check her out on twitter, @katieggarrett, as she often posts more images and short videos of the amphibians and reptiles she sees when she’s out and about. When she’s not volunteering with us, she also volunteers with Honduras Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Centre, making films for their conservation efforts. She’s a Herp Hero!

So again, a MASSIVE thanks to all our volunteers from everyone here at Froglife!

This is how SMILEY you make us! — You make us all **SMILE!**

It’s a good time to find dragons!

March 22, 2016 by editor

April is a great time to keep an eye on the amphibians in your garden pond. Our clocks have now gone forward an hour, the days are getting longer and warmer and our amphibians are now breeding. Frogspawn is easy to spot in clumps at the water’s surface, toadspawn not quite so easy, they are laid in strings and wrapped around the ponds vegetation. Newts are not so evident, as their breeding activity is mostly nocturnal with their eggs laid individually and wrapped in the leaves of plants below the surface. A great way to find newts is by torchlight at night, and be sure to use our Dragon Finder App to record all your sightings! If you would like to get involved with surveying your local park or nature reserve we have organised a number of survey training workshops across London this spring. The workshop covers identifying reptiles & amphibians and the survey techniques used for recording them, check out our events page to find a workshop near you!

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved with the London Dragon Finder Project so please get in touch with the team and keep an eye on our events page to find out more!

From the East of England to South Lanarkshire Froglife boosted by Biffa Award

February 27, 2015 by admin

biffa award logo Conservation plans have spawned an extensive work programme to create and restore ponds across South Lanarkshire and the East of England. In total 45 ponds will be created and restored, 33 in South Lanarkshire and 12 in the East of England.

Our South Lanarkshire Living Water and River Nene Dragon Finder projects have been given a massive boost by Biffa Award with grants totaling £96,178.

Our CEO, Kathy Wormald, said “There has been a steady decline in ponds and this negatively impacts on our local amphibian and reptile species and other pond life. Building work across the UK, has destroyed habitats. Our projects are addressing this issue by helping to create new habitats and to improve existing ones”

The South Lanarkshire Living Water project is part of an ongoing scheme of habitat creation and restoration that is taking place across Scotland, and the River Nene Dragon Finder project is working all along the River Nene from its source in Northamptonshire to where it meets the sea at the Washes. In total the River Nene Dragon Finder project will be working on 160 sites of which 12 are entirely funded by Biffa Award.

The projects will also train local groups of volunteers associated with each site providing communities with opportunities to get involved in their local green space.

Gillian French, Programme Manager, Biffa Award, said “Biffa Award is keen to support projects which improve access to the countryside and encourage us to learn more about our natural environment. This project does both and the training of the volunteers will mean that more people will be able to enjoy the ponds and surrounding habitats.”

Ponds are crucial for amphibians such as frogs, toads and newts, as well as reptiles and a broad range of other species. These vital habitats are at risk of disappearing from areas all over the UK, both through deliberate changes to the landscape, and through mismanagement and neglect. Our projects aim to tackle this through on the ground action and volunteer support.

The work will start this spring/summer, with new ponds appearing in time for the amphibian breeding season next spring.

Froglife is launching the River Nene Dragon Finder project at Sywell Country Park Pump House

February 26, 2015 by admin

We will be launching our River Nene Dragon Finder project at Sywell Country Park Pump House on Friday 6^th March 2015 at 11.00am.

The launch will include guest speakers

Richard Kerridge (nature writer and literary critic, author of Cold Blood a book about British reptiles and amphibians, their meanings and his fascination with them dating back to his childhood),
Hugh Warwick (Ecologist and author of a Prickly Affair and the Beauty in the Beast)
Jules Howard (Ecologist and author of sex on earth: A celebration of animal reproduction.

River Nene Dragon Finder is a fantastic project that aims to conserve native reptiles and amphibians through practical conservation and public engagement activities. The project will be working along the length of the River Nene with 125 organisations, visiting 91 venues and directly benefiting 52,286 people. All this has been made possible with the help of a £472,400 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Phil Rothwell, Committee member for the East of England said: “How can anyone resist the opportunity to go in search of ‘dragons’? This is a fun project dealing with a serious subject, namely the decline of reptile and amphibian numbers. It combines restoration of habitats with learning about wildlife, creative artwork and many opportunities for volunteers of all ages to get involved and help out.”

River Nene Dragon Finder will involve local communities, school children, local volunteers and local groups in a range of activities that include species identification and surveying, pond restoration and creation, “Swimming with Dragons”, Mapestry workshops, Dragon Boat tours, Wildlife workshops and Wildlife Trail fun days.

“We want to share with people the many varied activities that they can get involved with in the River Nene Dragon Finder project. Some of these activities are tried and tested such as our Swimming with Dragons events but other activities such as the Mapestry is a new and innovative activity specifically designed for this region” Kathy Wormald, our Chief Executive Officer.

2829011114_5bc2d4cf85_b — Sywell Country Park, Flickr CC

Contact:

James McAdie, River Nene Dragon Finder Project Manager: james.mcadie@froglife.org; 01733 602102

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