What's the Point?

Did you know that the team at Coombes Valley are also responsible for a large part of the Churnet Valley woodlands?

To the south of Coombes and literally a minute ‘as the crow flies’, there are woodlands with strange names. Crowgutter, Rough Knipe, Booths and Chase woods. Some of them tell you the story of their past. Coal pit wood is indicative of the fact that much of the Churnet was heavily mined for coal and iron-stone. It would have looked very different 200 yrs ago – not so many trees!

Like Coombes, our Churnet reserve is also a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) – but our 78 hectares are just part of the larger 340 ha of the Churnet Valley SSSI.

On Friday morning I was wandering around the Churnet doing point counts. It’s work for a Site Manager, but it didn’t feel like work! In fact, it started as a perfectly still morning and the dawn chorus was lovely.

So, what’s a point count? Well, it’s a way of working out how bird numbers are faring, when your woodland is far too big, to practically count all the birds. I had a great morning – walking from one end of the wood to the other – to fixed points (permanently marked with fence posts). When I got to a post, I set my stop-watch and counted all the birds I could hear and see from that point for exactly 5 minutes. The slightly hard part is recording how far away they are. You have to record everything within 10m, 25m, 50m and then anything else that’s further away.

Of course, in a woodland, you rely more on hearing birds than seeing them. To do that, means knowing all their songs and calls. As the new volunteers will tell you, it takes a bit of practice to be able to do it. But then, when you can, you end up knowing just how many more birds are around you. Seeing them then becomes much easier.

It’s not really that difficult to do and if you want a helping hand to learn, then join me next weekend. The team and I warmly invite you to our Dawn Chorus walk on May 4th. It’s bright and early (6.30am start) but it’ll be worth it. Have a look at the main page for more details.

My morning wasn’t all about birds though. It took me a little longer as I stopped to take pictures of interesting things along the way. This is a brilliant time of year if you want to start learning plants. Not too many to get to grips with just now ..... the wood anemones are still ok, but will be over soon, the bluebells are fully out in places (but lots yet to come) and the wild garlic is just starting to flower.



Then I found this too:



What is it? Send your answers to us at coombes.valley@rspb.org.uk and the first person to get the correct answer wins a free guided walk!

Cheers all,

Jarrod, Site Manager