Wildlife surveying

Butterflies are a beautiful group of insects found across most of our parks and open spaces.

Monitoring specific routes across sites and using focused surveys, we tracked the diversity of species and their changing populations.

Butterflies are valuable environmental indicators because we can learn from:

• their short life cycles
• their preference when caterpillars for specific plants
• how they respond to weather

Butterflies can tell us a lot about our site management and effects of a changing climate.

UK trends show 76% of butterfly species to have declined over the past 4 decades.

32 species of butterfly were recorded across the borough. These included the rare Silver-Studded Blue, Grayling and Purple Emperor.

Monitoring is helping us to manage our meadows. The range of management techniques we've used are:

• the retention of some longer grasses for overwintering insects
• selective removal of invasive species
• hay cutting or grazing to reduce soil fertility and increase wildflower population

Species such as the Marbled White and Small Heath continue to be present within our meadows. Their populations are stable or increasing.

The Grayling populations have benefited from continuing scrub removal from our heathland sites. We hope that our focused effort to graze larger heaths too will also help stabilise the Silver-Studded Blue population.

Reptiles are typically found in open habitats. The needs of each species tells us a lot about what we can do to improve their habitat.

If not managed correctly, habitats that do not meet the needs of reptiles can lead to a dramatic decline in their populations. 90% of Adder populations are in decline throughout the UK. They are now a conservation priority.

Monthly surveys of our heathland sites has shown us where reptiles regularly hibernate. They also tell us about their distribution throughout our sites. This guides site management, helping us to improve habitats and links to other sites.

We conduct our monitoring across the following heathland sites:

• Englemere Pond
• Caesars Camp
• Wildmoor

Reptile populations and distribution are ideal at Englemere and Caesars Camp. Wildmoor is not as ideal, showing signs of increased scrub and other overgrowth. To improve Wildmoor habitats, our management is focusing on decreasing this.

There are 6 reptiles native to the UK, 4 of these are found within Bracknell Forest. These consist of 2 species of lizard (Common Lizard and Slow worm) and 2 species of snake (Grass snake and Adder).

Newts are land based animals that use ponds to breed. They need a mixture of shelter, hibernation areas, feeding areas and access to water.

Our most famous newt, the Great-Crested newt is a European protected species. They are protected due to the massive decline in their populations. Because of this, a licence is needed to disturb this species and their habitat. This includes surveying.

There are 3 native species of newt and all can be found in Bracknell Forest. They include the:

• Great-Crested newt which is present in a range of ponds
• Smooth newt which prefers water with a neutral (pH)
• Palmate newt which prefers more acidic, heathland ponds

We monitor sites where Great-Crested newts are present to keep track of their populations. We also monitor smaller sites for future landscape management.

Although colder springs can affect results, newt populations in Bracknell Forest are seen to be currently stable.

We survey newts during spring evenings when they are more active. Our licensed rangers use specially designed bottle traps to carefully capture the newts and record data.

Birds play an important role in every healthy ecosystem.

Nationally, many bird species have experienced severe declines over the years. The biggest decline is amongst birds found in and around farmland. Changes in agriculture have led to a reduction in suitable farmland habitat.

During spring, we monitored several sites using a set breeding bird survey. Records inform our ongoing site management.

We carry out regular wetland environment bird surveys at our main wetland site at Horseshoe Lake. 18 species of waterfowl are recorded each winter.

We undertake specific monitoring at locations such as the bird island in Horseshoe Lake. Created in 2019, the island is now home to the following breeding species:

• Oystercatcher
• Black-headed Gull
• Common Tern
• Little-Ringed Plover

At Englemere Pond, a site of Special Scientific Interest, we've been monitoring Wintering Snipe. The numbers are averaging 18.

We also monitor breeding Skylarks on sites such as Cabbage Hill, Frost Folly and Peacock Meadows. As a ground nesting bird, they are vulnerable to disturbance. Despite this, numbers are currently averaging a healthy 5 pairs per site.

Within the Thames Basin Heaths special protection area are birds of special interest. They include the Nightjar, Woodlark and Dartford Warbler. We monitor these and they are also monitored by external ecologists. The Dartford Warbler and Nightjar are present in good numbers. At the moment there is not enough suitable habitat for the Woodlark at Wildmoor. 

Wildflower meadows have declined by 97% since the 1940s due to changes in agriculture.

They are an integral part of the British countryside and important for wildlife conservation.

Meadows with a rich diversity of wild plants are the most productive. We can help maintain these by reducing soil fertility. This reduces competition from more dominant species.

A rich, diverse meadow is also home to a greater number of invertebrates (animals without a backbone). These are a great food source for larger predators such as birds.

Many of Bracknell’s meadows are relatively new. Often where land use has been changed, the land reverted back to wildflower meadows.

We survey our meadows throughout the growing season. We do this using quadrats (set squares). We record the species within the square, along with the percentage they cover.

We then compare this to the local wildlife site thresholds (from the Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre). The threshold for meadow wildflower composition is a minimum of 15 per square meter.

Many of our meadows are newly created. Because of this, they usually reach just under the threshold. Through continuing management and monitoring, we hope the meadows will evolve over time.

There are up to 10 species of wild orchid to be found within Bracknell. These include the Heath-Spotted, Bee, Pyramidal and Southern-Marsh with known sites annually monitored.

Many of the UK's mammals have suffered from severe declines over the last 50 years.

Iconic British species have seen populations plummet. These include hedgehogs, harvest mice, shrews, stoats and weasels.

These smaller mammals serve a key role within an ecosystem. Some are a valuable food source for larger mammals, reptiles and birds of prey. Others are exceptional predators themselves and help maintain stable populations of other species.

Bracknell Forest has a diversity of habitats which supports 27 different mammal species. We are currently surveying a variety of our sites to monitor how well they are doing. Once the data has been collected, we can look at trends across the sites. These trends will help to inform site management plans.

During autumn and winter 2021 to 2022, we teamed up with the Berkshire Mammal Group. Together, we conducted harvest mouse nest searches on our wild hay meadows sites. The sites included Shepherd Meadows, Frost Folly and Larks Hill.

We discovered 15 harvest mice nests in the reedbeds at Shepherd’s Meadows and 10 at Frost Folly. Along with live trapping, our findings provided us with invaluable data.

Actions we have taken in response to our data collection include:

• fencing off areas of our sites to help protect nests
• creating wider field margins that link to other suitable areas to help increase populations

We are currently surveying for hedgehogs in a number of our woodland sites. We hope to protect this vulnerable species by putting up fencing to discourage them from crossing busy roads.