: Natural History

The Peregrines are back on the City Hall Clock Tower. One bird seems to be spending most of the day hidden in the recesses of the nest (on the right hand side of the ledge underneath the clock face), suggesting that she may have started incubating eggs. This would imply a laying date a little earlier than we have seen in previous years. However, we are aware of another local pair of peregrines that are incubating eggs, so perhaps it is an early season this year. Museum Curator Adrian Plant has taken over the duties of the Peregrine Web-cam, and will be keeping an eye on them for us.

 We will keep you posted on what happens.

Adrian Plant (Principal Curator of Entomology) is about to set off on a trip exploring biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. This will be the second of three planned trips hosted by the premier Amazon research institute - Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) based in Manaus and funded by Brazil’s Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico. Adrian has been collaborating with fellow Diptera (fly) specialist Dr José Albertino Rafael and PhD student Josenir Camara in understanding more about Amazonian species of an aquatic fly genus called Hemerodromia. The project intends to describe all of the many new species of this group of flies found in the Amazon Basin and will look at their evolutionary relationships with other related forms around the world. It is anticipated that the researchers will be able to learn much about the reasons why certain insects occur where they do by relating the findings to ecological, biogeographical and climatic data. The team will be in the field for one month, surveying areas in the central Amazon around Manaus and also some of the upper tributaries of the river in Ecuador. Following completion of this phase of the Project, Josenir will spend six months based in Cardiff using the Museum’s extensive collections to help advance her work.

Dr Adrian Plant

Yesterday, Natural Sciences Staff took part in the 'Meet the Pollinators' Event run by First Campus, a partnership between higher education institutions, further education colleges and schools in South East Wales. The event was part of National Science and Engineering Week and was attended by approximately 100 Year 9 pupils from six schools. The pupils had the opportunity to speak to the curators and find out about 'a day in the life of museum scientists'. 

I begin my day by checking our general library inbox for any inquiries that we might have received over the weekend. This morning [as usual] there were quite a few but they were mercifully straight forward so didn’t take too long to answer. Next, I spent a very enjoyable hour squirreling away through our old photograph drawers for some interesting images to share with everyone during this Museum Week UK  on Twitter and what treasures I have found [but more of that to come via Tweets from @amgueddfa_lib during the week]! 

I also took some photographs of the pages of a giant old scrap book full of museum ephemera; it contains tickets, pamphlets, public announcement posters, order of services, lists of lectures and just about anything else you can stick down with heavy duty glue and sellotape…

However, my day begins in earnest with the post – as Assistant Librarian one of my main priorities is to manage the journal subscriptions. We maintain around 700 titles, a combination of paid subscriptions, exchanges and gifts. Therefore, after our Administration Assistant has opened and checked it, I weed out all the journals and record them onto our database. By doing this I am alerted to previous issues not received and will then chase them up with relevant suppliers. This time, there are no missing issues to chase but we have received a few duplicates, and [as always] these are from suppliers who categorically promised that no further duplicates would be sent out! Next, I count and measure the post so that at the end of the year I am able to supply our Principle Librarian with the total number of actual issues received and the meterage of space they will have covered. For instance, our statistics for 2013 were 1972 issues received that covered just over 11 metres of shelf space.

Next, I date stamp and separate them into departments. Our subscriptions naturally correspond with the curatorial departments, so we receive journals on the following disciplines: Art, Archaeology, Zoology, Botany, Geology and Industry and we also subscribe to more general subjects kept here in the Main Library. Once all this is done, it’s time to go and shelve them in the departmental libraries. These are dotted all around the museum so I wait until I have a little pile, normally a few days’ worth, before I go on my shelving travels.

I am so excited because my flowers have finally opened! They are so pretty and make me smile every time I see them! My crocus opened on 16 March and was 90mm tall, my daffodil opened one day later and was 240mm tall. Here is a photo of them.

Thankyou very much Stanford Gardening Club from Stanford in the Vale CE Primary School in England for sending me a photo of your first daffodil! Would anyone else like to send me some photos of their plants? I will put them on the website too!

Which schools have had their first flowers?

Abronhill Primary School, Culross Primary School, and Glencairn Primary School in Scotland, and Christchurch CP School, Coleg Meirion Dwyfor, Gladestry C.I.W. School, Rogiet Primary School, Ysgol Clocaenog, Ysgol Gynradd Cross Hands, Ysgol Deganwy and Ysgol Santes Tudfulin Wales, have all seen their first flowers open. In England, Arkholme CE Primary School, Burscough Bridge Methodist School, Coppull Parish Primary School, Hillside Specialist School, John Cross CE Primary School, Pinfold Primary School, Scotforth St. Paul's CE Primary School, SS Philip and James CE Primary School, St Laurence CE Primary School and Woodplumpton St. Anne's Primary School all sent their first flower records. Well done to all these schools!

One more week to go…

There is only one more week to go before the Spring Bulbs project deadline. Please remember to send in your records by the 28 March.

What do you do if your flowers have not opened by the deadline?

Please keep sending in flower data! If your flowers have not opened and you would like to carry on with your investigation then please do! When they open you can still record the flowering date and plant height on our website.

I set a deadline because every year I write a special report that gives a summary of all the data sent in so far. I need to write the report in April. All records sent in before the deadline will be included in this year’s report. Records sent in after the deadline will be added to our database and will be included in next year’s report.

All the records that you send are very important. I promise you that all your data will be included in the project and will help the investigation to be more accurate in the future.

Have you seen any signs of spring while you have been out playing? On the weekend I saw a bumblebee, a ladybird and some little baby lambs! I looked in a pond but I didn’t see any frogspawn. Have you seen any frogspawn? What other signs of spring have you seen?