GillhamGo

You want to walk around looking for interesting-looking things and maybe hanging out with like-minded people but don’t know how?  Try GillhamGo! No need to register with the Play store or iTunes, no in-app purchases and no need for augmented reality.

GillhamGo

Aim: Go outside and use your eyes to see the diversity of life

Here are the rules:
1. Put down your smartphone/tablet/ereader
2. Go outside
3. Use your eyes, ears and nose to guide you through the “Outdoor Realm of Earthland”
4. Take a closer look, listen or smell of what you find
5. Use your common sense – don’t walk blindly into roads, don’t lick dog poo, don’t kill things

The characters: Here are some starters… there are, like, loads more to find on top of these.

Download the GillhamGo starter set (Cardinal Beetle, Chris Lawrence)

GillhamGo

Level up?
You saw something, it was good, right? If you want to go to the next level… tell your local environmental record centre about what you found. The greater the understanding of what wildlife is out there, the more able we are of protecting and conserving it. #GottaRecordThemAll

 

A prescient presence

Yesterday we heard news about the decline of the cuckoo. The distinctive ‘sound of summer’ has been heard less and less over the past few decades and Chris Howson and his team from the British Trust for Ornithology have just published a paper suggesting changes to land use over the birds’ migratory route is to blame.

READ: Population decline is linked to migration route in the Common Cuckoo

It shouldn’t have surprised me that Mary was already aware of this problem and suggested probable cause in the late 1970s:

In fact, Mary was always foresighted, particularly when identifying problems with the countryside and people’s lack of engagement with it. In 1945 Mary wrote a children’s story called  Jean and David on the Farm. It was never published (she kept the rejection letters with most of the publishers blaming a lack of paper – honest answer or nice way of saying no thanks?!) but in the introduction Mary writes:

“The town child has become so divorced from country scenes and country ways that he must be re-introduced to the wild inhabitants and the rural crafts if he is going to develop the appreciation which arises from understanding… Far too large a proportion of the youth of today has lost the art of entertaining itself and will take the easy road to the cinema once or twice a week under the delusion that seeing is as exciting as doing…”

This sentiment rings true today with children’s home ranges declining from many miles to just a few hundred feet within a couple of generations.

READ: Decreasing experiences of home ranges in England

It’s not all doom and gloom though! Throughout her life, Mary successfully contributed to the protection and conservation of habitats around South Wales (such as Pwll Waun Cynon, Coed y Bedw and Cwm George). Then, in her book Town Bred, Country Nurtured (1998), where she re-visits the farms she worked on during her Land Army years Mary was pleased to discover that despite

“a disagreeable impression of featureless trunk roads and look-alike roundabouts… My worst fears proved unfounded. The new road system lay uncomfortably on the ancient landscape like netting over a strawberry bed. I became the strawberry thief beneath the net and discovered that driving through was very different from driving in”

There is still much to discover out there, we just need to remember to get outside and open our eyes to it…

Normalising equality

There’s an article on the BBC website today which reminds us of the time – just 45 years ago – when women needed a man’s signature in order to get a loan or buy something on a hire purchase agreement.

Read: The British women who couldn’t hire a sofa without their husbands’ signature

Up until the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 husbands or fathers were required to act as guarantors on applications for credit cards, memberships or buy-now-pay-later purchases.

Despite this, and many other barriers to equality, by 1975 Mary Gillham had become a PhD (1950), spent a year at Massey University in New Zealand (1957), around four years in the University of Melbourne (1958 – 1961), been one of the first four women to enter the Antarctic region (1959) and been awarded a lectureship at Cardiff University in 1961.

Mary graduating and just before setting off to Macquarie island (picture from the Museum Victoria collection).

Her travels didn’t stop there, however! Between 1961 and 1975 Mary visited East Africa, Aldabra and Cosmoledo, Scotland, the Channel Islands and the former Yugoslavia as well as innumerable places in Wales. Sprinkled between travels and teaching Mary had also managed to publish over 40 journal articles and three books by the time of the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act. This is an achievement by any standards!

Here at the Mary Gillham Archive Project we are working to commemorate the life of this pioneering woman. We are digitising her extensive body of work to make it widely accessible today and also shining a light on the important role she played in both wildlife conservation and in opening doors for women.

Find out more about our project at www.facebook.com/MaryGillhamArchive, @GillhamArchives and Flickr.

Walking in the footsteps of Mary: July, Howardian LNR

Walk two: the Howardian Local Nature Reserve, Cardiff

Spotted Orchids in the Howardian taken by Mary Gillham in 2002

In 1973 Cardiff City Council asked the Natural History Society of Howardian High School if it would like to manage 6 acres of scrub/grass/woodland, adjacent to the school, as a nature reserve. Thus began 17 years of involvement by the pupils with the Reserve until the School’s closure in 1990. During this time the Reserve was gradually extended to 30 acres. Much of the Howardian Local Nature Reserve site was a disused domestic rubbish tip.

The Friends’ Group was formed in 1989, by an enthusiastic group of local residents, who work with Cardiff County Council to further improve the reserve. A good network of paths now weave between the great variety of habitats that are packed with interesting flora and fauna and, in recognition of the site’s value for wildlife, it was designated a Local Nature Reserve in 1991.

Mary went to the Howardian on many occasions throughout her life and within her files she generated a list of around 370 species (not all recorded by her)! We’d like to encourage you to visit the Howardian to see what you can find… Click on the images to find out more!

Find out more about the reserve, the species found there and the tireless work of the Friends’ group at www.howardianlnr.org.uk. You can also download a guide to the reserve here: www.howardianlnr.org.uk/1996bkltenglish.html.

Please submit your records online here. Alternatively, please download this Excel recording form and return your records by email to dedicated.naturalist@sewbrec.org.uk.