Tracking Ancient Reptiles

I love tracking in my local patch. When you get your eye in, the landscape starts to tell stories and offer glimpses into the hidden lives of our wild neighbours. These clues can be anything from the signs of a badger rooting around below the bird feeder last night to the tracks of an ancient, desert-dwelling reptile … In Scotland? Yes, along the 21st century Moray coast. I’m obsessed with these tracks and if I have visitors I usually show them (I like to think they’re genuinely interested and not just being polite).

In this part of the world we have a lot of sandstone and there is a quarry east of Hopeman where 250 million year old footprints can be seen embedded in the rock. It blows my mind. Scotland was where the Sahara is now and roaming through these Permian deserts were reptiles. They weren’t even dinosaurs but something older. Some of them were the dumpy creatures known as dicynodonts. The name means ‘two dog teeth’ and refers to the downward-pointing tusks of these otherwise toothless herbivores. Excitingly, the fossil skull of a 1.5 metre long dicynodont called Gordonia traquairi was found in the quarry in the late 1990s.

Reptile moving slowly from left to right in an understep walk.

Palaeontologists think that the reptiles were heading north probably in search of food and water. What would it be like to see these animals plodding through ancient semi-arid lands? And taking a step back, what were they like? What were their courtship rituals and feeding strategies? We’ll probably never know but I find it compelling to ponder the lives of species that have vanished for ever.

Yet in some of the tracks the way the animal is moving is as clear as if it had passed by this morning. Learning to read gaits helps us to picture the scene. One set shows quite clearly that the reptile was in what is known as an understep walk. This means that that the hind foot landed slightly behind the front foot. It usually suggests a slower speed and in the case of those with sand piled up at the rear of the track I can imagine the animal clambering up the slope of a dune.

Reptile prints with a short stride length. Note the claw drag marks. Photo credit: David Longstaff

These almost look like they were made yesterday. In this trackway you can still see the way the dew-covered sand has cracked.

Wanting to find out more, I arranged to meet David Longstaff, a very knowledgeable volunteer at Elgin Museum, and we were joined by a friend who has a long-standing interest in the natural history of this stretch of coast. Dave’s knowledge and enthusiasm were an absolute treat. He generously shared his insights and observations about the reptile trackways, and was also curious to hear my perspective on the footprints as a tracker.

I was keen to learn more about these reptiles and whether they have any living relatives. It turns out that only a handful of dicynodont species survived the Great Dying, a global warming-induced mass extinction that marked the transition from the Permian to the Triassic (around 250 Million years ago). The ones that remained eventually died out. But palaeontologists think that one of the other reptiles present in the area - Elginia, a pareiasaur - may be an ancestor of modern turtles.

While the tracks can’t be identified to species level, we can still get a sense of the size of the animals and how they were moving. There are also worm tracks, and something else Dave had discovered that was like tracking gold. There was a thin broken line suggesting intermittent tail drag. Either side of these were alternating, diagonal rows of four dots. Dave pulled out a picture of very similar tracks in a research paper. “I think this is Paleohelcura,” he said, “thought to be a member of the scorpionid family.” My jaw must have dropped visibly. Modern scorpions have upstanding tails, so drag marks only show occasionally. Paleohelcura’s tail dragged behind it more consistently.

Paleohelcura tracks. I find it mind-blowing that the footprints and tail drag of this ancient invertebrate have lasted a quarter of a billion years!

A replica of the Elginia skull. Possibly the most metal skull ever 🤘

A week or two later I visited the excellent Elgin Museum with another friend and fellow naturalist. We soon found our way to the superb fossil collection where there is a replica of another fossilised skull found in the local area. It belonged to Elginia miribalis (‘the wonder of Elgin’). The skull has impressive backward pointing spikes presumably to protect Elginia from predators. It’s also possible that this impressive frill was used for display purposes. It wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of a metal album. It is tantalising to think what else may be buried in these ancient rocks.

As I left both the quarry and the museum I was buzzing. I love the fact that the movements of animals a quarter of a billion years ago can still be seen today. It reminds me how many other disciplines including palaeontology and geology use many of the same skills and thought processes as tracking. Ichnology in particular fascinates me. It is the study of tracks and other signs that have been preserved in the fossil record, shining light on the lives of animals that we would otherwise be unaware of.

Tracking is about being able to read the signs of life on planet Earth. These tracks are a reminder of the astonishing diversity and antiquity of life, something we should always remember and celebrate. What stories, ancient and modern, are waiting to be revealed in your local patch?

Mind suitably blown.

Sources:

Eiseman, C. and Charney, N. (2010). Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates - A Guide to North American Species. Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg.

Elgin Museum Geology Group (2021). The Elgin Reptiles. The Moray Society: Elgin.

Elgin Museum https://elginmuseum.org.uk/

With thanks to David Longstaff and his colleagues at Elgin Museum.

Dan's Winter 2021 Newsletter

Dear friends, supporters and fellow biophiles,

During these short, northern Scottish days I find myself relishing any scrap of winter sunlight I can get. Many animals are dormant or have slowed down and things are also much quieter in the worlds of plants and fungi.

And yet even around the winter solstice, during the very darkest time we soon start to get hints of spring to come. Some of these are quite natural and normal patterns. These include the male hazel catkins that are already growing, readying themselves to release pollen in late February. And the almost imperceptible change in daylight after the solstice isn't lost on the birds. I often hear the ‘TEAcher TEAcher' song of the great tit and the territorial drumming of the great spotted woodpecker before we even reach New Year. Keep your eyes and ears peeled! 

Reflections and milestones

It's been a very busy year for me in many ways. I feel very grateful to have had the chance to work with a wide range of different organisations, private clients and members of the public. These have included training and events for University of Edinburgh, Aigas Field Centre, Field Studies Council, Edinburgh Science Festival and others.

There were a couple of milestones, one of which was celebrating 10 years of running Dan Puplett Nature Awareness and another was achieving my Level 4 (100%) certificate in Track and Sign after many years practice and study. I don't mention these to boast. While I feel proud of these achievements they really highlight to me the fact that I have been given a huge amount of support the along the way.

So a massive thank you to all my teachers and mentors, clients, tracking buddies, students, online subscribers, and those closest to me all of the support and encouragement. It simply wouldn't have been possible without you all (and the many who in turn support you, and the wild world that supports all of us!), and it reminds me how interconnected we really are. Observing the natural world we learn this lesson again and again. Nothing can really be picked out in isolation. Everything depends on everything else.

Rewilding the world

It's obviously been a challenging year for many people on many fronts. And in the midst of the climate emergency it is clear that the outcomes of COP26 fall disappointingly and alarmingly short. Even so, a state of crisis isn't the whole picture. 

Like many people, I have been involved with, and advocating for, rewilding for over two decades, and It is really exciting to see how interest in this approach to restoring nature has mushroomed in the last few years. Rewilding can play a key role in tackling both the climate and nature emergencies.  The return of the beaver to Britain is just one example and is proving to be a huge conservation success.

This year I have had the privilege of working with a number of rewilding projects including my friends at Trees for Life, Bunloit Rewilding Project and SCOTLAND: The Big Picture. The buzz and sense of possibility in the conservation world are electric at the moment. Perhaps it's a human trait that when things get pretty dire, positive solutions and determination come to the fore.

Rewilding ourselves

I've also noticed another phenomenon which many of my friends and peers who work in the field of environmental education and nature connection have also observed. It seems that there's been a big increase in the number of people actively interested in connecting to nature and becoming more familiar with the wild world. There could be several reasons for this but the key thing is that it is an encouraging sign. Rewilding ourselves is an essential part of the solution.

Coming up

Looking to 2022 I'm really excited about the courses, events and projects I have coming up across Scotland and England. You can see more on my events page which I will be adding to over the next month when we finalise the details of certain courses. I’m also working on a new Field Studies Council chart that will be released in Spring 2022, and am writing a book that will be coming out further down the line. Watch this space!

Many thanks for all your support over the past year. I wish you a joyful and peaceful festive period and a happy, nature-filled 2022.

Stay wild!

Dan

So, what do wasps actually do?

What is the point of wasps? I’ve lost count of how many times I've heard that question or some version of it. It’s quickly followed by my own sense of being irked by the unwitting injustice of the question itself. And then ensues my tirade of pro-wasp propaganda. So here goes . . .

There have been wasps on the planet for over 200 million years and there are more than 100,000 species worldwide. They have a wide range of life strategies. Some of them are solitary while others are social. Many are predatory, while others trigger some of the abnormal growths known as galls on plants. There are pollinators, a lot of parasitoids (their larvae eat their hosts alive) and more. There are thousands that don’t sting humans.

When most people in the British Isles refer to wasps they are usually talking about the much maligned common and German wasps (Vespula vulgaris and V. germanica). The ones that are known to disrupt picnics and sometimes land on your ice cream.

Before you dismiss what follows as the rantings of naive wasp hugger, I've had my fair share of stings. I remember the red hot needle sensation of my first sting as kid, when I put my hand on one while waiting at a North London bus stop. When working in North Wales I ran a strimmer over the top of a nest, and their response was quick and fierce. On another occasion, while helping with some botanical research in British Columbia I crawled over a nest as I scrambled up a very steep slope through a forest. I went from crawl to Usain Bolt mode in the blink of an eye.

So yes, they will defend their own lives and that of their young. Who can blame them? It’s pretty rare for them to sting unprovoked, and besides, they’ve taught me to be more alert. Yes, there is a potential hazard and some nests may need to be removed if they are in a place where they could pose a high risk, but these cases are few and far between.

Common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) on the flowers of tansy (Tanacetum vulgare). Photo by Alan Watson Featherstone www.alanwatsonfeatherstone.com

Wasps are the gardener’s and the farmer’s friend, and the friend of anyone who eats farmed food. They are voracious predators of the pests (such as aphids) that damage crops and in Britain catch thousands of tonnes of caterpillars and other invertebrates every year. They don't eat these themselves but feed them to their protein-hungry larvae. The workers just need carbs to keep going so the grubs provide them with a sugary sweet substance. However, in mid to late summer the number of grubs declines and the workers are left high and dry. This is when they seek out sweet things and take more of an interest in our food. They’re not the malevolent villains they are often made out to be; they’re simply trying to survive.

Wasps are also valuable pollinators. Bees (which have descended from wasps, I should add) receive a huge amount of attention for their pollination services, and rightly so. But we seem to find it easier to love the fluffy bumblebee than we do a menacing looking wasp. But look again. Wasps are actually sleek, stylish and very cool, like Trinity from The Matrix but with yellow stripes. And they rarely receive any credit for all that pollinating.

Common wasp on its nest. Photo by Alan Watson Featherstone www.alanwatsonfeatherstone.com

They are also recyclers. I’ve watched them chewing on dead wood (to make their nests), animal droppings and carrion. Without wasps and many other unsung wild heroes cut out for the task (such as fungi), we’d be knee deep in stuff we would rather not be knee deep in.

You can be forgiven for thinking that wasps wouldn't make much of a meal for anything. In fact their delicious, juicy-sweet, protein-rich grubs are a hit with badgers. In late summer I often find wasp nests in the ground that have been opened up these tough mammals, and pine martens sometimes do the same. The honey buzzard, a rare migratory bird of prey, actually specialises in eating wasp grubs.

I could go on, but hopefully you get my point. Wasps do us a lot of favours without even knowing it, and play a key role in our ecosystems. Like many other insects, wasps are actually in alarming decline, so maybe we should cut them some slack!   

Common wasp nest that has been raided by a badger.

Support insects here! www.buglife.org.uk

Sources:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-do-wasps-do.html

Tree wasp (Dolichovespula sylvestris) nest. It takes a lot of journeys carrying wood pulp to make one of these. (This one’s empty!)

Ecological Amnesia

Q: What do the following species have in common: Agile frog, large copper butterfly, blue stag beetle, ghost orchid, apple bumblebee and Dalmatian pelican?

A: Most people have never heard of them. Oh, and all of them are now extinct in Britain.

Our planet was once richer than we can imagine. In the UK, if you speak to someone who grew up in the 1950s (or if you grew up then yourself) they may well recall walking through clouds of butterflies. When was the last time you walked through a cloud of butterflies, let alone thought it was normal? And these butterfly clouds weren't as impressive as those in the 1850s.

Ecologists use the term ‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome.’ We all sufferers. The term was coined by fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly after he realised that ecologists aimed to restore fish stocks to the levels they were at at the beginning of their careers. But these levels were already severely diminished.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome is a kind of ecological amnesia, as Wilding author Isabella Tree puts it. Many of us want to protect and restore our wild places, and this is fantastic. But we often assume that nature as we encountered it in our childhoods is the benchmark for how our depleted world should be now. But look more closely. What we don’t realise is that even the richer natural world of our early years is a pale shadow of what it once was.

With each generation our expectations are eroded. It’s tragic enough that we have lost so much biodiversity. But not even knowing it makes it worse. We come to accept our ecologically ravaged landscape we inherit as normal, or perhaps just a bit below par.

And here’s the embarrassing bit. The 2016 State of Nature report found that the UK is ‘among the most nature-depleted countries in the world’. It ranks 189th out of 218 assessed.

Here are a just are a few example of the countless wild wonders we have lost:

500AD (probably more recently in Scotland) The shy and beautiful lynx roamed our forests.

1000AD Six foot cod were abundant off our coasts.

1600s Wildcats were common across the whole of Britain.

1770s Herring shoals six miles long and four miles wide were normal.

1790s Golden eagles were still nesting in North Yorkshire.

1800s Richmond Park in London was teeming with lapwings.

1900 Cuckoos could be heard in most villages in Britain.

1930s Huge 850lb bluefin tuna were found in British waters.

1940s Large house sparrow flocks were common in city parks.

1950 Red squirrels could still be found in Cornwall.

1960s ‘Moth snowstorms’ were a common sight on night time drives through the countryside . . .

Not only have we lost species, but many of those that remain have fallen victim to the ‘great thinning’. In his excellent book The Moth Snowstorm, Michael McCarthy uses this chilling term to point to the dramatic but often overlooked reduction in the numbers of once common wildlife.

Instead of getting depressed about it, let's use this knowledge as inspiration, as fuel. In the midst of this biodiversity crisis we need vision. What would it be like to live in world where abundant wildlife thrives alongside humans? What would it take to have a human culture that has a net positive impact on the biosphere? If we are to rewild our world it helps to have some sense of what is possible. A life-rich world is not at odds with thriving human culture. If you’re reading this you are no doubt well aware that the opposite is actually the case.

Standing up for habitats and species that are being destroyed is essential but not enough. We need to insist on more. We should be demanding a world brimming with life.

And let's not forget what is already happening. Beavers are making a comeback in many parts of Britain and white-tailed tailed eagles are bringing wildness back to southern England. These and many other projects shows that we can turn things around when we put our minds to it. Now that’s worth remembering.

Sources and inspiration

Macdonald, B. 2019. Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and its birds. Pelagic Publishing: Exeter.

McCarthy, M. 2016. The Moth Snowstorm : Nature and Joy. John Murray: London.

Monbiot, G. 2013. Feral: Rewilding the land, sea and human life. Penguin: London.

Tree, I. 2018. Wilding: The return of nature to a British Farm. Picador: London.

Websites

Bunloit Rewilding Project

Knepp

Rewilding Britain

Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation

Trees for Life

10th Anniversary 'Thank you note'!

This month, May 2021, I’ll be celebrating. It’s the 10th anniversary of putting all my working time into my business, Dan Puplett Nature Awareness. DPNA started a couple of years earlier as a side project while I was employed at Trees for Life. But this month marks 10 years of going all in!

Like many of us, I would love to see a human culture that treats all life with respect. One that has a net positive impact on the biosphere. I believe that understanding and connecting deeply to the more-than-human world are a key parts of realising this vision. My aim in creating this business was (and is) to help people to deepen their understanding of, and sense of kinship with, this wild world and its 8+ million species. Hopefully then we can act as better stewards and be more considerate neighbours!

And that's not meant to sound grandiose. What I'm doing may be a drop in the ocean, but I don’t have anything better to do so I’ve stuck with it. The fantastic thing is that there are lots of drops in the ocean, countless individuals and organisations who are also awed by this planet and want to help create a brighter future. You are probably one of them too. I'm privileged to know some of them personally, and that gives me hope.

Over the last decade I have run (and continue to run) a range of courses and bespoke trainings and events. Many of these have been focused around some core themes. These include wildlife tracking, bird language, foraging, ecology, natural history, rewilding and nature connection. Things I love to geek out about. I deliver training for conservation and environmental education professionals as well as universities and the general public. I also carryout ecological surveys and deliver guided wildlife walks. I have been fortunate to freelance for a number of excellent organisations delivering Forest Schools, nature-based youth work and programmes for people in recovery and with mental health challenges.

A lot has happened over the last decade and I've been privileged to work with some amazing people in a wide range of places from St Kilda to Hungary. The journey so far has been fun and inspiring and at times challenging and difficult. But the overriding feeling is one of gratitude. I'm aware that no project or business can ever be down to one person. So many people have helped me on the way. 

So, a huge thank you to everyone who has supported my work. My own teachers and mentors, clients, tracking buddies, students, online subscribers, and those closest to me who give support and encouragement and also teach me a huge amount. I've had a fascination with nature from a very young age and I feel grateful to those adults who saw and encouraged this interest. And there's massive appreciation for this astonishing natural world that continually teaches and inspires me.

It's been a privilege to meet thousands of people who have a shared passion for the natural world. In turbulent times I find it heartening that so many individuals find joy in engaging with nature and are committed to finding ways to help this wild world thrive. I think that biophilia runs deep in our veins.

I'm looking forward to the next steps. I have a some exciting projects in the pipeline, so watch this space! Thank you once again and I hope that your own connection to nature continues to deepen and flourish.

Stay well and stay wild,

Dan