Summer Surveying St Andrews
By Cori Birkin
2025
Dappled sunlight filtering down through the trees, the St Andrews Botanic Gardens quiet except from a few early visitors, the morning birdsong, and a group of students crouched poring over their moth trap. We lifted the sleepy beings up close to our eyes and ID guides, their slow awakening a groovy dance upon our whorled fingertips. The curiosity seemed contagious: as passer-bys paused to wonder. Adults and children alike – some with loud curiosity, others with wide wondering stares. On these mornings, we had to learn to teach as much as we learnt ourselves, sharing knowledge out as generously as the moths sharing their quiet beauty.
This was the heart of my internship with the University of St Andrews, branching from the Biodiversity Literacy VIP project.
Our main goal: monitor and map biodiversity across university-managed properties. Thus developing a database of species across a diverse range of taxa, which can be used to inform University Biodiversity Strategy and management plans.
My personal goal? To improve my identification skills and find at least one record of every taxa (e.g. bird, plant, moth, tree, bumblebee, fungi), which are represented on our record map in different colours – each adding to the patchwork portrait of diversity we were gathering.
~ QGIS database snapshot after summer – each coloured point a species record ~
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The Hidden Corners of Campus
A highlight of the internship was finding new little hubs of biodiversity along the way.
Our work began at the affectionately named ‘Bat Cave’, our library of books and equipment. Here we learnt how to set up our GQIS (digital mapping software) systems, and accompanying QField (mobile version), as well as raiding the library for books and equipment to help us in our task. We swapped our books throughout the summer too, for a nice knowledge-sharing crossover.
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I found I really liked the process of using ID books over apps, the flicking through pages, working your way through keys – the satisfaction of identifying something yourself, and the solidification of that thing and its features in my memory. Species identification, I’m realising, is like a muscle I have to train over and over again. But once you start to know some, the muscle strengthens, it all starts to become second nature.
~ Collins Wildflower Guide (one of my favourite ID books) in Botanic Gardens meadows ~
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I remember one day, whilst already logging (and maybe munching on) some Blackberries over in the North Haugh, there was a ping of a message to the Internship chat: Crossbills sighted at Melville Pond, anyone nearby to log them? Crossbills, albeit now with their endemic status revoked, still stand in my mind as an iconic and elusive Scottish species – and one that would be great to have on our maps! So, I jumped on my bike and peddled there straight away. Only upon arriving did I realise I had no idea of their sound, behaviour or look. And so ensued a pretty unfruitful hour traipsing through nettles and bushes and woodland all around the pond, before I stumbled across something else entirely. Beyond the pond lay a copse of old and broad birches I had never noticed before, long grass weaving at their roots, arms perfect for climbing and sitting. Such a peaceful new area that I had had no idea of before.
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Another generous surprise was finding old and currently unused transition gardens. Not only did they provide plenty of plants to log, but also handfuls of wild strawberries, feverfew, broad beans, lavender, and nasturtium seeds – remnants of previous planting and care.
~ Some Transition Garden Finds: calendula, welsh poppy, lavender, and wild strawberry ~
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Perhaps my favourite above all though, was whiling my hours in the botanic gardens, poring over tiny patches of rockery and garden beds, and counting layer upon layer of species nestled there. It felt like an egg hunt at Easter – you always think you’ve got them all, and then another bright treasure reveals its foliate face. I began seeing these species in my wild ventures too – the familiar silver down of Alchemillia mollis (Alpine lady’s mantle) resurfacing atop Bla Bheinn on Skye, Common Carder Bees buzzing around flowers all about town and far into the start of semester.
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In contrast, the manicured university quads offered almost nothing native. Sitting with my ID books, I could map endlessly but add no new names to our QGIS system. It was the little oases – pockets of garden, meadow, and hedgerow – that held the richest diversity, and greatest songs.
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Learning Each Language of Life
With my other role of surveying grassland plants over summer, I was eager to put my knowledge to work. Grasses seem a natural extension from this, but really they’re a whole other ballpark. With the heralded madness of botanists enthused by the strangest thing – grasses? – I approached with caution. And fell into the trap. They’re another world of wonder! The commonest I found on our university properties were yorkshire fog, smooth meadow-grass and perennial rye. But explore further and you have icons such as ‘Timothy’ and ‘Cocksfoot’.
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Moths brought their own kind of magic. Cycling to the botanic gardens at dawn, opening the trap, and finding that beautiful beings gleamed inside. Some highlights were the Poplar Hawkmoth, Ghost moth, Burnished Brass – delicate creatures like painted silk. Even now, as semester has started, we continue with autumnal moths – Black Rustic, and Yellow-line Quakers – each one indicating the turning of the seasons.
~ Burnished Brass (left) and Poplar Hawkmoth (right) ~
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A Summer of Change
As with the moths, so did other taxa shift too – once brightly flowering campion and knapweed became seed pots and dead heads. Spending weeks across the entire summer gave me a rare view of seasonal change. Each site – meadow, garden, woodland – shifted subtly as weeks passed.
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All of it, stitched together, changed how I looked at familiar spaces. A more discerning eye, noticing what friendly faces were there, and what were not.
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As I improved my other taxa identification, I could layer this in. Birds, bats, hoverflies, fungi – all then wove themselves into the tapestry. Some species were easy to ID log, others elusive or misrepresented in our systems. There were some challenges within: when upon finally finding a late summer fungi, I discovered the most common amanita was missing from our database. I’m still yet to get that elusive taxa logged, and now updating our lists.
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Why It Matters
I know this enthusiasm might sound quite a bit mad. Wondrous grasses? Enlivening moths? Hours in the rockery counting tiny trefoils? Maybe it is. But I found that once I started paying attention, I started to find wonder everywhere, infected with a kind of need to name the friends about. And noticing their absence when they were not to be found.
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So next time you pass a hedgerow, maybe you’ll pause and wonder how many tens of species may be tucked within. Sitting on the quad, maybe you’ll ask what grasses are growing at your feet. Perhaps you’ll notice the yarrow along a carpark edge, and smile at its quiet resilience.
Or perhaps you’ll think nothing of it as, unseen, unappreciated, undervalued, year by year these things will disappear.
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Nature’s diversity is our diversity. Every species mapped, every moth admired, every tree stumbled upon by accident – it all adds to a richer, more resilient world. And if we learn to notice and appreciate these little wonders, maybe we will also learn that we are one and the same – and just how much that means.