About Me

Malham Tarn Field Centre, situated near Malham Tarn in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire, England. Follow this blog to keep up to date with current goings on at the Tarn.
The centre is run by the Field Studies Council and is popular with both geography and biology students, as well as the wider public. Opened in 1947, the Centre celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2007.Within walking distance of the Centre are famous limestone features including Malham Cove, Gordale Scar and spectacular karst landscapes. The route of the Pennine Way footpath runs very close to the buildings. Nearby habitats include limestone pavement, grazed and ungrazed grassland, woodland and species-rich fen, acid peat pools and stony hill streams. Malham Tarn itself is one of only eight upland alkaline lakes in Europe.

For more information please go to
http://www.field-studies-council.org/malhamtarn/index.aspx




Thursday 14 July 2011

Swallows and Malham Tarn

For the past few years Swallows have nested in North Wing building over one of the main entrances. This year once again the parents have laid eggs and four have hatched into young. The babies hatched a couple of weeks ago and are doing very well. The mother and father have been bringing food back to the young regularly and the chicks have grown very fast.


Wednesday 13 July 2011

End of June to mid July

At the end of the exam period, centre has become very busy again with 24 groups visiting centre since June 18th. We have had a mixture of A level and Primary groups at centre for mainly residential trips with a few day visits.

Minsthorpe Community College, Titus Salt, Batley Girls, Kirkham Grammar, Quegs, Acrington and Adcote, Rugby School, Sale Grammar, KESH Academy, Highfields School, Ecclesbourne School all visited to start their A2 Biology course ready for next year. Claire's Court and Bexley Grammar also started their A2 Geography course.


Dixons Allerton, Tauheedul Girls, Gateways School and Ripon Grammar studied rivers and tourism as topics for their GCSE controlled assessment.


Primary School groups who took part in a variety of activities around the centre where Cracoe and Rhylstone brought their whole school of both KS1 and KS2 pupils. Giggleswick Primary, Rauceby Primary and Meanwood Primary all brought their KS2 students. They took part in a variety of activities including woods, ponds, rivers, team games and conservation activities.


Newcastle School for Boys brought Yr 7 students to take part in adventure activities and learn about the rocks and scenery of the area. Framingham Earl from Norfolk took part in their Discovery award for their John Muir course. Finally St Aiden's did a Freshwater day for their Environmental Science A level.

The weather has been fairly nice with some days reaching temperatures of 24 degrees, which has been good for all the fieldwork.

We have had Emily Cooke a work experience student from Upper Wharfdale School at the centre for two weeks. Emily has taken part in many aspects of centre life, from helping in  the kitchen and cleaning some of the rooms in centre to experiencing fieldwork data collection for A level Geography and Biology.


There are some changes to education staff at the Tarn. Liz Earley our trainee tutor has been promoted to Tutor at the Snowdonia Centre Rhyd-y-Creau. We would like to wish her all the best in her new role. Jennie Richardson will be a new trainee tutor at the centre. Jennie has spent time recently teaching at our Derrygonnelly centre in Northern Ireland, we would like to welcome Jennie to the team at Malham.







Tuesday 12 July 2011

How many members of staff do you need to evict a vole?

As part of the courses that we run at Malham Tarn Field Centre we trap small mammals using Longworth traps. They are set overnight in woodland around the centre, and staff and students go to check them in the morning. The traps used give the creatures food and a warm safe bed for the night away from predators, so they are not harmed. Species normally caught are Wood Mice and Bank Voles.


However to our surprise we found a lonely vole in the common room today. We managed to catch the vole and release him into woodlands out of the house. The only possible way the vole could have got into the centre would be via a window. Being set in the middle of woodlands in a National Trust Estate in a National Park does mean we sometimes have some interesting visitors.