Despite the gloomy continual disruption caused by Covid Geckoella has ploughed on and had a busy and productive 2021.
Here is a little sum up of our year, plus some fun memories of our ecological and geological world in 2021.
Geckoella had our busiest ecology and geology season ever in 2021, including radio-tracking greater horseshoe bats, nature recovery mapping for AONBs, biodiversity and heritage work for Historic England, and SSSI monitoring (both geological and ecological) for Natural England. All this alongside further work for WWT at Steart. We as usual also carried out ecological survey work to support both major infrastructure projects and smaller development projects, throughout the south-west and beyond, as well as our standard specialist geological work on Building Stones and palaeontological studies and tasks.
We were very fortunate in that 2021 brought some dynamic new recruits to Geckoella’s growing team. These include Senior Ecologist Jane Cole, Alex Woolcock (our Remote Sensing specialist and drone operator), Dela Collins (who heads up our Ecological Clerk of Works team) and Katie Beale who coordinates our growing involvement with the ecology detection dog sector. Later in the year Kelly Sheldrick and Vanessa Lloyd also joined the ecology team as Assistant Ecologists. Many of the existing team also enjoyed promotions and new roles, as we look forward to a very busy future!
It’s hard to believe our new website is nearly a year old now, launched in January 2021 and designed at Teapot Creative, its packed with useful information about Geckoella and often updated with our latest news. https://www.geckoella.co.uk/news/
Watchet’s Hedgehog population will hopefully benefit from the launch in October 2021 of Watchet Hedgehog Group’s website https://www.watchethedgehogs.org, packed with information on their conservation, and which was compiled and sponsored by Geckoella. Another ‘not for profit’ project is our ongoing sponsorship for the Ecology Detection Dogs in Britain and Ireland Working Group, with a mission to share knowledge and raise awareness on the responsible use of dogs in ecology and conservation https://www.ecologydetectiondogwg.org/, and which is fast developing into a ‘trade organisation’ for the sector, with the development of high quality standards and guidelines.
We celebrated 2021 with a festive and windy walk to Hurlstone Point to finish off the season.
Although we didn’t spot the hoped-for harbour porpoise (wildlife reminding us that it is, well, wild and therefore does not always turn up on demand!) there was much talk on the walk of all things ecological and geological. Chatterings about film and TV entertainments for the coming holiday included BBCs Blue Planet 2 about Plastic Pollution and Seaspiracy but it was unanimously agreed that everyone should watch The Big Year (2011) – a light hearted comedy about twitchers. On the Christmas shopping list this year was the Britain’s Mammals book by Wild Guides with contributions by Geckoella https://www.nhbs.com/britains-mammals-book
The big news in 2021 of course was the opening of the East Quay development, to include Geckoella’s new office and geological workshop! Our big official launch party will be held in early 2022 (once this pesky Omicron has calmed down a bit). Whilst our preparations have been continuing and we’ve been moving in, we couldn’t help ourselves but to make the most of our handsome feature window overlooking Watchet’s Marina, with a very special COP26 themed Halloween window display and inspired Geckoella carved pumpkins by Beccy Shaw, followed by a seasonal ecological/ geological Christmas Wreath artwork by Artist and Geckoella member Alison Jacobs.