CONSERVATION & ECOLOGY


Operation Pollinator


Winning at life on the course


Banchory Golf Club, on Deeside in Scotland, won the Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award at the Golf Environment Awards, presented at BTME 2020. Course Manager, Richard Mullen, was acclaimed for the course’s success in establishing wildflower areas on rough and out of play areas that has seen biodiversity flourish by providing essential natural habitats alongside a well managed golf course


Environment Awards’ judge, Rowan Rumball. “Naturally seeded areas, and also areas sown with species that are appropriate to the local region, are both present,” he commented. “STRI ecologists saw a diverse range of invertebrate species that can only be explained by a course that has been managed appropriately.” Along with winning the Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award at BTME, Course Manager Richard Mullen was also a finalist in the Conservation Greenkeeper of the Year Award and picked up the BIGGA Excellence in Communication Outreach Award 2020.


B Pitchcare caught up with Richard, Rowan


and Syngenta Operation Pollinator Manager, Caroline Carroll, to find out more about the Banchory experiences, and to provide tips for other clubs to achieve more successful results from their environmental initiatives


Pitchcare: Which ecological features have you found easiest to establish and given the quickest gains?


Richard Mullen: Although some things have been easy to establish and create, our aim is for the gains to be long term. But, if we had to choose one, it would be the introduction of Red Squirrel feeding stations and dray boxes. Creating these was achievable by


102 PC April/May 2020


anchory Golf Club has gone from strength to strength over the past year, vastly increasing the areas dedicated to wildflowers, enthused Golf


help from the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels project, and spare wood!


Richard Rowan: Understanding the local environment to a course is vital to creating ecological enhancements that are taken advantage of quickly. For example if there is an adjourning woodland, bird boxes can help the local population to spread and grow; while lowland courses surrounded by ponds may see more luck with reptile refuges or biodiversity ponds. Richard saw the potential for increasing the local red squirrel population and this has produced dividends!


Caroline Carroll: With over ten years’ experience of Operation Pollinator on golf courses, it’s recognised that success doesn’t happen overnight, but Richard’s experience at Banchory has shown that, with every positive action, there are clear gains for the environment from day one. Given commitment and time, habitats and their value to wildlife get better and better. By utilising out of play areas to create diverse habitat features he’s demonstrated the huge value that golf courses can have as a national environmental resource.


PC: Conversely, which ecological features have been most difficult?


RM: Getting wildflowers established within existing rough areas has definitely been a challenge. Thinning out the rough without any chemical help is a challenge on its own, especially with low staff levels, but one we


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