Sprint to beat Spring deadline

I am reminded of the benefits of retirement as the end of the financial year approaches. No accruals for me, sorry for you unlucky NT staff coping with this. However the rush is on to get fence clearing and thinning tasks completed as much as possible before the bird nesting season starts mid March. So not surprisingly spent a hard days fence clearing with Martin but enjoyed my first visit to Clump Farm, which in spite of fog on the Broadway tower hilltop, provided good views down onto Broadway. Still some way to go on tree identification {I need to see the leaves!}, so failed in identifying field maple, crab apple and even sycamore. Got the hawthorn but mainly 'cos the thorns are a bit of a giveaway especially when they pierce my gloves! Martin remains reasonably patient and only sighed a few times...

Clump farm on a sunny day

Today with Mike started with a visit to the the drystone wallers working the wall adjacent to East belt. Interesting local father and son team who we helped out by clearing some of the sapling growth too near the wall and delivered some much needed supplies of cotswold stone. After this got stuck into the main days task of thinning which completed the work started last week which will allow Mike to erect a deer fence compartment. This will enable the new beech and ash  growth to develop unhindered by hungry deer. A side benefit of the thinning was not just increasing firewood supplies but to provide some 'seats' for the local school children. So some suitable 6' lengths of wood were loaded onto the trailer and duly delivered to the Sherborne school ready for use this coming weekend.

Batmen and Robin...

The Bat cave/residence!,  postcode a secret

A surprise from Mike {Batman 1} when he and Morris,  the North Cotswold caver and batman extraordinaire took me to the local Quarry 'cave' system this morning. I remained {as Robin !}  as the safety man outside whilst they conducted the bat count inside. I got my chance after the official count, to explore the inside with Morris as my guide. Hugely impressed to see the lesser horseshoe bats [~100] which looked like 'black leaves' suspended from the cotswold stone ceilings. Also one of the bats was clearly aware of the warm temperature outside and was flying around. Oddly there was also a single greater horseshoe bat happy to roost alongside its cousins. It transpires that this bat conservation project of the NT and the Bat Trust has kept Mike and Morris busy for over 8 years which included a good deal of 'building' work carried out by the two of them to shore up the cave system. A cracking effort. We finished this part of the day by examining other bat roosts in various Sherborne buildings/cellars. Small number of lesser horseshoes were spotted but come the spring these roosts will be busier as the bats from the quarry roost make their migration from the main winter roost.

Just a days work for super volunteer?

Rest of the day with Mike and previous day with Martin was on 'thinning' activities at Sherborne east belt and Dovers hill! Always difficult to predict what may happen on any given day with a ranger and this week certainly illustrated this. For example with Martin we visited Snowshill first thing where Linda the head gardener provided a couple more jobs for Martins long list i.e. planning for new drystone wall and removal of some difficult tree roots.   Added  to this was the job of cutting up a large Mulberry tree root which I and L &L {Linda and Lisa assistant gardener} had dug out over the last 2 days.

Having done this martin & I  moved onto Dovers hill where some early 'olympicks' preparation was done to allow the audience increased viewing for these original local games! More conventional thinning took place in lynch wood where in  particular a very accurate tree felling was carried out by Martin. With buckets of skill and little room for error she fell without damaging any of the trees in the fall line. I would have awarded Martin the gold but Mike just pipped him with an even finer { even less margin for error} tree felling feat in the east belt today. Either way M&M certainly make tree felling look easy {it isn't!} but of course the real work falls to me in stacking and clearing up the tons of wood all ready for blocking, splitting and selling!.

On the Rack...

No not a ranger technique for driving us volunteers harder but a fine days work on Bibury's Rack Isle. Given the weather had taken a turn for the better this week, Martin seized the opportunity to visit the Isle for some 'sedge' clearing with the aid of course of the 'beast', see below. At last the water courses surrounding and cutting through the Isle had a healthy amount of water spite of another dry year. So at the end of the day it was satisfying to leave this non woodland environment looking really good. Apart from the usual duck population spotted a water vole so must be doing something right.

the 'beast'

Spot the ranger!,  initial smoke fortunately disappeared

Earlier in the week worked with Mike, with the help of another 'beast',  on blocking & splitting at Sherborne. Two more loads of wood for members of the local community who continue to be happy with this service. Given the weather was amazingly good had chance at my break to visit the Pleasure grounds where the snowdrops are in abundance and in one corner where early daffodils, crocus and aconites provided great colour. Finished the day off with a continuation of fence clearing down in the water meadows, still plenty to do here! 

Beast 2 Maddie,  Mike's dog attempting to 'help'

All in all a satisfying week capped off with my first sighting of not one but four short eared owls!!!!

Messing about on the river...

Well more a brook actually and on a chilly February 2012 morning, a good hard days fence clearing down in the water meadows and south belt. Lots of pleasant surprises starting with Mike announcing a change of task from blocking to a trip down to the water meadows to get the cotswold wardens started on their tasks and us to cut back some vigorous grey willow growth by the brook. This required some careful attention to the nearby fast running brook lest we took an unplanned dip!

windrush path to the water meadows

Being used to working with rangers in splendid isolation {one or two exceptions with Martin e.g. Bibury!} it was good for a change to meet up with other volunteers. In fact later that morning we also met up with the volunteer team from the wildlife trust who were doing stirling work on the 'ditches'.  So a veritable army of people working in the countryside but no shortage  of work to do today and for a good number of days into the future.

courtesy WT volunteer Mike

As an extra bonus as Mike drove down to the work site this morning I spotted a buzzard and kite. This was somewhat trumped as eagle eyed Mike spotted a magnificent  male hen harrier perched on a bush adjacent to the fence we were to clear. It even provided us with a 'fly by' as it took to the air but flew low over the ground in its classic hunting style. Didn't see any of the  'short eared' owls in the area but you can't have everything.

More fencing work in the afternoon followed but this time in the South Belt area where Mike with pole saw cut back a long row of trees whilst I struggled to remove the 'old to be replaced' fence frozen into the hard ground {using wire cutters and much cursing}. Back to splendid isolation, bitter cold and sadly one dead deer which had come off  worse with a vehicle on the A40.

39 Steps ....

If its worth doing its worth doing well, not a bad rule to follow especially where conservation and longevity are concerned. My fleeting experience in  drystone walling provides a good example of this so its especially pleasing, given no act of god etc that the Leckhampton 'wall', could still be doing its job several hundred years from now.

Crickley hill

The basic fact that work in the countryside is never ending means that u seldom have the luxury , unless H&S applies, to revisit work  so poor application is costly and unsightly. That being the case even the best construction has a limited lifetime and mother nature will require u to revisit eventually. So in 2011, after Martin had secured funds from the Cotswold Way [team linked with National trails, was under Natural England funding now under AONB?],  I was exposed to 'step' maintenance in woodland at Dovers Hill. It wasn't until we got to the site where the work was to take place the i realised this was going to take a while. The steps form part of the path through the woodland and were in three parts on a particularly steep  gradient. In all 80 steps! would require replacing those in the worst state taking priority. Given the tree roots, rocky ground and the need to master Martin's new approach to implementing steps in this terrain 6-8 steps per day was the going rate. This was going to be a longterm endeavour but my hammering skills were certainly going to improve! At least the steps in worst repair have been replaced and we didn't have to wait long before they came  through their first test, courtesy of local walkers.