Bats, Beech, and Budget

Its a record count

Back from Budapest, having seen their bat caves!, Morris joined with us today for the March Bat count at Sherborne. Temperature outside  the Bat cave ~5 C but as usual a barmy 11 C immediately inside the cave with 7- 9 C deeper inside where the Lesser Horseshoes were 'hanging'. So a bit of a surprise in store , since February count,  as there were 175 [+11] Lesser Horseshoes and yet another new species for me a 'Whiskered' Bat.  Sadly our long eared brown was not found in the Bothy but there were 8 [ +2] Lesser Horseshoes in the cellar and again 0 in the kennels. So overall good news, a record for Sherborne,  but we are hoping this cold snap ends soon and we get a warmer spell with good numbers of insects so the bats {and other wildlife} have a much needed boost from the winter sparsity.

After the excitement of the morning Bat count, it was back down to earth with some thinning  in Snow bottom belt. Mike was on good form with the chainsaw and plenty of  large Beech and Ash were felled and a 'record' {from my short experience} of cordwood piles generated for next years wood service supplies. Of course due care was taken this time of the year that no birds were disturbed and given the area and cold snap we hope to get one last session of thinning for this season next week. It was also good to see early signs of bluebell growth which follows on from the impressive show of snowdrops in other parts of the Sherborne estate. Anyway it was fair to say both Mike and I were pretty much out of gas as the day ended. Of course we both had the news of the Budget to look forward to, what changes if any for the environment I wonder.