High tension by the Dikler !

View over Lodge Park, river Leach levels down

see below to identify the only man to tackle 2 monkeys!

No sign of Morris for the January count this wednesday at Sherborne { Dark knight still in Oz?} but we still went ahead supported by Simon on safety and Mike and I carrying out the count. Temperature near the entrance was 11C but further in the cave it averaged 8C and definitely had a damper feel in the cave due to our fairly wet weather over the last few months. The final count for the 'bat cave' was 158 , 0 for the Kennels and Bothy and 12 in the nursery cellar giving a grand total of 170 lesser horseshoes, a healthy total for the time of year plus an increase since December 2013 and January 2013 counts.  A bonus near the Kennels summer roost was my first sighting of a Bullfinch for quite some time!

Lunchtime, on yet another mild winters day, was down by the Broadwater. 2 pairs of Tufted duck, usual coot and a moorhen were on show above the weir but the mute swan family spotted last week had moved on. Downstream were significant numbers of wigeon with another pair of tufted duck, the 'sherborne' pair of swans and the usual mallards preferring the area near the boat house. The afternoon session was spent in Larkethill wood, adjacent to Lodge Park where contractors had felled selected trees, mainly ash too near to the roadside boundary. The task was to generate cordwood to be stacked and placed in the tractor trailer Mike had towed with his tractor to this location. I drove the 4x4 with Simon to aid in the operation which proved fairly tricky given the density of remaining trees. By close of play the tractor trailer was filled and a number of cord wood piles left for future retrieval to the nursery. Another bonus for me was  spotting a small flock of long tailed tits in the hedgerow across the road from the wood.

Attended first session this year with the Wildlife Trust at Greystones with two interesting tasks on offer;
The first to be led by Will on cutting stakes & hazel heatherings on green lane for the hedge laying at Sherborne in March,
and the second led by Richard on stock fencing by the river Dikler, with the added bonus that the strainers and posts were already in place.

Barn owl house and end of fence line far right 

Completed stock fencing by the River Dikler

I opted for the fencing, [need the practice], and set off with the team over wet ground with the barbed wire, stock wire and a fine selection of tools.  Its not often I get the chance to either see in use or operate the Monkey strainer, 'Myti' strainer {for barbed wire in this case}, Farmers Boy, metal bar, wire cutters, hammer, lots of staples not to mention the all important Gripples! It was also interesting to see a slightly different technique {to that I have used before} employed to construct the stock fence with an innovative use of the metal bar and 2 Monkey strainers for the top and bottom stock fencing 'strain' wires. Given the posts were all set up the key job was to ensure the correct application of tension to the fencing wires so I gained some more valuable insights into the dark art of fencing and reluctantly have to bow to Richards skills/knowledge in this area. Before we even reached our work site it was great to see a snipe, buzzard and 2 red kite and having reached our destination a red spotted woodpecker could be heard in a nearby tree {a bit greedy I know but it was a shame the barn owl didn't make an appearance given its 'home' was right by the work area}. After a minor hiccup with the length of stock fence available for the longer run of the three fence sections required {allowing for the bend in the fence line tracking the river bank and needing the Gripples to join up the 2 short fence sections} the team was divided up for the various tasks. After bedding in infrequent {if ever} used skills, with Richard's expert guidance, we completed the task and to the standard required. Given the nature of the work {tools and materials} plus the proximity to the swift flowing river and 'mini' lake on the pasture side it was amazing there were no unfortunate incidents. This could be put down to our expertise, good risk management & leadership or luck, probably all, you decide. So with great weather we ended the day on a high and rejoined the team working on stakes & heatherings who were equally well satisfied with their days session.

Couple of interesting blogs from Martin Harper the first on lobbying {still a worry} and lest we forget Natural England {if only its purpose could be fulfilled!}