A Dark Knight army!

Large turnout for the March bat count

A bit of an 'upside down' day at Sherborne with the March Bat count taking place in the afternoon. The morning was spent in the nursery splitting wood with 2 full loads delivered to local Sherborne customers. Its amazing how the remaining 'seasoned' wood stock is lasting but hopefully the demand should be tailing off now spring is upon us.

Lunchtime by the Broadwater provided some interesting changes: with the resident mute swans having built their usual nest by the boathouse, the new pair of mute swans  establishing their nest on an island above the weir, a pair of red-crested Pochard and a little Egret. All the usual suspects on the water were also present with a single Red Kite flying low over the Broadwater and 3 Buzzards flying high over the woods up from the brook. Also spotted at Sherborne by a local resident was a female hen harrier, I will of course be attempting to spot it myself.

The afternoon began with a bat count in the village roosts:  the Cellar 17, bothy 1 and the Kennels 8 lesser horseshoes. We met Morris up at the bat cave accompanied by a number of students and consultants. In addition Anna one of the new Sherborne volunteers joined Mike and Maddie to complete the bat enthusiasts. So it was quite a group looking forward to exploring the winter roost for the first time. The count for the cave proved very disappointing with only 88 lesser horseshoes giving a grand total of 114 well below last month and the 183 last March. The much warmer weather than last year  and a possible undiscovered summer roost may account for the drop, here's hoping its not something more serious.

On a totally different note I quite liked this piece from the Wildlife Trust providing good examples of youngsters adventures in nature, in this case more is even better. A final word about this years budget from Martin Harper, his blog unfortunately and unsurprisingly revealing no positive news for the environment.