New arrivals to mark end of financial year!

Its arrived, Mike can't stop smiling

Wednesday marked the arrival of Sherborne's new tractor, not the best of weather but that didn't lessen the big smile on Mike's face. No work possible for me but a quick tour of the new workhorse and updates on upcoming work made my short stay worthwhile.

Cutting back new growth on willows on the river Eye

high water levels on the Eye but sunny skies

Its a Fungus amungas..

River banks shading cleared, water voles happy!

This morning was spent at Greystones where a good number of volunteers gathered,  before being led by Will down to the work area by the river Eye. The Wildlife 'new arrivals' were not quite on the scale of the NT but the new Silki saws and gloves were well received. The task was to remove new growth {mainly willow} casting shade over the River Eye with part of the team in the water and the rest operating from the relative safety of the river bank. This is one of the most worked stretches of the river Eye which highlights the need for sustained efforts to keep on top of the riverside management which benefits this water vole habitat.

Less we forget a Martin Harper guest blog on the Hen Harriers, in addition Ms Truss is continuing to do a fine job for this Government on the environment leading Defra to even more ineffectuality.

Eye of newt....

Lodge front door, with steps, fortunately opened for the wood!

Lodge pond plus Newts

A varied morning, centred on wood supplies, was spent at Sherborne today. Initially James on chainsaw and me on axe to produce a good half load of wood for delivery to Lodge park. While we set to on this task in the nursery Mike raided the wood store with the tractor & bucket to deliver wood to the nursery garden.

Whilst James and I delivered our wood load to Lodge Park Mike set off to Snowbottom belt to start collecting cordwood for loading into the tractor trailer. At Lodge Park we unloaded the wood, using a wheelbarrow, into the 'large cauldron' [no frogs or witches present], large fireplace and video room inside the Lodge. This should keep the fires going for the wedding event to be held this coming weekend at the Lodge. As we exited Lodge Park , on our way to meet up with Mike at Snowbotton belt,  James had a surprise for me at the Lodge pond. He was able to introduce me to this years newts plus waterboat men which seem to be doing fine again in this oft overlooked pond habitat within the Sherborne estate. We finally met up with Mike where we helped him to fully load the factory trailer with well seasoned cordwood produced in the previous winter season. No wildlife sightings or conservation duties but still a worthwhile mornings work for all.

A little bit of everything

Some tricky chain sawing of fallen willow 

River Dickler, close to Rissington Bridge

Scrub clearing over water course which runs out of lake

Wednesday morning was spent at Sherborne with both Mike and James. James was on chainsaw,  I was on wood processor loading the cord wood {plus occasional axe splitting} and Mike was operating the wood processor. Should have been quite straight forward to build up the stocks of wood for the depleted wood supplies but not so. The main difficulty in achieving maximum efficiency was the quality of the cord wood we were using i.e. relatively small in diameter and not straight! This meant much more work for all of us and by the end of the morning we had only achieved one trailer load albeit an  extra large one. The only good news was we hadn't wasted any wood and the remaining cord wood pile for the next session looked to be much better 'quality'. Highlight of the morning, apart from my moans about the wood, was that a sparrow hawk which was hidden on the ground near where we were working flew right in front of us, clearly fed up with the noise we were making.

Today I made a comeback with the Wildlife Trust out at Greystones where a sizeable team led by Will and Richard were to carry out brush clearing close to the river Dickler near to Rissington Bridge on the outskirts of Bourton on the Water. The water course coming out of one of the gravel lakes, adjacent to Greystones reserve, which ran into the Dicker needed some serious scrub clearing. Once completed {more than one session would be needed} this would provide a better habitat for water voles connecting the gravel lakes and Dickler. Previous work in the past in this area already showed encouraging signs of water vole and hopefully this current work would improve on this and make sustaining it much easier. Although I only had a short time on brush clearing my 'sawing' skills proved not to be too rusty and the two fires for burning the large amounts of scrub were well fed.