River work

Young welcoming party at Meadow farm

The WT team being introduced to the days task

Start of the river section 'narrowing'

Spent today with the WT on the river Dikler, downstream from Hyde mill and close to Meadow farm. Richard & John were leading and as well as the usual volunteers we were joined by Defra & NE representatives, all amounting to over 20 people. Before starting on a variety of 'river tasks' we were fortunate to see a kingfisher fly by obviously a little put off from its quiet fishing by such a large body of human invaders.

I with one group of 'workers' were directed to carry out the usual 'shade' clearance to help improve our favourite water vole's habitat. In this instance there were a number of mature trees which were to be left to provide some shading to ensure the brown trout were not too disadvantaged. The other work was to deal with sections of the Dikler which had become too wide and to start work to reduce the width by forming an artificial river bank where the original bank would have been. This was done using stakes weaving in suitable vegetation/fascines to form a barrier behind which the new river bank would establish itself. Sadly I didn't get the opportunity to use one of the 4 seriously large sledge hammers for setting the stakes securely in place. I had fond memories of similar work which addressed bank erosion at Hyde mill, amazingly 2 years ago!.

'Tintin' and a less 'Poplar' Bibury?

Wednesday at Sherborne, with James, started off with a grim task. 6 Canada geese were found dead in the West Belt by a family taking a walk through the woods. Our task was to find these unfortunate geese and discover what might have happened. It was clear when we tracked their location down that poachers had been at work and having shot theses geese probably somewhere along the Sherborne or Windrush had taken what they required from the birds then just dumped the remains over the wall in Westbelt. The incident would be reported and the bodies suitably disposed, its unlikely the perpetrators will be found. Whilst carrying out this task, and on a slightly more positive note, we discovered a lost labrador, 'Tintin', who happily we reunited with his owner. 

6 dominating poplars, Rack Isle

Less dense vegetation, courtesy Belted Galloways

Rack Isle nicely cropped, but something is missing!

No more poplars on Rack Isle

The main job of the day was to visit Bibury to carry out some coppicing plus some ground work in the Arlington row private car park. Quite a change to Rack Isle, Bibury, since my last visit. The Belted Galloway's had certainly done their job in reducing the dense vegetation and the contractors had done an impressive job of removing 6 large poplars a task long awaited for. Lots of willow to be coppiced, alongside the river Coln, all of which would need to be placed in the trailer for disposal in the nursey area.

This week evidence was given, from both sides, on driven Grouse shooting {yet more slaughter, see above,  of wildlife as a consequence}. Odd thing was the Countryside Alliance/Moorland Association were grilled by Simon Hart MP who happens to be chairman of the Countryside Alliance! Next is the Government debate on 31 October, not expecting the pro shooting MPs will be 'shot down' by the petition to ban driven grouse shooting. However its a strong warning to those arrogant elitists that scientific, reasoned arguments eventually will break down their fortress of misinformation, lies, criminal acts and 'tradition' sooner than any of us thought possible only a short time ago.

'Barn storming' and Extreme 'Coping'

Workstation 1 inside Greystones barn

Mine & Andy's  first box, latest design

Today was spent at Greystones with over 20 WT staff & volunteers led by Richard & John for the day's task. So what do you get with lots of drills, screws, saws,  25 'flat packs',  battens {to be cut to specific lengths}, instructions, pencils and several workstation tables? The answer is 25 of the latest designed Barn Owl boxes. The Barn owl box design main features were a removable top to allow 'use' monitoring and waste clearance, an entrance positioned to suit the hoped for 'owlets' {they have to be strong enough to reach the opening}, an outside platform allowing ease of re-entry for owlets. Given the number of people and materials it was fortunate we had a barn we could 'storm' and get the production lines set up. The aim for the day was for everyone to be involved in the production of at least one Barn owl box and ideally to reach a total of 25 boxes. The overall aim of this WT project was to produce 60 Barn owl boxes to cover at least the Windrush{Dickler?}  habitat area. After this construction phase a choice/survey of suitable installation locations with willing landowners will be taking place. Happy days in the future for our Barn owls, at least from a housing perspective.

View over North park looking down on Sherborne house

Pat showing off Coping stones reset in an earlier build phase 

Team surveying next section of Coping to be reset

Arrived at Sherborne this wednesday to find Pat and James busily mixing up some lime mortar, in readiness for resetting the extremely large Coping stones on the 17th century wall which runs along the North Park boundary next to Clarkes Close. The Coping stones to be used were the originals from the ~1600s and were pretty heavy. This meant that Mike had to use the 'blue' tractor to lift the heavy weight stones to the top of the rebuilt wall sections.  With Pat and James located on the 'public' side of the wall and Mike with me on the other 'lower' side, it enabled us to move the Copng stones into place. The lime mortar was the 'fixing' agent and applied on top of the wall by James & Pat.

Escaped sheep in rape field, coming to see the wall rebuilding

Sheep being herded alongside Clarkes Close

Before we could start the 'Coping' I noticed that we had an unexpected audience. A small flock of sheep were heading in our direction and it was clear they had escaped from one of the nearby pastures in/close to North Park. Mike immediately organised the 'shepherding' of the nervous flock back towards the potential escape point. It soon became clear that the sheep would have to pass by Clarks Close so James was sent ahead to prevent them entering the wood. Eventually, and with expert handling!, we managed to get the sheep back to their pasture via the damaged fence section alongside the public footpath. Once all the sheep were back in their pasture some temporary fence repairs were carried out and the work on the Coping stones resumed. By the end of the morning we had completed the bottom Coping layer which left the Coping 'top' stones to be positioned in the afternoon. You have to appreciate the drystone wallers in the 1600s who carried out the original wall construction without the aid of a tractor, they must have been exceptionally strong!