Bark spade and drawing knife are we Bats ?

Lesser horseshoes 'just hanging'

The March bat count took place on Wednesday with James & Mike at Sherborne in pretty wet conditions and alas without Maurice. On the plus side the number of Lesser Horseshoes were up on the February count [156] with 52[1] bats occupying the summer/transit roosts, 20 of those having moved from the main winter roost. So the final tally was 136 Bat cave, 6 Kennels, 39 Bothy and 7 Cellars with a grand total 188.  Temperature outside ~ 7.5C and inside a balmy 8C-9C with 97% humidity.

Here's one I prepared earlier

Its not only Sherborne where exciting new activities have started {with ~ 18 months duration} but its all action at Greystones as well. The new visitor centre building work is well under way, so much so we had to park at the nearby Co-Op car park. Today was spent with Tom at Greystones where further preparation work was to be carried out in support of an iron age Roundhouse build. The size of this build was going to be ~ 8m diameter of circular floor  with 10-15m? {can't remember figure quoted but thats very tall! ,correction welcome} roof height. Looking at the materials {oak and ash cordwood, hazel sticks and prepared faggots} it was hard for us to see how you could create any building  but as Tom pointed out it was akin to a rustic 'flatpack' without the usual instructions {no bad thing in my experience}. Add to this the addition of new tools: the bark spade {supplemented by sharpened normal spades} and the drawing knife  it wasn't getting clearer. The pictures may add some clarity? to this very early bark stripping and hazel shaping part of the build. It was another first for me and others so that's no bad thing.

Early stages of hazel pruning

Large stock of faggots for Roundhouse walls

Greystone cows as perplexed as us

Crude bark scraping and fine tuning with Drawing Knife

Some hard scraping of oak cordwood and more delicate DK smoothing

Interesting article in telegraph, I knew NT would get with the programme eventually? , even a statement from Andrea Leadsom who has been pretty invisible as Defra minister, lets face it Defra deputy Coffey is pretty hopeless.

Spring surprises

Toad in the  bubble!

Good looking Toad

Arty frog

Bibury, Willow Coppicing

Toads hattrick

Impressive frogspawn

Handsome frog sharing the Rack Isle habitat with toads

Obviously no-one told the weather its gold cup week because today, with James at Sherborne, was a cracking warm sunny spring day. The mornings task was spent at Rack Isle, Bibury and involved repairing 2 sections of the rail fence and coppicing some of the remaining willow stands. As a bonus we carried out a survey of Rack Isle which revealed a healthy population of toads, a small number of frogs + frogspawn but sadly no voles or grass snakes. Also making a welcome appearance were grey&piebald wagtails and two buzzards. To complete this pleasant spring day I spotted a Brimstone, my first butterfly of the year,  on the return journey to Sherborne.  As is usual the coppiced material was removed from Rack Isle and loaded on the trailer. Following James success with creating 2 impressive chairs from the coppiced willow he will be putting todays material to good use, can't wait to see the results .

WeT,WeT,WeT but 'Dukes' win through

Out and about in April, 'the Duke'

Not a great day for outdoor work and having walked the dogs in heavy rain early morning it was with some doubts I met up with the WT team in a very wet lay-by not too far from Naunton golf club. From this spot we were ferried to the work site, on Round hill Farm, which was a section of an old disused railway line hidden in the rolling hills. After an introduction by Chris Wiltshire, butterfly recorder for Glos. , the surprisingly large team were set to clear the steep banks of overgrown shrub {ash, field maple..} and use bonfires to dispose of the brash.  The objective was to remove unwanted shading to encourage grass growth along hopefully with cowslips and other plant life all to help sustain the resident Duke of Burgundy population along with other butterfly species [Green hair streak...]. As the Duke male can be feisty in protecting its territory plus attracting females it was important to leave hawthorn shrub which it uses for its flowers and as a good vantage point. It turns out that the Dukes require a not too hot habitat with longish grasses and the cowslips they feed on similarly as they last longer out of prolonged sunlight. Its useful to point out that we aren't normally encouraged to work in such damp conditions but time is disappearing fast for avoiding disturbing wildlife during the seasonal breeding times. Again its sad to note the once healthy colonies of these butterflies has decreased significantly over the past few years so any work to help improve habitats is crucial.

Earlier in the week I joined Mike and James at Lodge Park to clear the mountain of leaves prior to the opening of the lodge later this month. The weather was decidedly better than today and this seemed to attract a healthy number of raptors. This included a red kite , a kestrel and a 'band' of 8 buzzards! As it turns out there used to be a colony of 'dukes' in 'Snowbottom belt' and there may be potential to do similar habitat improvements to see their return. Chris W is only too happy to offer further advice on this.