WWW @ Sherborne!

Hedge by Sandy Hill Copse

Nicely 'disguised' trap in Clarks Close

There is currently a big initiative at Sherborne to discover more about the local wildlife and its behaviour in the varied Sherborne environments {the Who &Where of local Wildlife}. So with James this wednesday the main task was to survey the humane badger & fox traps which were setup at promising locations to allow the 'GPS tagging' of these larger mammals . Currently the traps aren't primed to trap wildlife, but baited with suitable food aimed at making the wildlife comfortable with the presence of the traps before they are eventually set. Once the foxes&badgers are fitted with 'trackers' their daily behaviours can then be monitored to give an important insight into how they interact with the Sherborne environment. With surprisingly good weather we started the survey at Northfield Barn before moving onto Sandy Hill Copse and Clarks Close. It was good to see the hedges I planted with Mike in the Sandy Hill/ Clarks Copse  area  are looking good and that the rail fence around the top of Clarks close has been completed. The 3 traps in this area all appeared to have been visited as most of the food placed in them had gone. Hopefully the motion cameras located by the traps will reveal which animal had consumed the food.

Speckled wood, Century wood

GWT river bank improvements, Sherborne Brook

We then moved on to Century Wood and again the traps in this area had been visited. Once again the traps were replenished with food, peanuts for the badgers and dry dog food for the foxes. While in this wood we were treated to a sighting of fallow deer, a hare and a speckled wood butterfly. We also saw quite a number of Orange tip butterflies throughout the survey. I have seen this butterfly in a number of locations and on days where the temperatures have been quite low, its obviously one of the more 'hardy' species. The final trap was down in the Water meadows  by the Sherborne Brook close to one of the Otter holts Mike had built some years ago.  While in this area we paid a visit to the Sherborne Brook where the GWT had recently carried out further  river bank improvements and we disturbed a grey heron also interested in the improved fishing opportunities. We saw a couple of red kite flying over the pasture adjacent to Birches & Century wood {probably attracted to the sad demise of a spring lamb} and we observed there was still a small amount of water left in the 'scrape'.  Look forward to seeing what James discovers on the various motion camera cards he extracted on this survey.