Autumn clearance

Top of Ragged copse, self portrait?

Wednesday was spent with Mike at Sherborne, carrying out various clearance tasks. The first was at the 'Bat cave' where the vegetation, mainly Comfrey, had completely hidden the path. An aggressive use of the brush cutter soon uncovered the path down to the mine and revealed the steps. Had to replace/secure some of the stakes supporting the steps and all was ready for a visit by the Springwatch team on thursday. We then moved onto the top section of Ragged Copse where some path and fence line shrub clearance was carried out, continuing the work started earlier in the week. Not a bad mornings work especially since at the start of morning Mike had suffered 'a battering' in a fall in the estate yard.

Hyde Mill residence, we were downstream of this

Today was spent with the GWT at Hyde mill alongside an overgrown stretch of the river Dickler. John led the volunteer team which was divided into teams one checking previous work on this stretch of river and the team I was in was removing stands of willow providing shading detrimental to the growth of sedge grass etc. an important food source for water voles. Given limited available space to dispose of the large amounts of willow it was fortunate John had a trailer to collect the brash in and the nearby Meadow farm yard provided the area to unload  the material.