High flyer, with Bar code!

Sherborne Brook, on holiday for Bar-Headed Goose?

A hard ask from Mike today as we were to pay a visit to the Water meadows to complete the wood stacking and some fence clearing near Century wood. My last visit here wasn't paved with glory and this time we were more cautious with Mike driving the 4x4 with no loaded trailer! On the way to the work area we bumped into Richard and John from the Wildlife trust who were repairing part of the fence line alongside Sherborne brook where previously great work had been done in re-establishing the river bank using the 'hurdle' approach using faggots. In this case this meant a line of hurdles down the centre of the current widened brook. This was done ~1 year ago and already the river was deeper, clear  and with lots of evidence of water voles presence. Much useful conservation topics were discussed but this meant we all started to feel the cold given the time of day and cloudy conditions. This was soon remedied when we started the days task and with the temperatures rising we were soon taking off the layers.

Had a warm and rewarding lunch break walking along the Sherborne Brook where several treats awaited me. The first was witnessing a Heron catch its lunch, the second spotting the newly built swan nest with attending swan, {near the Boat house} and lastly seeing a most unusual goose for these parts. It turns out it is the Bar Headed goose {very distinct with the black 'bar' code stripes on the side of its head}. Not in my phone bird app. , not surprising since its home is central Asia!

Returned to the Water meadows for the afternoon where we finished the wood stacking in spite of Maddie who was in a playful mood as she attacked the wood piles with her usual energy!  Having completed this task Mike persuaded me to revisit the access point alongside Century wood where we were to do some fence clearing. On this occasion the deep mud had dried out so access wasn't a challenge. However evidence of our last trip was still visible where the deep ruts were still clearly defined. However the fence damage I thought I had caused was mis-reported and apart from some 'rotted' posts there was only a couple of scrape marks on the big strainer post to show for my collision. Granted that was enough to dent the new trailer but I felt better having not destroyed the fence. Afternoon weather was very pleasant and a very enjoyable day all round.

While the cats away...

Water meadows, working 1 field along to the right

Mike still on leave but surprisingly found myself back at Sherborne Water Meadows carrying out habitat improvements with the Wildlife Trust (note their CAP message) today.  Its my first outing with the 'living landscape programme' Cotswold rivers team {excellent video of what they are about}. We were to meet at the Northfield Barn car park and I was taken aback by the turn out. 16 volunteers and 3 Wildlife Trust officers {TIm - living landscapes, Richard - ecology, John - water voles} which I was told was a record and possibly influenced by the glorious weather, can't blame anyone for taking advantage.

The habitat work was a continuation of previous good work by the Wildlife Trust volunteers and   contractors {with heavyweight machine} down in the vicinity of the 'old' Sherborne Brook and a water course, by Birch copse, running parallel to the Windrush river. No power tools today but strictly manual cutting using large pruning saws and loppers clearing the fence lines and water course bank to allow more light exposure. It was muddy but the water levels back to normal so acceptable conditions. Its amazing how much can be done with so many people, so although not complete much progress made and some impressive piles of brash to add to the not inconsiderable piles already existing. Plan is when wildlife conditions permit to lay a new hedge down one of the fence lines.

Was good to see the local wildlife was out and about in spite of our small army and with so many eyes there wasn't too much that slipped by without notice. So Red Kites, Buzzards, 1 Cormorant, 1 fox and 5 Fallow Stags with impressive antlers starred at the lunch break.  No willow tits seen but it seems some of the specific willow tit boxes made & installed by Wildlife Trust volunteer have seen some activity.  Also spotted were 2 otter spraint, I refused the offer to smell either, but its good to know river otters are present in this area. The 'vole' officer John with us pointed out what may have been water vole tracks so quite a healthy sign for wildlife in general in these parts and overall a good first introduction to working with the Wildlife Trust. 

It must be spring

Pleasure Ground 

Ended the day by stopping off in Sherborne and viewing the spring flowers in the Pleasure Grounds, even spotted the local Heron back in its spot on Sherborne Brook.

A mishmash

Deep drift blocking path,  Leckhampton hill

Sub zero temperatures and plenty of snow over the past week put paid to any countryside work with the NT. However being a lover of snow from past skiing feats this motivated me everyday to get out into my local Leckhampton and Crickley hill countryside while the white stuff lasted. Although the snow in Cheltenham was a few inches, up in the hills it was considerably more and where it had drifted  as much as 8 feet! The most I have seen in over 30 years in Cheltenham.

Devils chimney, not far from hunting barn owl

 Away from the many youngsters and parents enjoying the sledging opportunities, plus the usual dog walkers, I managed to spot quite a few birds working hard to find food in fairly harsh conditions. The highlights for me were:
 A goldfinch so happy to have found something to eat in the snow it allowed me to approach really closely {sadly on this day I had broken my rule, leaving my camera at home},
A treecreeper and nuthatch on adjacent trees searching hard for insects, and lastly but not leastly,
A barn owl surprisingly on the hunt early {mid afternoon}.

Glad I was walking, gritters don't reach here

Also squeezed in a quick visit to the Sherborne water meadows before the snow disappeared. Good news was the water levels were down to manageable levels so only had the snow to contend with. This proved too much on one of the Barrington estate paths where the snow depth was knee level and even deeper in parts. However I managed to see quite a bit of wildlife although the raptors were mainly in the trees rather than the air. Still no short eared owls or hen harriers but I enjoyed sights of : 6 Red Kites, 3 Buzzards, 1 Kestrel, 1 Heron, 4 Cormorants, Lapwings and Fieldfares (plus lots smaller birds I have yet to ID). Add to this 1 magnificent male Hare (great condition and size) and a herd of fallow deer.

I was amused by an article in one of the Sunday papers where the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson was pleased to declare the start of  tough new controls on tree imports stating " I want to ensure we can quickly trace and destroy diseased ..". Bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted but the various contagious incurable fungal diseases like Chalara - dieback, Phytophthora (and no doubt other strains continue to add to the existing threats to our scarce woodland) from imports means these measure are still crucial although maybe a  bit too late!

Close Encounters

Hyde under water!

Where's the path gone

Windrush bridge -above welly level

A little too wet to permit any Ranger work this week but armed with wellies, camera, binos went down to the water meadows [Lake!] on a sunny! friday. I was expecting the water meadows to be a little damp but was still surprised by how much water there actually was even though on the track down the newly formed stream gave a clue.  On reaching the water meadows I decided on taking the path towards the 'hyde' first and carefully paddled down the flooded path. Half way down I disturbed a large   bird which flew right in front of me and was my first sighting of a short eared owl since earlier this year. It flew across the meadows and perched on a convenient post in the middle of the meadow. After a couple of pictures {still too far for my telephoto} I waded on towards the hyde.  No more wildlife sightings so I backtracked towards the windrush. Crossed over to the Barrington estate side and was treated to another close fly by of a red kite this followed by another spot of a short eared owl in a large tree not too far from the field I had seen 4 owls February this year.  On my return journey I spotted a hare basking in the sun, obviously the weasel I spotted last week in this area not quite fast enough to catch this fleet footed prey.

This week marked the end of wildwood and maybe wishful thinking on my part but it did get me thinking about missed opportunities in the NT managed woods. Given the skill of the Rangers {assuming they reach Mike/Martin standards} charcoal, hazel supports for plants, quality wood for furniture all look to be under developed sources of revenue given some decent resource planning. Added to this, given available time from the Rangers, would of course be us volunteers! Sort of connected to this was a really good Mark Avery guest Blog  Dr David Gibbons, which introduced the idea of a conservation impact metric. This gets to the nub of my conservation frustrations which is to get good science better connected to application by practitioners. Agriculture environment schemes are but one aspect of this.

The dark knight rises

Alien lands on Lodge Park roof?

After the torrential rain, view over deer park

Toad of Lodge pond, courtesy of Andy

Last week was a wash out! but today Andy {work experience}, myself and Mike hit Lodge Park for some mowing and strimming. One or two surprises before we began the mornings work. It was sunny, we witnessed the bee keeper remove a few thousand wild bees from the Lodge chimneys and Andy captured a picture of one of the resident toads in the Lodge pond. Pleased to say the tadpoles and newts also continue to do well in this surprisingly well stocked habitat.

Our luck didn't last as the heavens opened as we started the mowing but we had to carry on since this weekend an Opera was to be staged at the Lodge so everything needed to be in good presentable shape. As the above image above suggests we did finally get some respite as the sun broke through late in the morning to allow us to complete the mowing and dry out.

The afternoon was spent in the Pleasure Grounds at Sherborne in the vicinity of the ice house and 'round' seat where during my mowing I encountered a large {6 children!}, friendly family all the way from Idaho! The day was not quite over as we made our way over to the bat cave to meet up with Morris, our dark knight!,  at the quarry.  Before we could make our way to the bat entrance Mike had to carve his way through dense vegetation, yes there had been quite a growth spurt since our last visit. The objective of this visit was to see if any of the lesser horseshoe bats were still in residence. I lost heavily on my guess on the numbers still present, with Mike winning with his zero entry! So the planning for the work needed to be done on this bat habitat can proceed with suitable haste and hopefully later in July should see start of implementation without impact on the bats.

Quite a day and marked with a return to what seems to be normal weather as my return trip home was hit by a violent thunderstorm.

Return of the dark knights!

Open door to bat cave

Another wet day forecast but a sunny start with the arrival of Morris [Bat trust] who together with Mike were all set for the spring bat count at Sherborne. I assumed my duties as safety man as we set out to the quarry roost. Expectation were that there shouldn't be more than 20 or so lesser horseshoes in the winter roost but the reality turned out very differently. Mike and Morris entered the Quarry bat residence first to do the official count. Didn't believe Mike as he reappeared with his clip board announcing 130 bats still in residence with one cluster of 96!  Morris meanwhile stayed in the cave to allow me to see for myself and sure enough 130 bats were happily hanging from the cave ceilings. It confirms how sensible bats are since  there was no good reason to leave a comfortable 10 degrees in the winter roost for the lower temperatures we have been experiencing so far outside. Only absentee was the single greater horseshoe bat that was present at the winter count {may have returned to the mansion roost at Woodchester}. Having completed this roost count we moved on to the other winter roost sites and the final bat count rose to 169, nearly a record which is good news for bats at Sherborne. Only problem remaining is that Mike and Morris would like to do some  'rennovations' in the quarry roost site, so they are hoping the outside temperatures rise soon to encourage the  Quarry  bats to move to their summer roost sites thereby allowing the work to start.

As the weather continued to be obliging I spent the afternoon with Mike in the East belt completing the deer fencing around a new compartment Mike, with volunteer Simon, had already made a good start on. More woodland management, this time [following appropriate thinning in the winter]  to ensure healthy growth of young saplings, so yet again foiling the local deer population. This time no drival  {or gripples} as Mike had already got the posts set in the ground with expert use of his tractor! But wasn't deprived of use of monkey strainers, myti strainer, pig ring gun, high tensile deer fencing , hammer and staples. Most demanding aspect of this construction was joining up the different sections of deer fencing {3 in all} which was especially fiddly even for Mike! Anyway job completed before any serious rain and not a bad days work all round.

Batmen and Robin...

The Bat cave/residence!,  postcode a secret

A surprise from Mike {Batman 1} when he and Morris,  the North Cotswold caver and batman extraordinaire took me to the local Quarry 'cave' system this morning. I remained {as Robin !}  as the safety man outside whilst they conducted the bat count inside. I got my chance after the official count, to explore the inside with Morris as my guide. Hugely impressed to see the lesser horseshoe bats [~100] which looked like 'black leaves' suspended from the cotswold stone ceilings. Also one of the bats was clearly aware of the warm temperature outside and was flying around. Oddly there was also a single greater horseshoe bat happy to roost alongside its cousins. It transpires that this bat conservation project of the NT and the Bat Trust has kept Mike and Morris busy for over 8 years which included a good deal of 'building' work carried out by the two of them to shore up the cave system. A cracking effort. We finished this part of the day by examining other bat roosts in various Sherborne buildings/cellars. Small number of lesser horseshoes were spotted but come the spring these roosts will be busier as the bats from the quarry roost make their migration from the main winter roost.

Just a days work for super volunteer?

Rest of the day with Mike and previous day with Martin was on 'thinning' activities at Sherborne east belt and Dovers hill! Always difficult to predict what may happen on any given day with a ranger and this week certainly illustrated this. For example with Martin we visited Snowshill first thing where Linda the head gardener provided a couple more jobs for Martins long list i.e. planning for new drystone wall and removal of some difficult tree roots.   Added  to this was the job of cutting up a large Mulberry tree root which I and L &L {Linda and Lisa assistant gardener} had dug out over the last 2 days.

Having done this martin & I  moved onto Dovers hill where some early 'olympicks' preparation was done to allow the audience increased viewing for these original local games! More conventional thinning took place in lynch wood where in  particular a very accurate tree felling was carried out by Martin. With buckets of skill and little room for error she fell without damaging any of the trees in the fall line. I would have awarded Martin the gold but Mike just pipped him with an even finer { even less margin for error} tree felling feat in the east belt today. Either way M&M certainly make tree felling look easy {it isn't!} but of course the real work falls to me in stacking and clearing up the tons of wood all ready for blocking, splitting and selling!.

Messing about on the river...

Well more a brook actually and on a chilly February 2012 morning, a good hard days fence clearing down in the water meadows and south belt. Lots of pleasant surprises starting with Mike announcing a change of task from blocking to a trip down to the water meadows to get the cotswold wardens started on their tasks and us to cut back some vigorous grey willow growth by the brook. This required some careful attention to the nearby fast running brook lest we took an unplanned dip!

windrush path to the water meadows

Being used to working with rangers in splendid isolation {one or two exceptions with Martin e.g. Bibury!} it was good for a change to meet up with other volunteers. In fact later that morning we also met up with the volunteer team from the wildlife trust who were doing stirling work on the 'ditches'.  So a veritable army of people working in the countryside but no shortage  of work to do today and for a good number of days into the future.

courtesy WT volunteer Mike

As an extra bonus as Mike drove down to the work site this morning I spotted a buzzard and kite. This was somewhat trumped as eagle eyed Mike spotted a magnificent  male hen harrier perched on a bush adjacent to the fence we were to clear. It even provided us with a 'fly by' as it took to the air but flew low over the ground in its classic hunting style. Didn't see any of the  'short eared' owls in the area but you can't have everything.

More fencing work in the afternoon followed but this time in the South Belt area where Mike with pole saw cut back a long row of trees whilst I struggled to remove the 'old to be replaced' fence frozen into the hard ground {using wire cutters and much cursing}. Back to splendid isolation, bitter cold and sadly one dead deer which had come off  worse with a vehicle on the A40.