Spring surprises!

An American invader 

Nice setting for Chedworth overflow car park

Sherborne allotments close to the 'stone site'

Arrived at Sherborne in good spirits on a warm, sunny Spring day with the hope of an opportunity to finish off the rail fencing at Clarks Close begun last week. A few surprises were the flavour of the day ,  this included the much improved spring weather.  As is often the case the planned work for the day was to be amended to respond to a more urgent task at number 33 in the village. While Mike and Pat made a start on the new task to remove a large amount of stone from the site at 33, I joined James to pay a visit to the Chedworth roman villa to take down a temporary fence setup in the overflow car park. The countryside on the journey to Chedworth is pretty impressive, especially helped by the great weather. As the temporary fence line at Chedworth, set in a meadow leading down to the river Coln, led down to the riverside, James and I took the opportunity to survey the river prior to starting to dismantle the fence. With great aplomb James surprised me by dipping his hand into the water and pulling out a signal crayfish which was quite a handsome {but troublesome invader} beast. It didn't take long to dismantle the fence and tidy up so we were soon back at Sherborne to help in moving the stone. This took 2 tractors, 2 vehicles and 5 men so no mean task. 

The final surprise of the day was the fact that another pair of mute swans were nesting in the upper part of the Broadwater above the weir with the resident pair nesting down by the boat house in their usual location. Should be interesting how this works out and how many cygnets we get this year. 

Fencing with rails?

Hedge plants starting to mature, Sandy Hill Copse in distance

Northfield Copse in distance, fence gone by Clarks Close

It's a long stretch of fencing needed down to Sherborne wall

First fence section poles erected at Clarks Close 

Not a new olympic sport but alternative fencing construction to usual stock fencing. Previous volunteer session had removed old rail fence line along the top section of Clarks Close, it was a significant stretch of fencing to replace so the tractor was a welcome support to the task. Before starting to layout the fence poles I took the opportunity to see how the hedges built in 2013 were doing. Although James and I had a healthy number of fence poles in the trailer it became obvious we had insufficient  to cover the extensive fence line needed. Mike also concluded the old rails wouldn't be good enough to re-use and the old gate posts giving access to Clarks Close would also have to be replaced.  James and I positioned  the posts while Mike using the power of the new tractor pushed the poles into the ground. Given the unseasonable cool weather the limited use of the drival and metal pole for positioning the poles was sufficient to keep me warm. Unfortunately I didn't get to attach the rails to the first section of the fence line but hopefully I may get the chance to have a go next week unless Mike and James get the extra poles and finish the job over the next week. Whatever the outcome Mike has more fencing work planned plus plenty more tree guards so my drilling and hammering skills will come into play over the coming months.

This blog from Martin Harper confirms a number of things: EU is a positive {albeit slow} force for the environment/wildlife, DEFRA {Truss} are pretty useless, Shooting fraternity {with their super figure head Botham} may start to worry their sorry minority of privileged, arrogant members could face a bigger threat from 'us' than they ever considered and Mark Avery's dogged persistence is edging the environmental position slowly forwards. Not bad since this Government supported by the press {owners/editors with shooting bias} continue to provide a powerful negative force concerning issues impacting our Natural environment.

Bat-fantastic!

A dog each!

Spring Bat count at Sherborne today and Toby's first visit to Sherborne. In fact with Pip, Pepper, Maddie, Ollie and Toby the dogs nearly outnumbered the humans! Probably influenced by the weather but everyone in good spirits as we prepared for the tour of the bat roosts. Morris and Mike lead the count with James and myself on security with Maddie, Ollie and Toby as 'guards'.  The Bat Cave total of lesser horseshoes was 88, the Kennels 65, the Bothy an astonishing 66 and the Cellar 15 giving a great 234 Total [ Good but not not quite record breaking as 249 total last year].

Debate on the EU still raging with plenty of nonsense from both sides but from an environment point of view staying in has to be a better option bearing in mind the way this government has acted while in power. Amusingly but not surprisingly the NFU want to stay in, can't be the funding they/their members  receive with very little accountability can it! Lastly another good blog by Martin Harper, especially the bits about 'feisty NGOs' and powerful statutory agencies.

Introducing...

Wednesday 9th at Sherborne was focussed on the March bat count on what was definitely the most miserable day of the year and felt like the coldest. Despite the weather there was an exceptional turnout with Morris bringing a caving friend Joe, Mike who was pleased he had to drive the tractor to the bat cave {4x4 being full}, James and myself. It didn't feel like it but the temperature had risen to 8.5C outside the cave and 8-10C inside the cave. There were 158 lesser horseshoes in the Bat cave, 2 in the Kennels, 20 in the Bothy and 14 in the Cellar giving a great total of 194, 20 better than last year.

Toby discovers his first countryside gate

Ollie & Toby in the valley next to Barbers wood

My new dog Toby {sprocker} arrived on 13th March, after Ollie persuaded him who was boss he's started to settle in nicely. Off lead walk today around Barber wood went well aside from Toby's first encounter with local cattle. He'd snuck under a 5 bar gate and decided to challenge a big horned cow. I fortunately managed to grab him before anything bad happened. Hopefully my control and his recall will be improving over the coming weeks. The walks so far show he is better at socialising than I was prepared for all looking promising from this spaniel aid Uk 'rescue'.

New arrivals to mark end of financial year!

Its arrived, Mike can't stop smiling

Wednesday marked the arrival of Sherborne's new tractor, not the best of weather but that didn't lessen the big smile on Mike's face. No work possible for me but a quick tour of the new workhorse and updates on upcoming work made my short stay worthwhile.

Cutting back new growth on willows on the river Eye

high water levels on the Eye but sunny skies

Its a Fungus amungas..

River banks shading cleared, water voles happy!

This morning was spent at Greystones where a good number of volunteers gathered,  before being led by Will down to the work area by the river Eye. The Wildlife 'new arrivals' were not quite on the scale of the NT but the new Silki saws and gloves were well received. The task was to remove new growth {mainly willow} casting shade over the River Eye with part of the team in the water and the rest operating from the relative safety of the river bank. This is one of the most worked stretches of the river Eye which highlights the need for sustained efforts to keep on top of the riverside management which benefits this water vole habitat.

Less we forget a Martin Harper guest blog on the Hen Harriers, in addition Ms Truss is continuing to do a fine job for this Government on the environment leading Defra to even more ineffectuality.

Eye of newt....

Lodge front door, with steps, fortunately opened for the wood!

Lodge pond plus Newts

A varied morning, centred on wood supplies, was spent at Sherborne today. Initially James on chainsaw and me on axe to produce a good half load of wood for delivery to Lodge park. While we set to on this task in the nursery Mike raided the wood store with the tractor & bucket to deliver wood to the nursery garden.

Whilst James and I delivered our wood load to Lodge Park Mike set off to Snowbottom belt to start collecting cordwood for loading into the tractor trailer. At Lodge Park we unloaded the wood, using a wheelbarrow, into the 'large cauldron' [no frogs or witches present], large fireplace and video room inside the Lodge. This should keep the fires going for the wedding event to be held this coming weekend at the Lodge. As we exited Lodge Park , on our way to meet up with Mike at Snowbotton belt,  James had a surprise for me at the Lodge pond. He was able to introduce me to this years newts plus waterboat men which seem to be doing fine again in this oft overlooked pond habitat within the Sherborne estate. We finally met up with Mike where we helped him to fully load the factory trailer with well seasoned cordwood produced in the previous winter season. No wildlife sightings or conservation duties but still a worthwhile mornings work for all.

A little bit of everything

Some tricky chain sawing of fallen willow 

River Dickler, close to Rissington Bridge

Scrub clearing over water course which runs out of lake

Wednesday morning was spent at Sherborne with both Mike and James. James was on chainsaw,  I was on wood processor loading the cord wood {plus occasional axe splitting} and Mike was operating the wood processor. Should have been quite straight forward to build up the stocks of wood for the depleted wood supplies but not so. The main difficulty in achieving maximum efficiency was the quality of the cord wood we were using i.e. relatively small in diameter and not straight! This meant much more work for all of us and by the end of the morning we had only achieved one trailer load albeit an  extra large one. The only good news was we hadn't wasted any wood and the remaining cord wood pile for the next session looked to be much better 'quality'. Highlight of the morning, apart from my moans about the wood, was that a sparrow hawk which was hidden on the ground near where we were working flew right in front of us, clearly fed up with the noise we were making.

Today I made a comeback with the Wildlife Trust out at Greystones where a sizeable team led by Will and Richard were to carry out brush clearing close to the river Dickler near to Rissington Bridge on the outskirts of Bourton on the Water. The water course coming out of one of the gravel lakes, adjacent to Greystones reserve, which ran into the Dicker needed some serious scrub clearing. Once completed {more than one session would be needed} this would provide a better habitat for water voles connecting the gravel lakes and Dickler. Previous work in the past in this area already showed encouraging signs of water vole and hopefully this current work would improve on this and make sustaining it much easier. Although I only had a short time on brush clearing my 'sawing' skills proved not to be too rusty and the two fires for burning the large amounts of scrub were well fed.