A New Year Starts

Happy New Year from us both and we hope you had a great Christmas.

This was our first day back after the New Year and we hit the ground running so had little time as Reserve Managers to chat about the day's jobs. As it was we had priority jobs that had been wanting from last year…. The Wetland Bank.

This area had a fair bit of work carried out on it in December. The Hazel coppice was over grown and had started to collapse due to the heart of the timber rotting, and the weight of the top growth. Some of these Hazel stools are over 50 years old so it is all the more important to keep them coppiced and well managed.

With all the timber felled we have loads of brushwood to deal with and the fairly hefty logs to carry back to the workshop, some of which will form edgings to paths.

The wind over the holiday period had also taken its toll on one of the Hawthorns.

Due to the fragile state of the fairly steep bank, as well as preserving the various flora and fauna which is starting to emerge, we converted the brushwood that had been cleared late last year and got the chill of the wind blowing in off the moor cancelled out by the warmth of the fire and the warmth of hard work!

Back at the Field Centre the Christmas decorations were being taken down,

and Ann double checked the bird bags from yesterday’s bird ringing of Starlings.

It is important to know how many bird bags we have so no bird is extracted from a mist net and accidentally dropped when in a bag. This way we are able to check bags in at the end of a ringing session and if a bag is missing we have to find it.

Thank you to the whole team and also to John and Eddie who beavered away, separate from the main group, repairing bridges and dealing with tree guards.  They succeeded in avoiding me with the camera!