A stop-start day

It was another quiet night for moths last night with only a few midges and no moths found inside the trap; thankfully two Early Moth were captured outside of the trap at the front of the field centre. 

Unfortunately we had no luck with the duck trap either, however there has been a lot of interest over the course of the day from the mallards and moorhens that have been enjoying the feed scattered on the banks over the last week or so. Here's to hoping that we're able to trap and ring some soon!

Aside from the traps it's been a stop-start kind of day, with lots of machine maintenance interspersed with many odd jobs around the Reserve. There has been more effort put into tidying up the heath after yesterday's volunteer task, along with a concerted effort to knocking back big patches of juncas grass near to the orchard.

Juncus are especially good at colonising boggy soil, but are also able to ride out the odd dry spell. It's for these reasons that it is often planted in rain gardens designed for bioretention purposes so as to allow stormwater runoff to be absorbed, and contaminants and sediments to be removed. Despite these interesting properties juncas grass will take over if allowed to do so. 

The late afternoon has been given over to tackling gorse on the wetlands using various bits of kit, with the aim to continue with this task, and to remove cut gorse from the wetland as part of tomorrow's volunteer task before returning to the heath in the afternoon.

Removing the gorse from the wetland will (and has already) make a huge difference aesthetically, unfortunately you will have to take my word for it until tomorrow as even I was too distracted to take pictures this afternoon!