Summer Maintenance
Tuesday, July 28th 2020
Bird ringers are still busy ringing the last of the Barn Owl chicks. This family were living in an old box that was falling apart. The team will replace the box with a new one as soon as they can and for now have made some urgent repairs. The owl on the left hand side is an adult female (distinguishable by the flecks of brown on her chest), the middle one is a well developed chick from this year and the right hand one is an adult male with a plain chest (usually white but this one happens to be a buff brown colour). The team have never come across such a dark Barn Owl before.
Another owl box in need of repair was replaced today by Plovers Pool.
The old one was also occupied but this time by Stock Doves rather than owls! They had two warm eggs which were carefully transferred to the new box that had been lined with clean, fresh sawdust. The adults will have a pleasant surprise when they return!
Volunteers have been hard at work with summer maintenance tasks such as strimming the network of footpaths and trails.
Overhanging branches were cut back from the main access road too. After all of the recent sunshine and showers this was a big job!
Finally, pond-dipping for family bubbles has been extremely popular. The next sessions are all fully booked now however, there are limited places left on the Minibeast Safaris, see the events page for details.
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