‘Lest We Forget’

It was obvious that it was Armistice Day from the smart uniforms and buffed boots as I drove through the camp today. A moving, and a great sign of respect for all those individuals that have given so much.

When I finally got to the Field Centre I was pleased to have Charlie and Colin help me filling up the bird feeders.

As the morning ticked on I got a lot of the end of week jobs done as we would be ringing birds this afternoon. Jenny, and Jennifer came in specially to put the nets up, and process the birds which turned out to be mainly Blue Tits, Great Tits and the odd Brambling amongst others.

Below Jenny is seen extracting one of the garden birds from the mist net, pleased she was wearing wellies!

This afternoon we had two Exmoor Ponies arrive from the Yorkshire Exmoor Pony Trust. They will be staying on the Moorland/Wetland for the next couple of months as part of our grazing regime.

The one on the right is Sydney, a gelding, and on the left is Sky who is a mare (it's also her in the photo below).

A photo from yesterday did not make it to the blog, so here it is .... Keith and John having repaired and re-stained a bird seed hopper. With all the snow now gone it seems strange that this was only yesterday!

Elizabeth sent through a few photos of her success at growing Pillwort, seen below on her bedroom window sill, these ferns can grow 1mm in a day. A fine example of what  lengths folk go to for the benefit of the reserve.

This tiny plant is a type of creeping fern. It is hard to spot because it has thin, grass-like leaves and often grows with water grasses or small rushes. The ‘pills’ are tiny round spore cases at the bases of the stems. We are blessed to have this on our reserve as this fern is in decline elsewhere, the causes being habitat loss and pollution. Luckily our water is a pure as it can be. The plants above will be transplanted into a new pond, and we will keep you informed of their progress.

Thank you to Ursula Wells for her kind donation of some wonderful saplings, and also to the whole team that came in today.