Wednesday 9th August 2017
Wednesday means only one thing, volunteer day...
Today Veronica and Brian joined me at Pembrey Burrows for a morning of tasks and then a butterfly survey.
The first job was to deal with an apparent escape plot by the cattle in F2 with the ring leader watching the gap in the fence, we soon had the upper hand, with a few staples and a piece of wire the gap was sealed for now!!!
Brian joined us at 10am and we set off to create a refuge for the wintering Snipe should they be disturbed from their usual daytime roosts. Having been involved in some wader scrape management with the North Wilts Ringing Group I had a good idea of what I wanted to achieve, an open area of low vegetation in a secluded part of the reed bed, so it was with an area identified that we set Veronica loose with her scythe, and pretty impressive it was too, Brian and I could only look on in amazement at the way she swung the scythe listening to the satisfying swish of blade against vegetation, plus of course the scythe is a personal tool and set up just for the user.
We piled the cuttings into either habitat piles or a long windrow, Snipe like to sit along windrows to roost. The initial work is pretty impressive I want to return in a few weeks to create some "scallops" in the reed and rush edges and clear some of the ground vegetation to create muddy areas.
With the days work on the Snipe project done, Veronica and I went off to do the August butterfly survey, a transect of just about one mile through the reserve, we had 106 sightings of around 11 species (I've forgotten the detail Veronica was doing the recording)
Today Veronica and Brian joined me at Pembrey Burrows for a morning of tasks and then a butterfly survey.
The first job was to deal with an apparent escape plot by the cattle in F2 with the ring leader watching the gap in the fence, we soon had the upper hand, with a few staples and a piece of wire the gap was sealed for now!!!
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| "... so that's how they fix it, I'll tell the others!" |
Brian joined us at 10am and we set off to create a refuge for the wintering Snipe should they be disturbed from their usual daytime roosts. Having been involved in some wader scrape management with the North Wilts Ringing Group I had a good idea of what I wanted to achieve, an open area of low vegetation in a secluded part of the reed bed, so it was with an area identified that we set Veronica loose with her scythe, and pretty impressive it was too, Brian and I could only look on in amazement at the way she swung the scythe listening to the satisfying swish of blade against vegetation, plus of course the scythe is a personal tool and set up just for the user.
We piled the cuttings into either habitat piles or a long windrow, Snipe like to sit along windrows to roost. The initial work is pretty impressive I want to return in a few weeks to create some "scallops" in the reed and rush edges and clear some of the ground vegetation to create muddy areas.
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| Work in progress |
With the days work on the Snipe project done, Veronica and I went off to do the August butterfly survey, a transect of just about one mile through the reserve, we had 106 sightings of around 11 species (I've forgotten the detail Veronica was doing the recording)
 |
Butterfly surveying,
(it may look like Veronica does all the work, well she did most of it today!)
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