Workparty – 14th February 2010

We usually do quite well for weather of workparties but this one was a bit drizzly. It wasn’t too bad though and it was our official BBOWT yearly review where they send along a member of staff from outside our area and he spends the morning with us and finishes by asking whether we need more help/tools etc.

Anyway, the rain was coming in from the south-east and, although we’d normally work low-down in a compartment, this time I had in mind a nice job at the top of slope 5. Here we have been clearing back scrub from along the top fence line to open up access but also to create a sheltered belt of low vegetation for invertebrates. This is a big job and it will probably be another year before we have the scrub in the condition we are working to but we have made a good start this year. The aim of this first phase is to reduce the height of the scrub and to push a 3m path between it and the fence line.

All of the work today was in under the overhanging Yews and sheltered behind the bramble scrub – so now you see why I chose this part of the site! 😉  We had a good crowd of volunteers who split into 3-4 groups and by the end of the morning we had finished the bulk of the work. The only part still to be worked on is fairly low bramble scrub and I hope that BBOWT can bring up a scrub cutter sometime in the summer and dice up this remaining scrub and start to push paths at right-angles to the fenceline, through the scrub belt. This will break it up nicely and we can just come back to it later in the year to finish it off.