Tidying up after the storms

Today’s work party really felt like the first proper day of Spring with 17C and glorious sun. Four species of butterfly were seen on the wing (Small Tortoishell, Brimstone, Peacock & Comma) and there were plenty of Bombus terrestris queens out looking for nesting sites.

The first task was to deal with the willow tree by the entrance gate. This is a lovely old tree with a colony of rare Jet ants (Lasius fuliginosus) in the rotted base but the winds had broken one of the limbs off right down to the base. The broken half is hung-up over the lane while the standing half was looking very precarious, as though it might fall across our gate & fence. Obviously, we want to keep the stump with the colony of ants and we will have to deal with the broken half at some point. But we also have to make sure that the standing half doesn’t break away – so we decided to cut off a few of the higher growth to reduce the leverage.