Habitat for adders

A new reserve and new team today as I headed to Kilkenny with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. I have passed this place many times, but I never realised there was a nature reserve just off the main road.

Andy is leading a project to create new habitat for adders, and a 12 species mixed hedge is planned for the perimeter of the reserve. A new stock proof fence is needed inside the existing fence to protect the hedge from grazing cattle. So the task today was to clear scrub and trees from the proposed fence line so the contractors can put the fence in.

There was quite a large team and most of the work could be done with hand tools. There were a couple of brush cutters, so I did some scallops in the scrub lines to encourage the grasses further back into the scrub.

The brush cutter was very temperamental. It kept cutting out for no obvious reason.

The dead material was stacked either side of the proposed fence line to create dead hedging and also good habitat for adders. Most of the team I hadn’t worked with before, so it was good to expand my network and get a new schedule of work parties to attend.