A corky fruited day

Went down to Fromebridge Mill to meet up with the Stroud Wildlife Survey Group. Our task today was a quadrat survey of the species rich grasslands next to the Orchard. This is an ongoing series of surveys for the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to establish a baseline and record the improvements after a series of management measures.

There were about 8 of us, so after an introduction by Maureen, we headed over to the site. We all did the first quadrat together to get into the swing of things, and then split into three groups.

The first, larger field is nothing very special to look at, but this is intended to become a species rich grassland over time.

I had been involved with the fence project there over the winter, so I was particularly interested to see how the improved stock security and tighter grazing regime had helped things. The good news was at the top of the field, where we had poached the ground putting the fence in over many weeks, the grass had mostly grown over.

We took 7 quadrat samples in all from this field and noted an average of about ten species in each meter square. I massively improved my grass id skills (although admittedly from a very low base).

After lunch is a shaded part of the meadow next to the canal, we headed into the smaller field next door, which has been protected from grazing with a gate. This field was stunning. From corner to corner, it was covered in corky fruited water dropwort. But there was also lady’s bedstraw, bird’s foot trefoil and self heal in abundance.

The idea is that this field provides a seed bank for the much larger field next door. Today’s display gave a lot of confidence that this strategy is going to work. Back in early February, I brush cut the scrub borders of this field, and I was very pleased to see grass and corky fruited water dropwort growing right up to the edges of where I had been cutting. So probably adding another 100sq meter of meadow grassland.