More vole habitat

Met up with the Stroud Valleys Project crew at Fromebridge to continue the habitat creation for the water vole translocation next year. The core task is to remove bramble and other scrub about two meters from the bank edge which will allow the reed vegetation to spread further and provide cover for water voles to make their burrows.

After the heavy rain, we decided not to risk the truck on the reserve in case it got stuck again. So we had to carry all the tools we needed – mostly shears, loppers and pitch forks. We were working on the species rich grassland edge today, continuing on from where the previous team had done last week.

I mostly worked on brash removal, while the cutters went behind the scrub to get the bank edge clear.

We wanted to place most of the material in the dead hedge we created earlier this year, which lay behind the new fence we put up last winter.

The grassland is pretty steep, and I started by dragging the cut bramble in dumper bags. But it took too long to fill and empty them really – everything was just too tangled up. So in the end, it was easier just to hoist a load on a pitch fork and carry above the head to the top.

So quite a bit of exercise, all in all. By the end of the session, you could clearly see longer sections of the canal that are now clear.

It was interesting to see the hedge now forming behind the new fence. That was cut back about two meters while the fence was erected, but it has regrown already with new blackthorn shoots coming through. That will make a good habitat next year as the new vegetation mixes with the decaying wood material stacked in the dead hedge.