Creating a glade by the river
The first winter habitat management day with Glorious Grasslands is always a nice start to the season. A chance to catch up with people I’ve not seen for a while and also get the muscles working out again.
Today was a site that we’ve been to the last few years, but a different part. The task was to create a glade in the middle of a dense patch of elder, thorns and bramble. It was originally a grassland, so if we could clear an area, create some light, then it has a chance of being restored back.
There were quite a few of us, and it was admittedly quite difficult to see the vision at first.
Anna set out the broad perimeter of the area to clear and we got to work with loppers and saws.
It really wasn’t too long at all before we had cut the main vegetation away and the boundary began to emerge. Most of the brash was dragged onto the path for the farmer to move later. But we came across some very mossy, tangled branches in the middle which we though would be better as a habitat pile in the thorn bushes next to the river.
By lunchtime, all the woody stuff was felled and cleared, so while the others went to lunch, Chris and I took the brush cutters and chopped the remaining brambles down to bare earth. This could then be raked up after lunch, ready for seeding next week.
I didn’t stay until the end of the work party though. It turned out that one of the regular team, Jane, had been admitted to hospital earlier in the week with some complications after a knee surgery. So I took the opportunity to visit her in hospital during the afternoon, and Chris was going over later that evening.
Jane was in good spirits overall, considering the extreme inconvenience of the whole situation. It will be many months before she can put weight on it, so perhaps won’t be at a habitat management until towards the end of season next March.
We fixed some email issues and generally chatted for a few hours before I headed off home.
