January 25th 2011---- weekly Volunteers

Present:
John, Keith, Ron, Neil and Martin

Activities:
- collected some tree tubes from along the drive.  Some used below, and other stored in the tractor shed.
- went to the Roller stand to build sleeping policeman water diverter.  This redirects water from flowing down beeches avenue ( erosion ) onto the Heath land below the log pile ( diversity of habitat).  We used a mixture of mud from the path and tarmac that John had brought along.  There is a need for at least another load.
- had a bonfire on Mature Heath, near the car car, using the gorse that we had  ut the previous week
- cut some more gorse there for the fire, and also further north up to the sand martin cliff for next week.
- Also started pollarding some of the silver birch along the boundary, piling up logs and also burning the brash on the fire.
- discovered that the ash from the previous fire had been too trampled by the cattle.
- as expected the cattle joined the fire in their strange dare-devil way.

observations:
- lesser redpolls
- One enormous gorse has been left as a specimen of how thick the trunk can get.
- Some of the logs at the roller stand have been removed.  One or two loads, taken out along the drive.
- Mike still has his bad back


martin