22nd March 2011 .... Weekly Volunteers

Present:
John, Mike, Ron,  Anthony, Keith and Mike

Activities:
- The car Park is being relaid, and we took the opportunity to do work on the north side while there were no cars parked.  We basically pollarded trees reducing any shading of the bank of the ditch there.  The brash was moved to our ditch along the east boundary, and logs either taken home ( Keith ) or stacked in the ditch.  There will be collected when there is access to the car park again.
- spoke to the ranger in charge about various things.  He was happy with the work we were undertaking.
- After Lunch, there were just John, Anthony and Martin.  We investigated some other bits of birch that could do with pollarding, notably some by the next car park up the main road, and down in the 'source of the stream' area.
- continued processing the trees felled along Reynard's way last week.  There is still a small amount of work to do here.
- moved a rotten willow trunk from where it was cut down by the rangers just outside the stone gates, to the ditch outside the fence.  This is to protect the foot path across this ditch becoming further eroded.

Observations:
- we spotted signs of three cornered leek in the ditch, along with some ransoms.
- Brimstones out and about
- Crossbills heard
- woodlarks
- big flocks of redpolls and siskins in the birches.  Too difficult to count properly


martin