18th October 2016 ... weekly volunteers

Present:

John, Jonathan, Alan, Keith, Stuart, Mike m, Mike p, Steve and Martin

Activities:

- ponies had knocked down the bottom part of the fencing around the cess pit. Mended it and added electric fencing around the actual hole and new cover, and a new bit of fencing across the middle. Did not have the required fencing posts etc, but managed to find enough bits and pieces.
- John did some clearing of bramble etc around about.
- looked the ponies
- did some sapling clearing on the slope down from the roller stand
- inspected the chalet nest box, and found a barn owl secondary feather in good condition and numerous pellets with small mammal bones and fur.  So some occupancy since we last looked.
- put up the last two fire beaters, and found an old one with broken handle. This had no hole for hanging, and so most have been lying around for ages.
- cut some Holly behind the tool store on edge of south Heath, with brash added to birch in the ditch
- continued clearing bramble around the tool store, and some pollarding inside the copse
- put up repaired nest box on closest beech
- cleared gutter of tool store
- redug channel in drive to divert rain water away from area in front of tool store

Observations:

- Crossbill
- store cleared
- bamboo from two distributed
- the cess pit lorry was emptying last Thursday when we were mowing with the tractor, but there seemed to be still quite a bit in the bottom of the tank
- the tank appears to be brick built, with dimensions of 10 foot cubed. There is an over flow pipe going down hill for 5 yards, providing soak away. A new cover has been added since last checked. There is some 'flow' erosion on the surface.

Martin