Here's an update from last week from the volunteer work parties. Thanks go to John for highlighting the good work as well as some of the issues that arise at Dove Stone...
' Friday 1st Jess, Ian G., and I worked with Kate and Jon at Binn Green. Today we finished digging out the foundations around the feeder and then put the remaining edging board in and placed an edging board across the end of the trench. We laid a weed suppressant fabric on the base of the foundation trench and pinned it to the edging boards with u-nails to prevent it from folding over when we fill the trench in. Then we began the really hard part, filling the trench wih aggregate topped of with a layer of white chippings. We filled the foundation trench to a depth about two thirds of the way up the edge boards with around four tonnes of aggregate. We then used a vibrating plate machine which weighs 50kg to settle and compact the aggregate. Once the aggregate was flattened we topped it off to ground level with a layer of small, angular white chippings and ran the vibrating plate machine over that. The chippings had no dust or sand in them and so the compacted surface did not bind to form a hard surface and so is not suitable for use yet. We need to get some sand, spread it across the surface of the chippings and hire the compacting machine again, we hope this will produce the desired surface.
The weather was cloudy with sunny intervals and good working temperatures. After we had finished on the path, some of us went down to look at the pond we created last year at Binn Green. The water still hasn't cleared but there were lots of insects skating across it and lots of tadpoles swimming up to the surface and back down into the depths. The plants round the side have done well, especially the Flag iris, Bogbean, Water mint and Marsh marigold. On the way to the pond we saw Crossbill feeding in the Larch.
Wednesday 6th was another busy day continuing repairs to the dry stone wall above the "Life for a Life" plantation. Five volunteers and one RSPB Dove Stone warden rebuilt more of the collapsed wall and added the coping stones to finish off some of the rebuilt sections. We made good progress, but there is some left to do. We saw a Raven fly over us being mobbed by initially about a dozen Crows, the Raven was ignoring them until most of the aggressors gave up the chase, leaving only three. As soon as the Raven noticed that it had better odds on its tormentors it repeatedly swooped at them until they too flew away.
We saw a number of dog attacks on sheep, very bad, people were either running ineffectually after their dog or just not bothering to control the dog's behaviour at all. A passing couple told us that they had witnessed a Staffordshire bull terrier type dog bite a sheep in the face, we were told that the owner chased after his dog and kicked it until it let go of the sheep. The dog's owner then ran off back to his car and exited the site at speed. As if out of control dogs wasn’t enough, we saw a child chasing some clearly distressed sheep whilst the child’s accompanying adults did nothing to restrain it. Hopefully the changes we are implementing to make Dove Stone a better place for its resident animals and visitors will reduce this kind of behaviour. We are increasingly receiving comments on how Dove Stone looks much more “looked after” than it has done previously. Whilst working on the wall we found a toad hiding in one of the spaces between the stones, we moved it along to a part of the wall we had already repaired.
Friday 8th was another day on the wall for four volunteers and one Dove Stone warden. We found yet another toad in a space between the stones in the wall, it must be a good hiding place for toads! As with the one we found on Wednesday it was relocated to a part of the wall that we had already completed. We dug out a pit into which one of the stone gateposts will be installed, this took a lot of digging as several times we encountered very large stones which had to be removed by breaking them up with a wrecking bar. This was very hard work as the bar, which is made of steel and is over a metre long, is heavy and we needed to lift it repeatedly and drive it down hard onto the stone. We tried to move the gatepost from where it is lying to the hole (a distance of about thirty metres), but our initial attempt convinced us that we didn’t have the equipment needed. As we couldn't fit the gatepost today we back filled the hole with large loose stones which will be easy to remove when we come to fit the post. We did this to prevent animals and people from falling into the hole as it is around a metre deep and it would have been particularly dangerous if we had left it and it filled with water. We also pulled down the redundant old fence which had been installed some distance back from the wall. The fence will not be required when we complete work in the area, and already it looks much better without it. The weather was pretty bad, it rained most of the time with some very heavy bursts interspersed with lighter rain '.
For anyone who's interested in getting involved in volunteer work parties at Dove Stone please contact one of our wardens: kate.hanley@rspb.org.uk or jon.bird@rspb.org.uk