Whilst at the workshop early in the week I heard a familiar sound that took me a while to place. As my brain clicked into gear it dawned on me it was a chaffinch singing.....badly. I feel I should not criticise the little fella too harshly. It is still incredibly early in the year for this type of shenanigans and he was struggling to get his song into full flow but, it was terrible! There was some discussion that maybe he just had a Devonshire accent I wasn’t used to, but as the week has gone on chaffinch are singing all around and they seem to have got their voice so he was probably just warming up after his winter break!
This week has given me the opportunity to visit some other sites managed from the Exe Estuary office. I had an excursion to Labrador bay with Tom on Tuesday to put up some signs and carry out a tree inspection after the recent stormy weather. The views of the ocean from the fields there are mesmerising and we could see a number of ships hunkered down in the bay sheltering from the stormy weather. Labrador Bay is on the South Devon coast just past Teignmouth and is the RSPB’s home of the cirl bunting. Whilst we were there we saw large flocks and it is clear the management efforts in place are working. I will have to implement some of this habitat management next week as I take the work party for some scrub clearance. I really hope I can remember the way!
Wednesday was a chance for another field trip and this time we were off to my neck of the woods in North Devon! Chapel Wood to be exact, our task was to install 30 dormouse boxes. After struggling through the mud with the wheelbarrow and a few close calls with our bucket of tools and wire tumbling off down some inclines we managed to get the job done. On one occasion as Tom had his hands full his feet slipped and he attempted to gain traction, his legs were moving at high speed but he was going nowhere except to the muddy woodland floor. Oh how I laughed! It will be good to know if the boxes get used and we have a lovely ecologist Jen whose job it will be to monitor them.
Hedge update! We have finally started laying! After weeks of hard preliminary thinning from the work party the laying has begun. It will be a good few weeks until we have it finished but it is starting to take shape and is looking good.
The hedge taking shape (photo credit: Dennis McWillaim)
Ryan Woodcock