This week has been a good one with regards to the weather. Dry and bright with good spells of sunshine. This has enabled us to continue with varying works on the reserve Such as, footpath maintenance, weed wiping, gate and fence repairs and varying surveys.
Foot path maintenance was carried out using the quad bike and mower to cut the majority of the paths, this was then followed along by myself an Phill using brushcutters with strimmer heads fitted to enable us to get to areas which were inaccessible for the quad and mower.
Weedwiping was carried out within compartments dominated by the invasive Soft Rush and tufted hair grass. The fields were previously grazed down by cattle. This is to make sure that the grass is a lot shorter than the target species. The stock were then removed before the weed wiping takes place.
Our quad bike and weedwiper
We have had a good week with regards to rarer birds being spotted on the reserve, with a Purple Heron at the beginning of last week which stayed for a few days. Also we had a Wood Sandpiper on the freshly created scrape down the turf path.
Myself and Ryan ,the Exe estuary residential volunteers, swapped with the Aylesbeare volunteers on Tuesday for a Breeding Bird Survey, so we were able to see a difference in birdlife on the heathland habitat. Sadly no Dartford Warblers were spotted, although we did hear them.
Steve Cooper