Hi all, after lots of (horrendously) early starts our first round of breeding wader surveys is over. Although soon we’ll be back at it so I’m going to enjoy the lie-ins while I can. Speaking of birds, you may have seen swallows in the skies the past few weeks. Our farm residents returned a couple of weeks ago, displaying over the yard and building a new nest next to the five or so others from previous years. And yesterday at Greylake we had a pleasant surprise when suddenly the sky was filled with them passing overhead.
On Monday, Helen and I fitted some new post and rail on the Scarp trail that leads off from Swell Wood. My legs were jelly after carrying all the posts and equipment up and down the steps, but the bluebells were out in force creating this beautiful blanket on the woodland floor, so I didn’t feel like complaining.
RSPB Staff
We’ve been out to Greylake a few times this week, strimming along the paths to prevent them being overrun with grass and vegetation. We’ve also started painting some of the signs; it takes longer than you might expect so if you see any that are half finished, don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about them! James and I completed our quad bike training on Wednesday too, in preparation for the arrival of our grazing cattle. I managed to do quite the power-slide when testing out the brakes, hopefully something I won’t need to do out on the moors!
That’s all for this week.
Luke
West Sedgemoor Residential Volunteering team