Oh how the wild winds blow

Welcome to another blog from Greylake, West Sedgemoor and Swell Wood and what a week we've had.

It started with a Webs count on Monday, usually one of our best jobs, but slogging through knee deep mud and water for six or seven miles in driving winds and rain, while trying to count flocks of birds spooked by the weather and marsh harriers, was perhaps not the easiest way to begin a week.

Ducks were conspicuously absent at West Sedgemoor, although golden plover and lapwing numbers were reasonable, but thankfully duck numbers are up at Greylake, so cameras out everyone. 

Photos by Tom Allen

The dreadful weather continued on Tuesday and we decided to abandon work at Swell Wood due to the violently swaying canopy and the fear of branches falling on our heads. Interestingly, our Assistant Warden Paul found a botanical survey from 1987 of the Swell Wood site which noted various species of orchid including bird's-nest, early-purple and common twayblade on the very spot where we are working to open up the canopy. We're hoping that the increase in light levels could stimulate the growth of these plants and we could see orchids return to the woodlands.

We finished up our afternoon on Tuesday back at "the hedge" and continued there on Wednesday (in much better weather). Incredibly, it now looks like a real hedge, rather than a line of trees covered in brambles. Almost all of the 150m has been laid, with surprisingly good results. There are a few small gaps that will need to be planted up but otherwise, the new growth should start to shoot up in the next few weeks.

 Photo by Paul Parmenter

Wednesday also afforded Tom and I the opportunity to see how our hedge-laying efforts could help the brown hairstreak butterfly. We went out with Paul to survey a number of spots, looking for their eggs. They lay them individually on new blackthorn growth, so we were searching for tiny little white dots amongst the thorns. And found some! Not many, but evidence that the population is still breeding in the area if we continue to provide them with good habitat.

  Egg by Paul Parmenter, Brown hairstreak photo by Nick Edge

Flushed with success from our hedge efforts on Wednesday, we set off on Thursday for a new section on hedge on another area of the site. The weather didn't let us celebrate for long. The driving winds were back, along with even heavier rain (19.5 mm we found out the following day). However, a residential volunteer doesn't shy away from awful conditions and we soldiered on through it. This hedge was less bramble infested and we managed to get some laid that day, although there was still some bramble pulling to do.

 Me and Fiona pulling bramble and then a rather soggy, blurry photo of the team (it was that sort of day). Photos by Paul Parmenter

As I sit here on Friday morning writing this, the weather outside is annoyingly benign, as it always is when you have indoor jobs to do.

'Til next time.

Kathryn