A pheasant tapped on the dining room window and stared in at me yesterday after work. I’m still not sure what he wanted…
It’s been a busy week, with Monday and Tuesday spent finishing off the deer fence at Swell Wood. We had slight trouble fitting the door (for which I take zero responsibility), but all is working as it should now!
On Wednesday we were back at the hedges putting in some three-strand barbed wire fencing to cattle-proof the fields. It’s a similar process to the deer fencing but as you can see the posts are much shorter; this makes it easier to install and we can get through it a lot quicker! There’s still a small stretch left to finish, but it shouldn’t take too long.
RSPB Staff
As the title suggests, we’re into the survey season now. A few of us with less experience have been training this week in survey techniques which has been great fun! There are lots of bird calls and songs to remember but we should hopefully be all up to speed soon. Initially we’ll be focusing on breeding wetland species such as curlew, lapwing, redshank and snipe, but there will be more surveys popping up throughout the spring and summer.
We’ve had some staffing changes too recently. Helen, a previous residential volunteer, joined us last week as our new cattle handler for the summer! In slightly sadder news (for us) though our estate worker Ashley has moved on to a new role, but we should hopefully be getting his replacement soon.
That’s all for this week.
Luke
West Sedgemoor Residential Volunteering team