Autumn is a stunning season and Lake Vyrnwy has been looking spectacular over the past few weeks. The deep chestnut colour of the beech leaves reflecting on the still waters of the lake, combined with beautiful light has made it a photographer’s dream. A lot of our time recently has been taken up with nestboxes, 500 of them in fact- cleaning them, maintaining them, updating the maps and using a GPS to get a grid reference for each box. All of the work we have been doing is designed to reduce the amount of time spent doing the same job next year and to help with bird ringing in the spring and summer.
Gethin and I have successfully passed our chainsaw tests. Gethin had a refresher for medium and large trees and I now have a license for small trees. It was a great week of training and our instructor Alun Jones was fantastic. I had previously never picked up a chainsaw and Alun was extremely patient and clear. We undertook this training so we can begin clearing a few of the self-seeded conifers from the upland areas of the reserve. We also have a patch of land in some local forestry, which we manage specifically for Black Grouse and this means clearing away some of the conifers in the area to create a more mixed habitat with areas to feed that has adequate cover close by. We have lots planned for the coming weeks including doing maintenance on parts of the hides and gathering and processing heather seed.
Tom