Wednesday brought another day of warm spring sunshine and a good turn out. We returned to The Plants aiming to complete the remaining stretch of ride widening. The woodland floor was congested with large quantities of lying brash from power line maintenance and generally overgrown with scrub.
Our work area to the right hand side of the track containing coppice and scrub.
In the background, brash strewn on the woodland floor.
Unfazed by the tangle the team were soon in the thick of it. Here, Colin, Dave and Joe are sawing brash and coppice
whilst a fire was quickly lit
and soon had a good heart.
Excellent progress being made before
a well earned break, including delicious buttered, cheese scones courtesy of Peter's wife (much appreciated!)
Once refreshed, Joe demonstrated his amazing levitating log trick.
Dave, Gareth, Michael and Peter on brash dragging and fire feeding duty.
After a great day of hard work, the beautiful spring light was able to penetrate the woodland floor. We didn't quite manage to clear the whole area in the end as the substantial brash piles were more challenging than expected, but thankfully Chloe and her Sunday Team tackled the remainder, with only the larger coppice stems to be removed by chain saw at a later date.
The early spring is already encouraging butterflies on the wing with Comma, Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell showing well across The Reserve, so hopefully our efforts will contribute to a successful breeding season this year.
Many thanks to Colin, Dave, Gareth, Joe, Michael, Nigel, Peter (for additional photos and scones) and Richard for their hard work and good company on a perfect spring day.