It has been a week of less spectacular and less important jobs at RSPB Dove Stone. To be honest this isn’t the awe inspiring work that takes place up on the boggy moorland. The task in hand this week was taking out an old stock fence which was no longer needed, and then scarifying a bit of grassland and then replanting with wildflower seeds.
The old stock fence was located near the picnic benches at the foot of Ashway Gap. It was rendered useless by a brand new stock-proof fence that now borders the whole of the picnic site. The old fence was used to protect a formerly new bit of woodland planted some years ago. Funnily enough the area of the woodland was where I did my very first bit of voluntary work at Dove Stone in April 2010 which involved digging up Rhododendron ponticum bushes.
Taking out an old fence is simple enough, just remove the wire with special fencing pliers and use brute force and ignorance in removing the fence posts. (Actually removing the larger turning posts requires A LOT of brute force and less of the ignorance!)
The meadow creation was a lot nicer task and was very much in the public eye; the main footpath around Dovestone reservoir is immediately adjacent to where we were working. We had several people asking, ‘what are you doing’, ‘what a nice day it was’, and ‘my isn’t it windy.’ It was nice to chat with them and promote the RSPB a little bit and tell them part of the grand plan for the area. The actual task involved breaking up the ground a bit with mattocks, removing the turf, turning the newly exposed soil, raking, then spreading a wildflower mix before stamping it in with your feet. Gardening basically!
Hopefully this summer there will be a nice wildflower area besides the picnic area where people can enjoy and appreciate the wild spaces around them.
Grass-roots Wildlife 