Blog

Boar's Well, 22nd Jan 10

Submitted by julia on Mon, 25th Jan 2010, 9:10am
A couple of things to note on a very wet day. There was a sparrowhawk hunting and flew off with a blackbird (we think). We had a look at the patches where we sowed the yellow rattle, Rhinanthus minor, seed in September. We would expect the seeds to germinate in spring, so weren't really sure whether we would see anything. This link has more information about the plant and a photo of the seed leaves.

Boar's Well Wildlife, 1st May

Submitted by julia on Mon, 11th May 2009, 8:03pm
While the sun shone this morning the site was full of activity. Loads of butterflies; orange tip, speckled wood, large white, peacock, small tortoiseshell (national populations were down by 70% last year so all sitings are important). The birds were evident as well with a black cap singing prominently near the middle pylon as well as whitethroat, long tailed tits and others. It wasn't all rosy though; the Japanese Knotweed seems much more vigorous than normal at this time of year. Of course it could be that we don't normally do management work this early in May, or that we have a had an early spring and it is purely bigger but not more vigorous. Here's hoping. But the Giant Hogweed at the UNR is big too - maybe it is something to with the cold winter. We will continue to work hard to control both of these species.

weekend conservation tasks

Submitted by julia on Mon, 29th Sep 2008, 5:32pm
We often get requests for weekend volunteer days, however we seldom get many volunteers out at the weekend. We have perservered with this service, trying to make it a regular weekend with plenty of warning but over the past few months this has not been successful. As you can understand this can result in uncompleted tasks and failure to meet our contracts. We are committed to deliver a service for everybody so would very much welcome your thoughts on this subject. For the time being weekend tasks will be limited.