For the past few weeks the volunteers and I have been constructing artificial rot boxes. This is an innovative technique to encourage dead wood loving insects to breed.
This week the Thursday group did some vegetation management at Severn Trent's Tittesworth Reservoir and built habitat piles for wildlife. Some of the group coppiced some Hazel stakes ready for future hedge laying in the next few weeks.
Skills Builder out in any weather!
Skills Builder is a brand new project funded by the Big Lottery that has started this January. It means that groups, supervised by the rehabilitation service 'fit for work', will be getting lots of practical work done in the Churnet Valley over the next 18 months.
The last two weeks I’ve been working with the volunteers at RSPB Coombes Valley, joining forces with staff and volunteers from the RSPB to do some habitat management.
A couple of weeks ago the volunteers and I joined staff and volunteers from Severn Trent Water to carry out some woodland management on their site at Tittesworth. The work was in aid of three areas of the woodland’s ecology.
The area's a hidden gem, shamefully little known even by folk who live in North Staffs. We based our stroll on the Saltersford Lane Circular Walk promoted by Staffs County Council - but unintended deviation extended the route.
Last week one of our volunteers led us on a bit of a change of tack. The task was to carry out a riverfly survey on a point along the Churnet. These surveys are part of a national scheme to monitor invertibrates within river catchments.
It's officially autumn here at Coombes Valley, we have heard the echoes of bellowing red stags in the bottom of the valley and it's awesome!
So far through these blogs I’ve explored how veteran trees support a massive range of other plants, fungi and animals that couldn’t survive without them. This week I’d like to look at how another animal that often gets overlooked really needs these ancient trees: us humans!
