Cotswold Diary

Scorching days seem to be a feature of the summer now, but there are still lots of jobs to do at the Fromebridge Reserve with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. The species rich grassland contains a couple of fenced of pens with various heritage fruit trees. This means they cannot be grazed and so today’s task was to scythe and remove the nutrient. There’s not any particularly important species in the pen, so the arisings could be disposed of in the adjoining hedgerow rather than spread as green…

My first harvesting of the year with Glorious Grasslands, and we returned to the same place where we had been two years ago to the day. One of the memorable features of the last harvest here was the huge swirl of hawksbeard seed which really irritated the eyes, and marked the point where safety glasses became a standard part of my harvest PPE. However, today the hawksbeard had mostly blown away. There were five of us today and two harvesters. It was pretty full on from the off, especially as a…

The annual summer picnic today with Stroud Valleys Project. We gathered around 2pm in the sensory garden of Stratford Park. Mike had spotted some Japanese Knotweed in another part of the park, so we went off to look at that first. I’ve not seen it before, so good to have an ID now. The leaves look a bit like Hazel.We had tea and cake after a talk from Clare, and then a chance to catch up with people, some of whom I only see once a year at this event. The sun was very warm, and by around half…

The annual summer festival in Dursley today, so I headed down around 11am to check out what was happening. It was a very warm day, so shading cap necessary as I’d be out in the sun pretty much all day. I arrived half way through the set of the Rednock Swing band. I’ve not seen them before and were really excellent. I’ll have to make a note to see one of their concerts next time they play. i took a slow walk up and down Parsonage Street to take a look at the stalls and also catch up with many…

This morning was the annual day trip to the canal and river for Year 4 Leonard Stanley Primary School. This is the third year I’ve helped deliver activities for it. The focus was Geography so we had three activities – natural river formation, man-made river structures and life in the river. Lis helped me this year set up Riverfly sampling as the activity for Life in the River. There were three groups of 10 who rotated around with about 40 minutes each. I started off by asking them what…

The plan this morning was to give a Biology lesson to Year 12 students at Rednock School on Riverfly. We did the same thing last year, so we have a well practised routine which can be delivered within the double period allocated. Before heading into the school, I went down to the site to check the vegetation and access for the students. The usual way in to the site was completely impassable and I had no chance of clearing the path with just a pair of loppers. So I investigated the alternate…

A very useful training day organised by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust on how we can encourage the use of citizen science to create biological records. The training was delivered by Keiron Brown of the Biological Recording Company who also hosts this excellent youtube channel. The classroom part of the day focussed on a lot of the nitty gritty about what a biological record is, and how the data gets verified and then flowed into larger data sets. There were also some useful group exercises to…

A couple of different jobs for the Fromebridge Friday team today with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. The first was not too far from the carpark and it was just trimming some of the overhanging vegetation by the towpath to allow easier access to the reserve. There’s a huge amount of Poison Hemlock growing here, which is fatally toxic to humans if ingested, but great for wildlife. Cutting back towpath vegetation We took no more than about 50cm each side which was a mixture of thistle and…

The annual summer walk today with Glorious Grasslands where we visit a site where we did winter habitat management to see how it looks in full bloom. This year was a beautiful site near Cleeve Hill that we’ve done many times and most recently earlier this year. On first view of the grassland, we knew we’d be in for a treat. Loads of striking Viper’s Blugloss dotted up the steep banks. Everywhere we looked was packed with plants. Just one small bank contained pretty much all the indicator…

The monthly Fromebridge orchard work party this morning with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, and we had a similar job to do with creeping thistle as we’ve done in the main reserve recently. I first went into Pockett’s Orchard in 2021 and it was mostly filled with scrub above head height. Since then, with the management and grazing it has transformed into a grassland, although major pockets of bramble, thistle and dock keep popping up during the height of the growing season. The rest of the…

It was the annual shindig at the Royal Ag for the cotswold wardens, and Glorious Grasslands volunteers are invited along. I picked up Niamh early and we were parked up by 9.30am. We kicked off with some stats and achievements over the last year from the CEO and head warden and then went to the first speaker, Arthur Price. It was obvious from the start that he’s a bit of a force of nature. As well as being a farmer, he’s a significant expert on Cotswold stone and quarring. He gave us a really…

I haven’t been out with Ruth’s Stroud Valleys Project group for ages, and we met up at Dock Lock today for a planting task on the new section of canal near Oldbury Brook. The canal there is dry at the moment while the engineering work is being completed. There are steep clay banks to keep everything watertight, however we need some vegetation at the water level to start re-generating. A whole load of plants were saved from a separate part of the canal a few weeks ago, so the job today was to…

Met up with Graham first thing for our regular monthly riverfly check at the ocean. The weather has suddenly turned – only around 11 degrees and needed coats and fleeces. The flow and depth were fine, and the initial sample bucket looked pretty promising – even seeing a mayfly which we’ve not seen for a few weeks at other sites. There were both a wide number of species as well as good counts for a couple of them. Overall the score was 9 which we were pretty happy with. In the afternoon, I…

So today was the day for the Offbeat Dursley festival to come to town. I got up very early and made sure I was down at the market place well before 8am as we had a lot of people arriving to set up. The weather forecast was decidedly better that this time yesterday, but we still had a strong prevailing wind whipping through the eastern end of the market place from Silver Street. So my role for the first hour was to erect the green and white wind break panels to create a sheltered area for the…

After months of planning, it’s the last day to get everything ready for Offbeat Dursley. I met with Georgie at the Market House to pick up the keys and get the upstairs ready. The weather forecast was looking very dicey for tomorrow, so we needed to make a few contingencies, especially for the choir. I had a few calls with the choir team to see exactly how many would be turning up and what they had in the way of equipment. There was a load of rather unsightly floor cleaning equipment and other…

Normally today would have just been me and Tony doing our regular monthly riverfly check at Ebley Meadows. But three new people had joined our group and wanted to have an introduction to what we do as a group. So, in the end it was a mini taster session. We actually have two official locations in the same stretch, so I took one with Imogen and Tony did the second spot with the others. It looked pretty promising on first bucket glance. Lots of gammarus which have been sadly lacking across all…

Today’s task at Fromebridge with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust was to try and get on top of the thistle before it sets seed this season. There were two main areas – around the pond which needed to be done by hand in case of nesting birds, and then there was the vast tracts on the main scrapes. The rest of the team took on the pond, while I took the brush cutter to start on the main reserve. There are two types – creeping thistle which spreads like wildfire and spear thistle which doesn’t…

A super hot day ahead was forecast with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. The beginning of the week was still fleece and jackets at 10C, whereas today was expected to reach 25C. There were quite a few of us, so I elected not to spend a fourth week on putting up the willow screen. Instead I donned PPE and took the brush cutter up to the oil pipeline to keep the vegetation down. This is a water vole displacement project which has been running a few months. We had already cleared 15m both sides…

I bumped into Martin a couple of weeks ago at Fromebridge, and he suggested we catch up on various things going on. He also wanted some guidance on what do to about his website renewal. So since it’s been a while since I’ve been down at Wild Acres, I suggested we meet this morning down there. It was good to see the progress – some things are the same and other things have moved on. Overall the food production is in good shape and the meadow was looking great, even though he didn’t manage to get…

My third crack with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust at trying to get the willow screen up by the side of the canal at Fromebridge. This time I joined with Andrew and Imogen as we tried to see if the recent rain had softened the ground any more to allow the posts in. It became apparent after a couple of goes that the posts were not going any deeper than 40cm, which was half way what they should be. Repaired stock fence We tried various techniques with the wrecking bar and spade and realised there…

My second outing with the box wood volunteer group to finish off the bridge work we had started a couple of weeks ago. The railway sleepers had bedded in nicely over the intervening weeks and the surfaces leading up to it on each side had compacted with use and weather. The task today was to install chicken wire to make the surface non-slip, and also to dig out some access steps. The width of wire was just slightly shorter than the five planks of bridge, and the main challenge was just to get…

A little later this month, due to last week’s bank holiday, Tony and I met up this morning at Ebley for our regular riverfly count. I was somewhat hopeful the numbers might be good, following the successful morning last Sunday, but you never can tell with this site. The good news was the levels and flow were very low, so we could get to all the usual parts. I took the kick sample while Tony timed, and then he did the stone wash. On very first glance, the bucket didn’t look all that promising…

Went early to the Ocean to meet with Graham for our regular riverfly site monitor. The levels were down quite a bit since last month, and the flow was nowhere near as strong. So we were able to sample in most parts where we normally go. The sample looked immediately promising on tipping the net into the bucket – lots of things swimming about. And within a couple of minutes we already had mayfly, cased and caseless caddis. The two species I struggle with are blue-winged olives and stone clingers…

With the growing season well under way, there isn’t a lot of general maintenance to do at Pockett’s Orchard. At today’s work party with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, we focused exclusively on the young trees to give them some care and maintenance. We planted around 15 younger trees over the last few years and each has a stock proof barrier, a stake and some deer/rabbit guards. The idea today was to get in the middle and take apart any guards and fixings, do some weeding and then see what…

The annual survey season with Glorious Grasslands kicks off today with a training session and refresher on methodology. Although I don’t take part in many surveys, I do the app and data analysis. So today I was on hand to explain how the app works for new users and also get any usability issues before the formal surveys start in earnest. We were in a site I’d not been to before in Little Barrington. It was a really stunning species rich bank and a great spot for training in indicator species. I…

Last November I led a walk for a U3A nature group around Fromebridge. This morning they came down again to see how the reserve looks in spring. It’s always fun showing people around the reserve, and a good opportunity to recall the huge amount of work that took place over the winter. The seeded grassland, laid hedges, displaced water vole habitat and willow screening were just some of the projects to update on. This particular group normally walk in the north cotswolds, so it’s great they make…

A very warm day at Fromebridge with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to continue putting up the willow screens near the reserve entrance. We had already banged in five posts a couple of weeks ago, so we thought it would be straightforward to plonk in the rest and get the screens up. Caroline and I donned helmets, grabbed the tape measure and spirit level and started to bash in the first post. We started the pilot hole with the wrecking bar, but it soon became clear after a few sessions with…

I’ve done a few work parties in Box Wood with the Wildlife Trust, but I didn’t know there was a separate volunteer group as well. Vicky had forwarded me an email about a session to build a bridge, so I signed up to the group and made my way down this morning. The group is very friendly and passionate about keeping the woods maintained for both wildlife and the public. The first job was to get the kit and the materials down to the area where we’d be constructing the bridge. Securing the bridge…

It’s been a fun few months helping with the construction of a part of the new Dursley Escape Room game for when it opens at the Chantry Centre in a week or two. I’ve been working with students at Rednock who designed the puzzles and wrote the initial code, and also with Pete who helped with the hardware design. So today was the day to finally deliver and get it installed. This would be the last time I’d be able to easily plug it into my PC, so I spent a final morning making surely that…

A leisurely day today. I wasn’t due in town until later in the afternoon, so spent the morning watching the snooker and putting in the final software updates for the escape room. At the library after school, I held the regular Dursley Code Club. A good attendance today with 6, and a few trying out python for the first time. In the evening I went down to the annual Dursley Town Assembly held at the Chantry Centre. This is always a good opportunity to catch up with a few people I know around the…