Blue Skies after the Rain

Monday, January 15th 2018

As is so often the case, Monday is a quiet day after a busy Sunday, and where there had been well over 20 visitors yesterday, there were only a couple seen today. Perhaps the weather at the start of the day put people off. The persistent heavy rain for the early part of the morning meant that Risedale Beck was swollen and carrying a lot of sediment so that its normal clear water was an opaque light brown.

The force of the water would probably not account for one discovery, with the clay pad missing from the Mink raft in the Scrapes. This was in the water next to the raft and so it was an easy job to return it to its rightful place. It's likely that somebody's curiosity got the better of them and they had tipped the raft to see what was inside and the clay pad fell out.

The Mink rafts are a good way of seeing if there are any Mink or other predators around, as they will make use of the platform to have a look around. Thankfully, there are rarely signs of Mink as they will hunt the Water Voles.

By late morning even the showers had died down to be replaced by sunshine. The Heathland was being used by one of its regular inhabitants with a male Kestrel using one of the Scots Pine as a vantage point. Another trying its luck in one of the small pools on the Heathland was a Grey Heron, which flew off as it was disturbed.

Apart from checking the Reserve after the weekend, there was also time to work through the trees planted near to the Lake Hide. Some of these have suffered in recent winds and have been blown over. A simple task for the afternoon was to work along the bank containing some of these trees, putting on stakes and ties to support them to grow in an upright position.

This is a quick and simple job to do, but is very important as it will allow the trees to move in the wind without being blown over and so will encourage them to develop a wider spreading root system to anchor themselves in the ground.

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