Busy volunteer day

It's been a very busy volunteer day today. This morning we cleared up a fallen ash tree which had come down over our fence on the top of the woodland walk. Then Raymond, Andrew and Stan took all the pruned birch and gorse from the heathland down to the stone pile and set fire to it.

Meanwhile the Dales School helped out the rest of the volunteers at the little hay meadow behind the scrapes. As you can see from the before picture (above) you could hardly see this little patch because of the tall trees, (mainly Silver birch and Beech with a couple of conifers).

Just look at it now! A beautifully opened up space where the light can get in and the flowers can grow. Richard, Ann, Hilary, Brian, Clive and Fiona all worked so hard to keep up with clearing the growing pile of brash from the felled trees. A new log and habitat pile will disguise the site of the bonfire eventually.

The Silver Birch is steadily encroaching onto the scrapes and over the next few weeks we hope to be taking some of these trees down. This will stop them from seeding into the wetland area which periodically has to be weeded of small birch and gorse seedlings.