Festive Fun

As a thank you to all volunteers, a Christmas meal was enjoyed after the tree planting yesterday.

It was great to see so many people who support Foxglove in so many different ways. From chainsawing, bird ringing, tree planting and carrying out research to species monitoring and updating social media and everything inbetween! Everyone who attended has made a significant and positive contribution to the success of the reserve this year.

At the end, a few well earned awards were handed out for a bit of fun. Certificates for excellence in strimming, painting and craftmanship were some examples!

With some anecdotes to back them up!

The food was delicious and there was plenty of Bucks Fizz to wash it down with too although we're not sure that it was evenly distributed around the tables!

After lunch, the group headed back to the Field Centre where Carla gave a fascinating presentation about her analysis of the bird ringing data that has been built up over the past twenty seven years. She did a fantastic job and the results will be extremely useful.

Today was a much quieter day with thick fog and freezing cold winds and only a handful of brave volunteers. Out on the moor staff installed a new strainer post where an old one had rotted. It was Gerry's job to make sure the wooden post was nice and straight!

Ian then used a post knocker to set it into the frozen ground. It would have been an interesting challenge without the help of him and his tractor! Thank you Ian!