Out on the wetland

Roger started the day by visiting Wavell Junior School to help with the handover of full bags of clothes as part of their Bag2School collection and receive a cheque for Foxglove. Thank you to all who donated their old clothes and to Wavell Junior School for making us their chosen charity.

We had a visit from Northallerton Rotary Club who enjoyed a talk about Foxglove and then a guided walk around part of the reserve. Most left with the promise that they will be back - for more time to explore Foxglove further!

Today was one of our practical volunteering days - thank you to all who helped. New grip was installed by the wetland hide, benches were cleaned and oiled and strimming was continued. This was to clear space for our ringers to put up mist nets to catch the redwing feeding on our autumn berries, but the focus of today’s work was on the wetland, with the removal of encroaching scrub…

…and the strimming of rushes and other longer vegetation that Liquorice and Fern (the Dexter cows) hadn’t fancied tucking into.

A pleasant surprise for the Northallerton Rotary Club was that a water vole arrived on the wetland feeding platform for them to see from the hide even with all the activity nearby!

Plenty of common darters were out and about on the wetland too  – often stopping to rest on a gate in the sunshine…

…as well as this smooth newt (shown on the thumb of a glove).

Also out are flowers of the gorse – it never really seems to be out of flower - and as the country saying goes (of which there are many similar versions): ‘When gorse is in bloom, kissing is in season’!